296 TRANSFERABLE VOTE AT MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. 



fear regarding his action, so long as he does the best lie can 

 according to his judgment; that there need be no afterthought 

 or previous scruple as to how the electors or the public will view 

 his action. 



28. What does it mean to the candidate, the citizen who is 

 willing to give his services for the good of the town, who gives 

 time and labour and faces work, worry, trouble and expense, for 

 which in many cases he gets little thanks, and sometimes mis- 

 understanding and misrepresentation ; to 'the candidate who now 

 in towns has to go round and canvass, personally to ask people 

 to vote for him, to pay agents to do this, and to get all his friends 

 to help as unpaid organisers? It means to him that he must 

 face the fact that it is impossible to canvass 99 per cent, of the 

 effective voters ; that he may spare the time, trouble and money, 

 and the sacrifice of self-respect involved in asking for votes. 

 It means that through the press and on the platform he must 

 make his views known and show his suitability for the post, and 

 that his friends all over the constituency must help him to do 

 this, and help him by their votes. 



With canvassing much diminished there would be less diffi- 

 culty in getting good men to come forward as candidates, and it 

 would be better for the municipality that its councillors should 

 be chosen by intelligent men, giving an intelligent vote on the 

 merits of the candidates, than, as now, by voters who have to 

 be begged for their votes, taught and told how to vote, and who 

 must be driven to the poll in carriage, cart, or motor to get them 

 to vote at all. 



The British Association. — Sir Oliver Lodge has 

 been nominated by the Council of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science as President for the Birmingham 

 meeting, in place of the late Sir William White. 



A New Minor Planet.— On two plates exposed by 

 Air. H. E. Wood in the Franklin Adams star-camera of the 

 Union Observatory, Johannesburg, on the 7th and 8th of 

 August last, with the object of obtaining photographs of the 

 planet Eros, a small unknown planet was discovered to have 

 been photographed close to Eros. To this planet the provisional 

 name 1912 T 16 has been assigned. 



MESOTHORIUM. — This body, which, occurs in the mona- 

 zite sands of Brazil, and costs half the price of radium, is stated 

 to possess, weight for weight, an activity 300 times greater than 

 that of radium. Its effects, together, with those of other radio- 

 active bodies of the thorium series, have just been studied by 

 Dr. Ledoux-Lebard. Injections of mesothorium notabh 

 diminish pain in cases of ulcerated cancer, and raise the general 

 state of unoperable cancer patients. 



