At the beginning of the session preceding the election the presidents of the clubs, with great secrecy, approach various leading men of their parties, and finally fix on candidates. In the second half of the session, about February, the candidates are announced, and soon afterwards the Conservative and Liberal Rectorial Committees are formed. These committees are large, numbering, perhaps, fifty in each, though, as I have said, the actual executives are very small. Each committee is divided into three sections--the canvassing, the literature, and the physical force. The conveners of these sub-committees are busy all through the summer vacation with preparations for the coming fray, forming their plans, inventing ruses, and intriguing for various advantages. The campaign commences in earnest as soon as college reassembles in the third week of October, and continues in a wild whirl of excitement for a fortnight, until the day of election. Then all the leading men, haggard and nearly dead with fatigue and the incessant strain, go to bed and sleep for twenty-four hours. The day after the election the 'Varsity is as quiet and peaceful as the most select young ladies' seminary. This is the invariable course of events. On the particular occasion I am about to describe--the election of 1905--the candidates announced in the spring were Lord Linlithgow (Conservative) and Mr. Asquith (Liberal). The Liberals had lost the last election badly, but the reaction against the Government gave them high hopes of pulling their man through on this occasion. The summer, apart from the publishing of one magazine by the Liberals, was, as usual, a time of public inaction, but secret preparations. The clubs rented two large shops--almost next door to one another, by mutual arrangement--in a street near the University. These were the "committee rooms," and were practically the head-quarters from which the fighting was done. They were prepared for occupation by (1) removing all partitions and throwing the shop itself and the rooms behind into one large, bare apartment. (2) Taking out all fittings, even to the fire-grates. (3) Taking out the windows and filling their place with very massive, buttressed barricades, having loopholes high up. (4) Leading in special water supplies and fitting hydrants for hoses. In addition, the cellars are stocked with great cases of pease-meal, made up into paper packets of convenient size for throwing. A piano was also placed in each of the committee rooms. [Illustration: GIBSON STREET, GLASGOW, WHERE BOTH COMMITTEE-ROOMS ARE INVARIABLY SITUATED--IN THE LAST ELECTION THE CONSERVATIVES USED THE PREMISES OF THE LAUNDRY SHOWN AT THE RIGHT OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, WHILE THE INTERNAL ROOMS WERE TWO SHOPS HIGHER UP THE STREET. _From a Photograph._]