Something has been said in this paper of the scandalous conduct of elections. It is gratifying to find a popular reaction as early as 1738, at least in Quaker Burlington, where, though the election was so vigorously contested as to require three days to conclude the polling, it was, notwithstanding, managed “in such a candid and peaceable Manner,” according to a newspaper of the day, “as gave no Occasion of Reflection to each other, nor was there any reaping of Characters, or using of Canes in a Hostile Manner on one another, being sensible that such a Practice is inconsistent with the Freedom which ought to Subsist in our Elections.” The inference is irresistible that the conduct of this canvass was in violent contrast with the usual practices. I might also mention the passage of an act by the Legislature seventy years or so ago, providing for an increase in the membership of the Supreme Court, and then the appointment by the same Legislature of one of its own members to the office thus created! The appointee was an honor to the Bench, and ranked then and for thirty years afterwards as one of the most distinguished men in the land. But what would be thought of such a procedure to-day? And speaking of courts, I do not recall anything in recent times to match the daring of the Monmouth County people, who on March 25, 1701, captured the Governor of East Jersey, two of his Councillors and two of his Justices, who were holding court for the trial of a townsman on a charge of piracy, he having confessed that he had been on a voyage with the famous Captain William Kidd, “as he sailed, as he sailed.” The people would not “stand for” judicial interference in a little thing like that, which brought plenty of “Arabian gold” to our coasts, and so, with grim humor and determination, they kept the Governor and his Court of Sessions, together with the Attorney-General and the Secretary of the Province, in close confinement for four days. As nothing further is said about the matter it is not unlikely that the prisoners were compelled to promise immunity to their captors before being released. “They didn’t know everything down in Judee,” chuckled Hosea Biglow in self-satisfied complacency. But from the few instances cited it is quite apparent that our honored forefathers, could they “revisit the pale glimpses of the moon,” would have little to learn from the modern “Boss” in the way of political audacity, chicanery or finesse. “For ways that are dark And tricks that are vain,”