Whatever other faults Canadians may have, they are certainly willing, with all possible alacrity, to serve their countrymen in the way of filling offices, small or more important, throughout the country. At the time of the municipal elections the aspirants for municipal honors come to the front in shoals. This particular feature of our people is, in a way, highly commendable. And yet one cannot cease to wonder at the immense number of persons in any community in Canada who are willing to sacrifice (?) themselves for the public good (?). It is held by patriots and sages that it is a citizen’s duty to serve the public wherever his services are required, whether it be in the tented field or in the civic chair. So far as the matter of the civic chair is concerned, many of us--and the writer among the number--are quite content to let those who are so supremely anxious to serve their fellows have the offices as long as they can fulfil the duties fairly well. Unquestionably, the public have a right to the individual’s services, but until the public really need them I hold it not to be a real neglect of one’s duty to let those who are so very anxious to serve do so, so long as they serve well and without public pay. The public will seek out the individual if they really require his aid. When Rome was in her palmiest days Cincinnatus was made consul, and received all the honors the Roman people could confer upon him. When his consulship had expired he retired to his farm beyond the Tiber, and went to cultivating the soil with his own hands. About 458 B.C., while engaged, it is said, ploughing in his field, five horsemen galloped up and informed him that he had been elected Dictator of that mighty empire republic--Rome. He left his plough and put on once more the royal purple. George Washington, upon resigning his commission to Congress at the close of the war of the Revolution, retired to his lands at Mount Vernon on the Potomac, and is credited with having said, “I’d rather be among my fields at Mount Vernon than be emperor of the world.” As might be supposed, there are often curious incidents and characters which appear in this connection. We have scarcely a county--I had almost said township--in which there is not the history of some one or other eventful election or polling day.