29 OCTOBER 1870, Page 3

The cumulative vote will probably give rise in the metropolis,

especially on this first occasion, to a vast waste of votes, as most people will heap their votes on their favourite candidate without any notion of how many he or she really wants for success. Nor do we see what help there can be for this, except the publication of the poll from hour to hour, which with a secret ballot and in districts so big as those of London would probably be a sheer impossi- bility, even if the orders of the Education Department did not prohibit it. It is not till the closing of the ballot-boxes that the returning officer is to begin his examination of the votes.