THE HUMOURS OF THE ULSTER ELECTION. [To THE EDITOR 07
THE " SPECTATOR.")
Six,—There has been an election in this county for the Ulster Parliament, and it has had its humours. There are so many traps and gins for the unwary in proportional voting that the necessary instruction very often left the voters in much per- plexity, even alarm, -for fear of doing what they ought not, or not doing what they ought. " What'll I do, mem, if I can't rightly make out the print?" "Oh, you can claim to vote open and the officer will read the names to you." " But I doubt I'll disremember which yins to mark after the first." One man coming out 'very triumphant from the booth said to his friends: "I got on gran'. I give one to A,' an' two to B,' an' six to C,' so he'll likely get in safe enough." A very old woman—over ninety—came in from the country, but as she had not been in the town for seven years her excitement was very great and caused her to " disremember " more than three of her chosen—but she was wise enough to leave it at that, fearing to make a mistake and so benefit the other side. For as one man, hardly more than a boy, said to the canvasser the day before : " Ay, I'll sure be there, though it's grand weather for the moss, and I'd ought to be workin' with the peats, but this isn't like other elections, is it? It's Right against Wrong." An infant voter (accidentally on the Register) about six years old had nothing to learn when the time came. "Did ye mind no to give ones to the Sinn Feiners?" "No fears! I just voted for the Big Six." An eld and very frail woman said to the canvasser who was rather afraid of the fatigue for her, "'Deed, no, mem, it'll be a gran' picnic party, sailin' in the motor," and, looking at her jubilant old face starting on the return "sail," one could see that, on that day at least, the path of duty had been the path of pleasure also. The last anecdote is too good to miss out, though the language is rather forcible for ears polite. Here was intimidation. A voter was being urged by the canvasser to come in to vote. "I'll no promise anythin'—mebbe, I'll no be vot'n at a'." And then a voice, a woman's voice, came from the unseen, " Yell be damnation aptf " And he voted.—I am, CO. Antrim.
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