virtue of her own or her husband’s local government qualification, but she can vote also at a University, if she is on its register. The poll closes at eight or nine o’clock. Ballot papers cannot be given out after that time. But any voters who have received papers before the hour has struck may put their votes into the ballot box. The presiding officer, in the presence of the agents of the candidates, then stops up the slot of the ballot box and seals it, so as to prevent the insertion of any more voting papers. The ballot box, securely locked, bound in red tape and sealed, is then brought by the presiding officer to the place appointed for the counting of the votes, which is usually the town hall or county hall, and is delivered up to the returning officer, together with a statement in writing of the number of ballot papers supplied to the polling station, and accounting for them under the heads of “used,” “unused,” and “spoilt,” and also the counterfoils of the used ballot papers, the unused ballot papers, the marked copies of the register of voters, and the list of tendered votes, all of which had been carefully made up in separate parcels and sealed before leaving the polling station. CHAPTER IV THE COUNTRY’S VERDICT 1 How simple and decorous is a parliamentary election nowadays compared with the tumultuous polling when voting was open, before the Ballot Act of 1872! In remote times an election was decided by a show of hands at a public meeting of the electors. The right of a candidate to challenge the decision on a show of hands and demand a poll was established in the reign of James I. However, it continued to be the practice for the sheriff or returning officer on the day of nomination still to ask for a show of hands on behalf of each of the candidates, and to declare for the one in whose support the larger number of hands had been uplifted. But as the majority of the crowd were usually non-voters, the demand for a poll by the other candidate followed as a matter of course. Formerly the election might last for a month, and the voting stations might be kept open until late into the night. Early in the nineteenth century a limit of fifteen days was fixed for the polling. The Reform Act of 1832 further reduced the period to two days, and provided also that the voting should take place between the hours of nine and four o’clock, with the option of opening an hour earlier on the second day, if the candidates agreed.