"Faggot vote" Definition

Definitions for the word "Faggot vote" from multiple English dictionaries.

1. slang
a phrase which belongs to the slang of politics, and which was applied to a class of votes, by no means extinct even now, though not so common as in the days preceding the first Reform Bill, when constituencies were smaller, and individual votes were consequently more valuable. FAGGOT VOTES were thus created:—A large landowner who was blessed with, say, seven sons and seven brothers, and had also on his estate fourteen labourers’ cottages worth about a shilling a week each, would go through the form of sale of one cottage to each son and each brother, it being perfectly understood that the title-deeds would be returned when the occasion for their use was at an end. And thus the squire would command fifteen votes instead of one. In a famous election for the West Riding of Yorkshire during the third decade of the present century, which cost upwards of half a million sterling, and ruined the successful candidate, it was said that six hundred FAGGOT VOTES were created by three noble lords. The origin of the term has been variously explained. One ingenious writer has suggested that as a FAGGOT may be split into a bundle of sticks, so was one estate thus split into a bundle of votes. It is, however, more reasonable to suppose that it was derived from the old word “FAGGOT,” which was used to describe a “nominal soldier,” one, that is, whose name appeared on the muster-roll, and for whom the colonel drew pay, but who was never to be found in the ranks. The connexion is evident enough.
Source: The Slang Dictionary, 1864

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