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Hustings   /hˈəstɪŋz/   Listen
Hustings

noun
1.
The activities involved in political campaigning (especially speech making).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hustings" Quotes from Famous Books



... habits have become interwoven with its existence in their midst, and who, no matter how falsely, as those may think who look upon it from a comparatively disinterested standpoint, conceive that it lies at the base of their social prosperity and happiness; who have been accustomed from forum, hustings, pulpit, and press, to hear an institution that appeals to so many selfish instincts and principles in the human heart, lauded and defended, and made to be the Ultima Thule of Southern hope, pride, and ambition; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and inconvenience of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by falsehood and apostasy. I remember hearing the Catholics accused from the Hustings of disregarding oaths, and within an hour of that time I saw five Catholic voters rejected, because they would not take the oath of Supremacy; and these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen. The accusation was received with loud ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... presented himself, in June 1841, as one of the Conservative candidates for the borough of Newark. He was elected, and so was the other Tory candidate, a man already distinguished, and at present known to the entire world as Mr. W.E. Gladstone. On the hustings, Lord John Manners was a good deal heckled, and in particular he was teased excessively about a certain couplet in England's Trust. I am not going to repeat that couplet here, for after nearly half a century the Duke ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... "stump orations" were delivered on the occasion, for the enlightenment of the electors; and towards the close of the proceedings, by way of an appropriate finale, the aforesaid triune-citizen and another gentleman, had a gouging scrape on the hustings. The major in this contest proved himself to be a true Kentuckian; that is, half a horse, and half an alligator; which contributed not a little to ensure his return. After the election, I was conversing with one of the most violent opponents of the successful candidate, and remarked ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... distress. 'Yet as "Jesus wept" for the death of Lazarus, I hope my tears at this time are excused. The woeful circumstance of such a state of mind is that it rejects consolation; it feels an indulgence in its own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... officer, with accommodation for counsel, witnesses, and jury, was erected in the open air; and the scene may perhaps best be pictured by imagining the principal square in some large town fitted up with open hustings on a large scale for an old-fashioned county election, by no means omitting the intense popular excitement and mob violence appropriate to such occasions. Temples of the gods and other public buildings ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... by it, I am sure. Four thousand pounds are in Mr Pilson's hands, and I shall never inquire what becomes of them; they may, very probably, be absorbed in the law expenses, you know. I shall let it be clearly understood from the hustings, that I most decidedly disapprove of bribery, and leave the rest to Hickson's management. He is accustomed to these sort ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... conceived that he, as a military man, might assist ministers in their dilemma by offering himself as a member for Middlesex. To this end he vacated his seat for Bossiney, and the house ordered the sheriffs to be in attendance with a large number of extra constables round the hustings at Brentford, for the preservation of peace. Encouraged by this care, and by the colonel's boldness, two other candidates appeared at the hustings, to solicit the suffrages of the people. But all the care of the government, and all the exertions of the candidates were vain. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... on by the burning question of the day, namely Union and Tariff vs. Free Port. The mainland represented Tariff and the island Free Port. Should we join with the mainland with a tariff or remain Free Port? The hustings was erected in the fort, and the pros and cons were discussed by the rival candidates. I took part, although too young to vote, and worked day and night for my friend Amor De Cosmos, who was in favor of union and tariff, and ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... heard, was crowded in the extreme. A sailor, anxious to acquire a view of the scene of action, after all his exertion to push his way through the crowd had proved fruitless, resorted to the nautical expedient of climbing one of the poles which supported a booth directly in front of the hustings, from the very top of which Jack was enabled to contemplate all that occurred below. As the orator commenced his speech, his eye fell on the elevated mariner, whom he had no sooner observed than he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... advance, as we have seen, by strides which only genius can make, from great obscurity to great distinction; his advance from a condition of universal failure to one of success so universal that his career may be said to have become within that brief period solidly established. At the bar, upon the hustings, in the legislature, as a master of policies, as a leader of men, he had already proved himself to be, of his kind, without a peer in all the colony of Virginia,—a colony which was then the prolific mother of great ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... comparisons between the manners of the two cities. We quote for example:—"In Boston, there are no persons allowed to vote at the elections of President or Governor of that province but native born yankees; while at New-York, emigrants are forced from the ships in which they arrive directly to the hustings, which are kept open the first two weeks of every month at Mason's lodge, Broadway, where they are allowed to jostle off the sidewalks the most respectable inhabitants. If they are reproved for such conduct, the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... are found now? The great danger, as it appears to me, of representative government is lest it should slide down from representative government to delegate government. In my opinion, the welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what takes place at the hustings. If, in the majority of instances, there were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be alike debased; upright public men could not be expected to arise from such beginnings; and thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some other ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... by thousands from neighbouring towns, seem to have carried no arms but sticks, and to have conducted themselves peaceably when they arrived at St. Peter's Fields, where Orator Hunt, puffed up with silly vanity, was voted into the chair on a hustings. Unfortunately, instead of attempting to prevent the meeting, the county magistrates decided to let the great masses of people assemble, and then to arrest the leaders in the midst of them. They had at their disposal ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... gathered from consideration of the fact that humour has gone out with cruelty? A hundred years ago, eighty years ago—nay, fifty years ago—we were a cruel but also a humorous people. We had bull-baitings, and badger- drawings, and hustings, and prize-fights, and cock-fights; we went to see men hanged; the pillory and the stocks were no empty "terrors unto evil-doers," for there was commonly a malefactor occupying each of these institutions. With all this we had a broad-blown comic sense. We had Hogarth, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... well-known words of Lord Chatham that it was a fault he would remedy every day, while a still more brilliant rejoinder to the attacks of his opponent gained him many votes. Mr Lascelles, determined to make a coup, on the Nomination day stepped across the hustings, and referring contemptuously to the age and short stature of his rival, offered him a whip and a top. Lord Milton took both with unruffled composure, and throwing the top into the crowd, he handed the whip back to his adversary with the remark that he thought Mr Lascelles' father might ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... purely intellectual value of lectures; though I venture to doubt if more than one in ten of an average audience carries away an accurate notion of what the speaker has been driving at; yet is that not equally true of the oratory of the hustings, of the House of Commons, and even ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... by flunky blustering and brazen lying, superadded to mere brute force, could be no creed for young Sterling and his friends. In all things he and they were liberals, and, as was natural at this stage, democrats; contemplating root-and-branch innovation by aid of the hustings and ballot-box. Hustings and ballot-box had speedily to vanish out of Sterling's thoughts: but the character of root-and-branch innovator, essentially of "Radical Reformer," was indelible with him, and under all forms could be traced as his ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... legislator. She was a fitting daughter of the land of the Southern Sun, whose sons were among the first to admit their sisters to equal citizenship with themselves, and she brilliantly proved her fitness for her right by her wonderful ability on the hustings, which had been free from any vocal shortcoming and unacquainted with hesitation in replying to the knottiest question ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... plenipotentiary as he was, went in for nonsense, and he, I am sure, will not soon forget how undignified we all were, and what screams of laughter went up from his own uncontrollable throat. Among other tomfooleries, we had an imitation of scenes at an English hustings, Dickens bringing on his candidate (his friend D——), and I opposing him with mine (the ex-minister). Of course there was nothing spoken in the speeches worth remembering, but it was Dickens's manner that carried off the whole thing. D—— necessarily now wears his hair so widely parted ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... population of the island. There was no other meaning in all these political combinations and changes, recurring periodically, and heralded forth by the voice of the press and the thunder of the hustings. Politics in Ireland was nothing else than the expression given to the despotism of an insignificant minority over almost the entire body of the people. For, despite all their repressive measures, the enemies ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... British navy, achieved renown—I would say immortal, were I not afraid that most people have forgotten—by bringing his frigate home from Labrador to England after losing her rudder. It is said that he subsequently ran for Parliament, and when on the hustings some doubter asked about his political record, he answered, "I am Captain Rous who brought the Pique across the Atlantic without a rudder." Of course the reply was lustily cheered, and deservedly; for in such seas, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... poll on that occasion, but my committee proving that he bribed, he lost his seat. I came in. It was said that I bribed too; but to discuss that now would be out of place. I feel sure that Smith must have written number three. In fact he said those very words concerning me on the hustings." ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... embarrassed the giver without satisfying the recipients. The provinces without land revenue looked with hungry eyes at those which had it. There was quarrelling, too, within each little provincial circle. The elective superintendents were wont to make large promises and shadow forth policies at the hustings. Then when elected they often found these views by no means in accord with those of their council and their executive. Yet, but for one great blunder, the provinces should and probably would ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... subject of earnest agitation among the men who supported him in and out of the legislature. Indeed when he presented himself for the last time before his constituents in 1857, he was emphatically attacked on the hustings as an opponent of the secularization of the reserves for refusing to give a distinct pledge as to the course he would take on the question. This fact, taken in connection with his previous utterances in the legislature, certainly gives force to the opinion which has been more ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... will have to quit it, I believe. But to you, my indigent friends, the time for quitting it has palpably arrived! To talk of glorious self-government, of suffrages and hustings, and the fight of freedom and such like, is a vain thing in your case. By all human definitions and conceptions of the said fight of freedom, you for your part have lost it, and can fight no more. Glorious self-government is a glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... candidate and four of his supporters for intimidation of voters. The ruffians roared at me like so many bulls of Bashan, and shook their fists at me, whereupon I bowed profoundly; and, finding it impossible to obtain a hearing, I turned to the opposite candidate and his immediate supporters on the hustings and spoke to them. When we concluded, the uproar was fearful. I was warned to escape as I could, which I did, amid groans and hisses, but no violence. The next morning we started polling. I had the honour of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley

... benevolent, but their nature has been changed, and I regret to say that in a large measure the priests are responsible for the change. Where once mutual help and perfect honesty reigned, you now find selfishness and mutual distrust. The priests have made the altar a hustings, and even worse than electioneering has been done on that sacred spot. From the altar have been denounced old friends and neighbours who had dared to have an opinion of their own, had dared to show an independent ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)



Words linked to "Hustings" :   candidature, plural form, political campaign, candidacy, electioneering, campaigning, plural



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