The characters of the scandal novels were still princes and courtiers, but their exploits were more licentious than the lowest pothouse amours of picaros and their doxies.

Stand back, ye rascals, or I will score your pates till they have as many marks upon them as a pothouse door!

A little group of pothouse politicians, wire-pullers, busybodies, local journalists, and small lawyers, working for various monetary interests, have "captured" the local Conservative organization.

From the wire-pullers of the Fabian Society and from the party organizers of both Liberal and Tory party alike, and from the knowing cards, the pothouse shepherds, and jobbing lawyers who "work" the constituencies, comes the chief opposition to this straightening out of our electoral system so urgently necessary and so long overdue.