BEWDLEY, RIBBESFOBD, AND WRIBBENHALL. 37

neglected borough. The Severn Valley line was opened to this

place on the llth May, 1861; but as this line has absorbed much of the Severn traffic, the trade of the town is worse than before. Indeed, Bewdley can scarcely be said to have any teade of much importance, and were it not for Kidderminster and Stourport employing a great number of hands, who walk morning and night to and from those places, a considerable part of the population of Bewdley would have to emigrate or starve.

Before the Reform Bill, Bewdley was a close borough, with only thirty or forty burgesses, who returned their member quietly enough. It is now joined to Stourport and Wribbenhall in one united Parliamentary borough. Bewdley may undoubtedly be claimed by the Conservative party, but the marriage with Stourport has brought about "a balance of power," and Sir Thomas Winnington has so long represented the borough without opposition that party spirit now seems all but extinct. Still at one period it raged here as fiercely as in any other her Majesty's dominions, and I myself have been a of some of the scenes enacted here during the Monteith and other elections. The Winnington influence was opposed by that of Monteith in 1841, but unsuccessfully; again in 1847 by Mr. Ireland, whose return was petitioned against, and a fresh election took place in 1848, when Viscount Mandeville was returned.

In municipal matters the antecedents of the town were of a character with its political relations. The Corporation was of course self-elected, and when the parliamentary candidate conciliated this body with a douceur sufficiently "complimentary" there never was any opposition to him. These "compliments" were said to have been devoted to public purposes, but malicious whisperers declared that a large portion found its way into the fund for the bailiffs feast. In November, 1833, the Government commissioner arrived here to inquire into the municipal question, and speedily the ancient system of things vanished away; but what is strange