28 JUNE 1884, Page 2

The extension of the hours of polling, which occupied the

House of Commons on Thursday, is a change absolutely essen- tial to the real use even of our present franchise, and a change of the same kind is as much needed for School-Board elections as for political elections. Anything more absurd than the usual plan of having the poll open only throughout the hours in which the working-people are at work, and cannot leave *their work without forfeiting their wages, was never invented. And yet this constantly happens, both in political and in School-Board elections, with the result- that in the case of the School Board, the parents of the children who are to be educated by the Board have no real voice in choosing it.