-99- election day.

On a memorable occasion, the Tory candidate, who had in some way. }incurred an unusual degree of crowd hostility, was hooted off the platform. His supporters furiously demanded that the chairman maintain order and permit him to speak.Charges,- counter-charges,.and insults were hurled, and & number of fights broke out. As I heard the story -- this took place long before my time -- the Tories finally gave up the strugglé and, with my grandfather, Michael Devereux, in the lead, marched out of the hall. Just inside the door stood a red-hot potbelly stove, connected to the chimney by a stovepipe that ran the length of the room. Reaching overhead with his cane, Grandfather hooked the stovepipe and brought it crashing to the floor. To complete the debacle, the rear guerd of the retreating Tories kicked over the stove and scattered live coals in every direction. The meeting was adjourned.

Not all rallies were quite so violent as this, but all were productive, of mych more heat than light. While it is doubtful that a single voter ever had his convictions altered by the oratory, those occasions were an indispensibls part of every election campaign. They afforded the local party stalwarts an opportunity to express themselves in Speech and action, and to. hear the opposition denounced in appropriately scathing fashion.

Editorial comment in the daily press was slightly more restrained, but adsfinitely caustic. The Patriot represented the official Liberal view; the Exeminer did battle for the Conservative cause. The Guardian, as I recall, w43 not so positively partisan as its sister journals, but its lemmings were undeniably toward the Tories. All three papers had a "Letters To The Editor" section which, ‘at election time, was devoted exclusively to comment — from the voters -- most of it decidedly sulphurous. The records, the deeds and the misdeeds of each party -- not on}ty of the immediate past, but also

of years long gone -- were reviewed and dissected. No punches were pulled;

spades were referred to as Spades, Depending on the viewpoint of the writer,