All sorts of objections are raised to throw doubt upon the suitability of each candidate by his opponent in politics or rival in local popularity, each side waxing eloquent in favor of its own man, or even resorting to means that are in some degree beyond the limits of wit or repartee to confound the tactics of the opposition candidate. In a recent contest a meeting called in the interests of one side by invitation cards was packed by their opponents through the medium of a card, a fac-simile in all except the hour, which, being a few minutes earlier than the _bona fide_ invitation enabled the holders to secure the seats in advance and in good order. The old-time stories of two-thirds of the “free and independent electors” going to the poll on crutches that later they might be used as shillelahs, with broken heads as the result, are not more absurd than some of the stories of incidents in the back-country contests for municipal honors at the present time. A candidate during recent municipal elections had been charged with religious unbelief, and consequent unfitness for the office. He was a farmer who owned and cultivated his one hundred acres--worth, perhaps, farm and stock, about $11,000. During his younger days, when sowing his wild oats, he had strayed from home and had been a sailor before the mast on our great lakes, and had thus mixed considerably more than his fellow farmers with the outside world. When on the rostrum, making his speech, urging the people to vote for him as councillor, he was dressed in a Canada pepper-and-salt tweed suit, shooting coat, with large lapels to his pockets overhanging them, a red scarf about his neck, and a pair of thick cowhide boots, the tops of which were too large, with the legs of his trousers stretched tightly over them. His _tout ensemble_ would denote a good plain, practical farmer, in fair circumstances, and having a mediocre amount of brain power or gift of penetration. Once getting upon the rostrum his speech ran on about thus:--“Gentlemen, I am accused as not believing the Bible. I tell you that ain’t so, for I believe the Bible as well as you do. There are some verses in the Bible I do not quite believe, for I don’t believe Jonah was three days in the whale’s belly, and that he would come out alive. Well, I don’t believe that Samson set 3,000 foxes’ tails on fire, and set fire to green wheat. The rest of the Bible I believe, and I think you ought to elect me. Gentlemen, I ask for your votes,” and with this brief address he bowed and left the platform. A hum was heard about the room, the general conclusion being that his explanation was worse than the charge; that he did not better it any, and would have done as well to have said nothing. It would be almost superfluous to add that this novel candidate was defeated, and, so far as I can learn, in Ontario at least, never before was religious belief made a test of fitness for municipal office.