Mar. 19.
Of human beings ever deserve sympathy such a tribute is dus to the fifteen amiable gentlemen who, during the present week, ave come forward out of a sense. of public duty to offer themselves either for re-election or for election to the Municipal Council. They are spared some of the hor-tors of an election campaign in the West. They can eschew posters, public meetings and, even, canvassers, although, if the signs jate rightly read, canvassing ie joeyly at work in: certain places where the free and independent voters gather together, for intellectual or other forms of refreshment. They are allowed to escape from the responsibility of issuing some formal statement regarding their proposed policies, But they have duly and: submissively—and with admirable courtesy—issuedw be termed election ad Ho would be an inhuman. monster who would venture to take such documents as epitomes of their authors' political achievements past or prospective, It would bbe so easy, for example, to forget that the candidates are mainly concerned with the views of a Jimited number of foreign residents of Shanghai. They have not to expound in detail their opinions on some of the wider issues with which the existence lof the International Settlement linked, appear, from me points of view, to show qualities which gained for the Bourbons a lasting name of reproach in political literature. Certain addresses have the even more ancient touch of Rehoboam whose little finger was thicker than his father's loins. Nevertheless the candidates are fall men well acquainted with their fellow - Shanghatlanders, It is to be presumed that they know best what kind of syrup to dispense. The administering of medicine which, to be effective, must be nasty, is naturally left to other people and other ace sions. How far their judgment is correct will be known in due course.
Leaving out of account the we Japanese and two American candidates as hardly concerned in the contest, for it must be assumed that every voter will see that their seats are safely held, the addresses of the eleven gladiators, six of whom will soon have more leisure on their hands than their candidatures contemplate, may be briefly examined, Let alphabetical order govern the process in furtherance of ce siderations of equable precedence. Mr. H. E. Arnhold, an
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.