London Free Press

One hundred and twenty years ago this week, there was a whole lot of gloating going on in London.

The gloating — on the part of the old London Advertiser newspaper — followed the voting in the London riding for the March 5, 1891 federal election.

Unabashedly Liberal, the ’Tiser exulted in the 183-vote victory of London manufacturer Charles Smith Hyman over John Carling, the Conservative agriculture minister.

“For over 30 years, the city of London has been dominated by the influence of Mr. Carling and it is unnecessary to say not always to the advantage of the taxpayers,” The Advertiser editorialized the day after Hyman’s triumph.

Unnecessary? Hardly. The Advertiser had so much to say, nothing seemed less than vital.

After all, 7,000 Liberals, many armed with tin horns, trumpets and kazoos, had marched through downtown London to celebrate the results with a “hurricane of cheers.” Carling had beaten Hyman by just 39 votes in 1887. That seemed to only make March 5 and its aftermath all the sweeter, when it came to tooting a kazoo.

“It is wonderful the noise that a small man and a smaller kazoo can make when connected,” the paper said in its March 6, 1891 editions.

The crowd rushed to Hyman, who was not a small man, and hoisted him “like a feather weight” to the platform at the Grand Opera House.

Hyman said many pleasant things to celebrate his victory. He did make sure he thanked the newspaper that had backed him so solidly.

“The Liberal party of this country have also to thank The Advertiser (cheers) for the magnificent way it has conducted this campaign,” Hyman said.

During the campaign, the newspaper had dogged Carling, a brewer before entering politics, for his opposition to prohibition in parliamentary votes.

Carling’s supporter, The Free Press, had fought back with “cock-and-bull stories” about corruption, in The Advertiser’s view.

The Advertiser seemed to take it personally that Carling had not retired after the 1887 vote, which was clearly a hint, it said, the voters had tired of him.

The paper was happy to see Carling defeated. It also gloated at the defeat of the Conservative finance minister — “a thorough-going charlatan.”

One would hardly know in all this that Macdonald’s Conservatives had won the 1891 election, defeating Laurier’s Liberals.

Given the number of times the paper worked “gerrymander” into its reports of Liberal defeats elsewhere, you might have guessed that, however.

Still, the joy at Hyman’s victory made all else seem small and unimportant.

“London has honoured herself by sending to Parliament Charles S. Hyman, M.P.,” the paper exulted.

For all its joy, The Advertiser could not have foreseen the twists to come in their man’s career. Byelections. Defeats. Eventual victory. A return to Ottawa, where he became Laurier’s minister of public works.

Hyman resigned from cabinet in July, 1907. The sanitized version has him leaving the cabinet at age 52 because of ill health.

London lore has it that Hyman had been found in a comprising position — and not a political one — with a married woman at his mansion, Idlewyld. “There definitely was a scandal,” is the way it’s summed up now. Laurier was told of the affair and insisted Hyman quit immediately.

A more lurid version of the scandal story has the cuckolded husband, a prominent London doctor, seeking revenge on Hyman. Using surgical skill, the doctor was said to have made certain Hyman’s indiscretion with the doctor’s wife would be difficult to repeat.

Happily, Londoners who made a discreet inspection of Hyman — a fine athlete — as he showered at a club were able to debunk that tale.

Somehow, I don’t think The Advertiser ever reported anything but the official version.

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