It is possible that the next Presidential election may exhibit
the working of a rarely used provision of the American Con- stitution. If none of the candidates for the Presidency receive a majority of the whole number of the Electoral College, the President will be selected by the House of Representatives from the three candidates who have received most votes. The Vice-President will be similarly elected by the Senate. This has only happened twice before in American history,—in 1800 and in 1824. This contingency gives a double chance to Mr. Cleveland, for, as the House is strongly Democrat, he would be certainly the candidate selected. He may thus win either by a clear majority, or by a vote of the House of Representatives. In any case, the battle will be unusually exciting. Mr. Cleveland made on Wednesday a speech, both powerful and straightforward, to a great open-air meeting in Madison Square Garden, attended by fifteen thousand people. The tariff-reform issue was stated in the way Mr. Cobden or Mr. Bright would have stated it, and there was no attempt made to " placate "—such is the barbarous technical phrase of American party warfare—any of the manufacturing interests. " We insist," said Mr. Cleve- land, " that no plan of tariff legislation shall be tolerated which has for its object and purpose a forced contribution from the earnings and income of the masses of our citizens to swell directly the accumulations of a favoured few."
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