persons before they are found guilty of corrupt or illegal practice. All registration officers are required to keep a list of all persons incapacitated from voting because of having been found guilty of corrupt or illegal practice under the

statute.

The act provides for regular proceedings and the trial in the Central Criminal Court on indictments for corrupt practice at the instance of the Attorney-general; contains special provisions requiring witnesses to answer truly all questions which they are required to answer by the Election Court, and no witness is excused from answering any question relating to any offence at or connected with an election on the ground that the answer would tend to incriminate them, but no such answer can in any proceeding, civil or criminal, be admitted in evidence against the witness, except in case of a criminal proceeding for perjury in respect to such evidence.

The candidate is declared to be any person who is nominated as a candidate at such election, or is declared by himself or by others to be a candidate after the issue of the writ for the election; but if he is nominated by others without his consent,

nothing in the act shall be so construed as to impose upon him any liability as a candidate unless he afterwards gives his assent to the nomination.

Part I. of the first schedule refers to the persons who may be legally employed for payment: 1. One election agent, and no more.

2. One deputy election agent for each polling district, and no more.

3. One polling agent for each polling station, and no more. In a borough (which corresponds to one of our cities) one clerk and one messenger for every 500 electors in the borough.

In applying the principles of the act to this city these figures, of course, would have to be much modified.

The act further prescribes that any paid election agent, sub-agent, polling agent, clerk, or messenger may or may not be an elector, but he may not

vote.

Part II. refers to election expenses in addition to the expenses in Part I., and limits them to

1. Certain sums paid to the returning officer in conformity with the law.

2. Personal expenses of the candidate.

3. Expenses of printing, advertising, publishing, issuing, and distributing addresses and notices. 4. Expenses of stationery, messengers, postage, and telegrams.

5. Expense of holding public meetings.

6. In a borough the expense of committee-room, not to exceed one committee-room for each 500 electors.

7. In the county the expenses of a central committee-room.

Part III. provides that the expenses for miscellaneous matters other than those mentioned in Parts I. and II. shall not, on the whole, amount to a maximum of more than £200.

Part IV. provides a maximum scale of permissible expenditures. In a borough the expenses mentioned in Parts I., II., and III. of the schedule other than personal expenses and sums paid to the returning officer for charges under the law, shall not exceed on the whole a maximum amount, as follows:

If the number of electors on the registry does not exceed 2000, the maximum amount shall be £350.

If it does exceed 2000, £380, and an additional

£30 for every complete 1000 electors in addition to the 2000.

If it is found that a corrupt practice has been committed with the knowledge and consent of the candidate, he is forever disqualified from holding office, and is deprived of his franchise as an elector. If such corrupt practice is found to have occurred by the act of the agent with or without the candidate's knowledge and consent, the candidate himself is disqualified from serving during the time for which he was elected, and can neither hold office nor act as an elector for seven years. Similar penalties are imposed on agents and subagents found guilty. These penalties are all in addition to penalties of fines and imprisonment after conviction on an indictment of bribery, undue influence, treating, illegal payments, or other corrupt practices.

This system has finally so eliminated the opportunities and the possibilities of fraud and corruption in the use of money as practically to have put an end to them, if it be considered what they have been any time the last hundred years. *

* See Appendix IV.

The application of some such a system to our own elections in combination with a system providing for the printing and distribution of tickets at the public expense (and our present election laws could be readily amended in such a manner as to avail of all of the best suggestions of the English system without complicating the elections, and without running counter to any honest public sentiment) would remove every one of the foundation stones that lie at the base of our present organized political machinery. It might be impracticable to adopt these laws as applicable to municipal elections alone, without changing the time of the election, in view of the fact that municipal elections now take place simultaneously with state or national elections. Either the law would have to be adopted for all elections whatever throughout the State, or else the municipal elections would have to take place at some time other than that provided for state and national elections. The opinion has long prevailed among the most thoughtful men in our great cities that the charter election should take place in the spring. The answer to this, so far as any answer has been possible, has invariably been that the charter election, as a rule,