ABSTRACT
Within the next few days the election campaign was in full swing in Matter-lock, an ancient borough in Shropshire. The borough was probably unique in England. Matterlock, itself, was a small market town in a sparsely populated agricultural district, but the ancient borough of the Franchise of Matterlock, in area the biggest borough in England, included within its limits various other towns, large iron, brick, and tile works, and in consequence a large artisan population. The manufacturing corner of the borough was densely populated, and intensely Radical, and far outweighed the Conservative interest in the more extensive agricultural area. At the opening of the campaign, the prospects, and the betting, promised a repetition of the large Radical majority by which the late member was returned.
