Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/279

Rh pairing committee were making the necessary inquiries, I was so fortunate as to secure the promise of his vote for my own candidate at the succeeding election. In the meantime the pairing committee had kindly taken measures to save him from missing his cricket-match without, however, wasting a pair.

Yet notwithstanding all my efforts to introduce primitive virtue into electioneering, I did not always succeed. About a dozen years had elapsed after one of the elections I had managed, when the subject was mentioned at a large dinner-table. A supporter of the adverse political party, referring to the contest, stated as a merit in his friends that they had succeeded in outwitting their opponents, for on one occasion they had got a man on their side who had unluckily just broken his arm, whom they succeeded in pairing off against a sound man of their adversaries. Remembering my able coadjutors in that contest, I had little doubt that a good explanation existed; so the next time I met one of them I mentioned the circumstance. He at once admitted the fact, and said, "We knew perfectly well that the man's arm was broken; but our man, whom we paired off against him, had no vote." He then added, "We were afraid to tell you of our success." To which I replied, "You acted with great discretion."

University elections are of quite a different class from all others. The nature of the influences to be brought to bear upon the voters is of a peculiar kind: the clerical element is large, and they are for the greater part expectant of something better hereafter.

The first thing to be done in any election contest is to get as exact a list as possible of the names and addresses of the voters. In a university contest the chairman should adopt