room in rapid but irregular succession, as if they were jerked forward
by a hurried and inefficient machine. About half of them were women with
broken straw hats, pallid faces, and untidy hair. All were dazed and
bewildered, having been snatched away in carriages or motors from the
making of match-boxes, or button-holes, or cheap furniture, or from the
public-house, or, since it was Saturday evening, from bed. Most of them
seemed to be trying in the unfamiliar surroundings to be sure of the
name for which, as they had been reminded at the door, they were to
vote. A few were drunk, and one man, who was apparently a supporter of
my own, clung to my neck while he tried to tell me of some vaguely
tremendous fact which just eluded his power of speech. I was very
anxious to win, and inclined to think that I had won, but my chief
feeling was an intense conviction that this could not be accepted as
even a decently satisfactory method of creating a Government for a city
of five million inhabitants, and that nothing short of a conscious and
resolute facing of the whole problem of the formation of political
opinion would enable us to improve it." The political "boss" has no such
qualms; victory may turn upon the votes recorded at this final rally,
and every effort must be made to ensure that the party's poll exceeds
that of the enemy. Mr. Wallas does not propose any remedy; he merely
suggests that something must be done to abolish the more sordid details
of English electioneering. Why not go to the root of the evil and amend
the electoral system which places so great a premium upon the success of
such practices? It is indeed evident that this cannot be accepted as "a
decently satisfactory method of creating a Government." But we are not
compelled to continue the use of such a method. What possible
justification is there for making the representation of all the other
electors of a constituency depend upon the result of a final rally?

_Bribery and "nursing"_