THE COST OF A GENERAL ELECTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 49, 6 December 1900, Page 10

THE COST OF A GENERAL ELECTION.

The editor of a London paper ia reported to have reoently figured out the normal cost of a general election at two millions. Curiously enough, this seems to have been the cost of a general election in the eighteenth century. In April, 1768, the expense of the parliamentary elections held in that year was calculated to have been two millions, and was so announced in the Scot* Magazine. That the cost may have remained stationary is not so incredible when we consider the sums that used to be lavished to secure votes in a small electorate. A case in point is furnished by an electoral breakfast given in Westmoreland in 1761, on the day of an election. The spread comprised, among other Gargantuan supplies— 3l pigeon pies, 24 sirloins of beef, 13 quarters of veal, 44 quarters of house lamb, 244 chickens, 20 dozen bottles of strong beer, 10 hogsheads of beer, three hogsheads of wine, two hogsheads of punch, etc. When all this had been swallowed the results came out :— Sir James Lowther, 751 ; John Upton Esq., 637 ; Edward Wilson Esq., 574.