also, when two judges of election are to be elected, no one is allowed to vote for more than one, and the same rule is applied in the choice of supervisors, jury commissioners, etc.

Among the objections that have been urged with much force against this plan, as a general substitute for our present system, are that it aims to give the minority a fixed, and hence necessarily more or less disproportionate, number of representatives; and that it allows even this object to be lost from the ease with which close party combinations may either on the one hand give the majority all the candidates, or on the other secure the minority of voters a majority of representatives.

Another English scheme, the Cumulative Vote, has laid especial claim to popular favor, being said to give unrestricted play to the preferences of voters, and it has been heralded abroad from the Senate Chamber at Washington as the "free ballot" par excellence.

It is in this system that "plumpers" are enthroned; each voter having the right to cast as many votes as there are collegial officers to be voted for; these votes he may divide as he pleases, or he may "cumulate" them all upon one favored candidate.

This plan has been honored before all others by practical adoption. Its first actual trial is said to have taken place in 1856, in an English colony in the islands of Honduras bay. What effect it produced on these remote colonists we do not hear, but great fame has, as we shall see, attended this scheme elsewhere in our hemisphere. An amendment to the English reform act of 1867 was moved by Mr. Lowe, present Chancellor of the Exchequer, introducing the Cumulative Vote in certain parliamentary districts, and although it did not pass, it received the compliment of 178 votes. In the New York Constitutional Convention, the introduction of this plan was ineffectually urged by Mr. Greeley. Subsequently, in 1869, on the motion of Senator Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, an important movement was made in the Senate to substitute the Cumulative Vote in the election of Congressmen, taking each State as one district, for the present Single District system. A select committee, composed of Senators Buckalew, Anthony, Ferry, Morton, Warner, Rice and Wade, made a report on the subject, and a bill was reported March 2, 1869, by Senator Wade. Under this plan voters in Cincinnati might cast plumpers of twenty votes each for a candidate living in Cleveland. The Senate re

port declares this change to be a "withdrawal of inconvenient and odious restraint, and as enabling the citizen to exercise his right of suffrage according to his own judgment and discretion, and without compulsion of law." The bill went no further in the Senate. Mr. Buckalew has, however, caused the adoption of the Cumulative Vote in Bloomsburg, and in other towns of Pennsylvania. The greatest glory of this scheme, however, was its adoption in Illinois by the convention, and its ratification by the people of the State. In the report of the Committee on Electoral and Representative Reform (Mr. Medill, chairman,), "three-cornered" districts were recommended in the choice of State Representatives, and in these the Cumulative or "unrestricted" vote was adopted, with an important modification, which I suppose to be original, allowing one and a half votes to be cast for one, and one and a half for another candidate; the present method of voting was stigmatized as a "willful inhibition of the rights of the voter." How far the Illinois committee was influenced by the Senate committee we do not learn-(the bill was passed without debate, on the previous question). It is much to be regretted that the discussions of the matter in committee, if any such there were, have not been published. Gentlemen so familiar with the machinery of our elections as the distinguished members of these committees, could certainly, if any one can, show how it is possible that the Cumulative Vote, as a general substitute, can afford a remedy for the evils of the present system.

As for this theory of the voter's "right" to divide votes among candidates as he pleases, it is of course not worth arguing against. The result is the test. The objection that first occurs is, that the more popular the candidate the less chance is there of proportional representation. The people's favorite will get plumpers in profusion, many votes will be wasted, and so a large plurality-may elect no more officers than a minority. Oddly enough, at the only trial of the scheme of which I have heard, such was the fact: In the School Board elections in London, in 1870, there were seven to elect, and 25,000 voters; 11,600 voters gave Miss Garrett 47,800 votes. The Catholic candidate, supported by a resolute minority of 1,857, received 9,000 votes, and was elected. 47,800 votes received, then, no more representation than 9,000 votes received. The result hardly needs comment. In districts elect

ing three, the special dangers of this, but at the same time also the advantages of any, system are reduced to the minimum. The larger the district the more dangerous the peculiarities of this system. Were it tried on such a scale as that of Congressional elections in Ohio, anything like fairness or proportionality would at first be impossible.

Tending, as it plainly must, if unrestrained, to make representation fluctuating and disproportionate, it would eventually compel the tightening of the already oppressive bands of party discipline. In general the scale which, under the present district system, turns now to majority, and now to minority, would be permanently weighed down in favor of the minority.

In France a scheme has been suggested by M. Emile de Girardin, the French economist. He proposed to allow no one to vote for more than one candidate. Here we should see permanently established in power the great evil of the Cumulative Vote; the popularity of one or more of the majority's candidates may enable the minority of electors to elect the majority of candidates. A French writer, M. Herold, proposes as representatives of the minority a fixed number of candidates at large, to be elected to the Assembly by the whole nation. Each man votes for his district candidate, and a candidate at large. Aside from the difficulty of comparing votes, it is probable that well organized majorities would, under this plan, simply elect their candidates at large, in addition to their district candidates.

A plan remotely resembling this was suggested for consideration in the Illinois Constitutional Convention by Mr. Benjamin. A majority shall be necessary to elect in the single districts: any candidate receiving less than a majority, and more than onefifth of the votes cast, may transfer his votes to an unelected candidate of some other district, and thus secure the latter's election. The practical difficulty of such a course would be obviously immense, and while some good men would undoubtedly be elected, it is not clear that proportional representation would be attained.

The Hare Scheme of Personal Representation has perhaps attracted more general attention than any plan hitherto proposed. Mr. Thomas Hare, a barrister of London, is its author, and his work on Personal Representation, of which various editions

have appeared, has contributed greatly to the interest in electoral reform.

Mr. Hare first developed his plan in a book on the Machinery of Representation in 1857, but has modified it from time to time to meet objections that were urged against it. His system

starts with a principle somewhat similar to that of M. de Girardin, that each vote shall count but for one candidate. This is the "actual vote." There is, however, a list of names appended to this "actual" vote, and with the help of these "contingent" votes Mr. Hare promises that each voter shall assist in electing one representative. Each ballot contains a list of names in the order of preference. The first name receives the "actual" vote; all subsequent are "contingent," and become "actual" only when the names of those preceding them have been in turn elected. In plainer phrase, to vote on the Hare plan is to say: “A is my first choice; but if, when the judges count the votes, A gets the quota (viz., number of votes cast divided by number to elect) before they come to my ballot, then they must count my ballot for B. But if they have counted up a quota for B before coming upon my ballot, then it must count for C." Evidently it depends on the order in which the judges of election count the tickets whether one or another is elected. "A thousand men of my thinking vote B second choice; another thousand vote, as we do, for A first, but want M as second choice. If the judges of election count our ballots first, and lay them aside because the quota of 1,000 has elected its man (A) and then come to the other thousand, they I count a thousand actual votes for the second name, because the first name (A) is already elected, and so they elect M. Had they counted our vote last instead of first, B would have been elected instead of M." This process goes on until, if the number of candidates is very large, a process of "elimination" is begun, and those who have the smallest "actual" vote are dropped, and their ballots are re-distributed to the next names on the list in the order of preference. This goes on until a sufficient number have obtained the quota, and so the offices are filled.

This system of Personal Representation appeared strange to say at about the same time in England and Denmark, as independent discoveries undoubtedly, but in the latter kingdom the system of M. Androe, Minister of Finance, and a statesman of wide reputa

tion, was put in practice on a grand scale. It has been tried in this country in various private corporations, as, for example, in the choice of overseers of Harvard University, in 1871, by the alumni of that institution, in which signed ballots were sent by them from different parts of the country by mail, and it was used also in selecting officers of the New England Society of Orange, N. J. The system appears to adapt itself particularly to elections in bodies where the "men" are the chief thing, and not "measures," and where party spirit has little field. From all I have been with scanty materials able to gather, the elections in which this system has been tested in Denmark resemble rather the instances given above than the fierce contests of our great national parties. The constitution of that kingdom seems to have created a class of offices which recall that of the Decurions or Senators in Italian cities. Under the later Christian emperors this honor was so little sought that Jews, heretics and slaves were pressed into the service of the State. Of the eighty members of the Danish Rigsraad, thirty were elected by the people, and they meet but seldom and exert little or no influence. M. Androe was obliged to provide for the case of an elected candidate refusing to serve, and "even a declaration of candidature," says Mr. Hare, was distasteful." In Germany also, Mr. Hare's scheme has attracted much support, being advocated among others by the famous SouthGerman publicist, the late Robert von Mohl. Some years since it was, also, the subject of much discussion in the then free city of Frankfort, and in a report of the Committee on Amendment of the Constitution, of which Dr. Passavant was chairman, a peculiar modification of the Hare scheme was proposed. There were 84 to elect; there were to be two separate elections; at the first, 84 names were to be on the tickets, and to each ballot three "actual" votes were given instead of Mr. Hare's single one. After redistributing the extra ballots of those who received more than the quota of "actual" votes on the early counts, those receiving the quota are elected. This election is now at an end, and the remainder of offices are to be filled at a second election, conducted in the regular way. The result of the agitation in Frankfort offers a curious confirmation of what has been said of opinion with regard to the District System as compared with the General Ticket, and of the merits of the former as an ad

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