Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/234

 attachments and legitimate influences arising from family, traditional, territorial, or other causes. It will give to every landed proprietor the opportunity of connecting himself, or preserving his relation politically with the district in which his estates are chiefly situated, by enabling him to select a constituency embracing that portion of the country. There is no sound reason for any jealousy of such natural connections,—on the contrary, they are capable of being made the sources of some of the most inestimable of social benefits,—and which more than compensate for their occasional abuse,—an abuse which, there is reason to hope, will be constantly less and less frequent, and will cease altogether as interest and duty become obviously in harmony, and every proprietor feels that his influence depends upon the existence of an attached, a populous, and an instructed neighbourhood.

The voting papers liberated from the claim of one candidate, as his quota is completed, become votes for the next candidate who is mentioned upon them, and, being appropriated to him, will go to make up his quota. The same process of completion and cancellation will go on, according to the rules which have been stated,—hour by hour, with great rapidity, until the time comes when the remaining voting papers,—still taking only the names of the candidates which from time to time are thus made to stand first in every paper,—do not furnish enough to make up the quota for any remaining candidate. The process has been simply that of sorting the voting papers and arranging them under the several names which appear uncancelled at the head of every paper; and as each new quota has been completed and set apart, and a member thereupon returned, the name of such member has been cancelled on all other voting papers except those which are thus set apart.

At this stage of the election,—as a quota is no longer found for any candidate, and as no voting paper can be appropriated to any name standing below the first, so long as