Show flow the Ancients Conducted I their Elections Aa hitherto so again we must go back to the beginning to take cp the clew Out of the earliest atage of the savage horde in which there ia no supremacy beyond that of the man whose strength or courage or cunning cun-ning gives him predominance tb first step is to the practice of election deliberate choice of a leader in war About the conducting of elections elec-tions in rude tribes travelers are silent probably the methods used are various But we have accounts of elections as they were made by European Euro-pean peoples during early times In ancient Scandinavia the ohief of a province chosen by the assembled people wits thereupon elevated amid the elfish of arms and the sol s-ol the multitude and among the ancient Germans was carried on a shield Recalling as this ceremony does the chairing ol a newly elected member of Parliament up to recent times and reminding us that t originally origin-ally among ourselves election was by the show of hands we are Uugut tha the choice of a representative was once identical with the choice of H chief Our House of Commons bid ltd root > in local gathering like thn + tin < t-in which uncivilized tribe aei l ct bead warriors Brides + conscious selection there occur among rude peoples selection by lot The Samoans for instance by spinning a cocoanut which oncoming on-coming to rest points to one of the I surrounding persona thereby single UIUQ out Early historic race supply illustration ao the Hebrews in the ftfUir of Saul and Jonathan and as the Homeric Greeks when fixing on achampion to fight with Hector In both belie laat cases there was belie in supernatural interference the lot wee supposed to be divinely determined deter-mined And probably at the outset choice by lot for political purpose among the Athenian and for military milit-ary purposes among the Romans aa also in later times the use of the lot for choosing the deputies in some of the Italian republics and in i Spain as in Leon daring the twelfth century i cen-tury was influenced by a kindred I belief though doubtless the desire to give equal chances to l rich and poor or else to assign without dispute a miesipn which was oueroua or dangerous danger-ous entered into the motive or wan even predominant Here however the fact to be noted is that this mode of cbeioe which plays a part in representation repre-sentation may also be traced back to the usages of primitive peoples Herbert Spencer in Popular Science Monthly |