But these arrangements have only existed a few years. They put an end to the formidable and legendary abuses of English elections. They were also effectual in reducing the candidate’s expenses to an enormous extent. An election amongst our neighbours is now far less onerous than with us. When the last elections took place in France, the conservatives spent about one franc upon every registered voter, and in many departments the republicans far exceeded this amount, thanks to the enormous sums placed at their disposal by the Government, sums probably raised from the Tonquin grants. In England the authorised expenses amount, according to the figures which have been given to me, to fifty or sixty centimes (5_d._ or 6_d._) per voter. Now the electors are less numerous than with us, for universal suffrage does not yet exist, and it appears that these expenses are very little exceeded. I had the good luck to find Mr. O’Brien in his office with another member of Parliament, who had also been elected without opposition. Mr. William O’Brien was born at Mallow, in 1852. His career has been very eventful. After leaving the small college of Cloyne, where he had completed his studies, he threw himself headlong into Fenianism, whilst his brother, with a Captain Mackay, won a great reputation in the south of Ireland by the audacity they displayed in attacking several police stations, with the object of procuring arms for the insurgents. At last they were arrested. This Mr. O’Brien died in prison of a chest complaint, his death being hastened, so they say, by the governor’s neglect. His father died on the same day--a singular co-incidence. William O’Brien then suddenly found himself at the head of a family, but without any resources. A pamphlet that he published by Captain Mackay’s advice, won him an appointment to the _Cork Daily Herald_, one of the best papers in the south. In 1876 he came to Dublin, and was attached to the editor’s staff of the _Freeman’s Journal_. There Mr. Parnell found him in 1881, and placed him at the head of the _United Ireland_, which was just being started as the Land League’s official newspaper. Since this time Mr. O’Brien has waged perpetual war against England, a war which has doubtless endeared him to his fellow-citizens, for having succeeded, in 1882, in wresting, by 161 votes against 89, the seat of Mallow from a Conservative; he has since that date always been re-elected without opposition.