Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/115

 mental law, the proportion of every state in the House of Representatives, and had not made that proportion to vary with the relative population of the several states, without the necessity of recurring from time to time to the federal legislature, it would have left the constitution open to internal contests, dangerous to the Union. The number of members in the House of Representatives was fixed at one for every 228th part of the population, to be determined at the census which is taken every ten years, a fractional number in any state exceeding one-half of the quotient entitling that state to an additional member. The federal law of the 5th June, 1842 (c. 47), requires the division for electoral purposes of every state into so many parcels of contiguous territory as shall be equal to the number of representatives. This method of distribution is the temptation of the party which happens to be in power to form the districts in the manner which shall be most useful in consolidating their votes and diminishing the electoral power of the opposite party. In the United States this has become an art, and is known as "gerrymandering." The name is peculiar to America, but the contrivance itself is a familiar one in France, and it is not unknown in England. In this country, indeed, the inequalities of representative distribution surpass the art of the "gerrymander". Statistics collected by late writers and speakers are absolutely startling in what they reveal. Mrs. Fawcett remarks that "at the general election of 1868 ten successful candidates polled 159,650 votes; ten other successful candidates were returned by 1873 votes; and ten unsuccessful candidates polled 83,217 votes." Mr. Blennerhasset observes that "there are eight constituencies, viz. Portarlington, Dungarvan, Mallow, Downpatrick, Ennis-