there is more interesting legislation still aimed at
any form of political corruption. Massachusetts led the way with a
statute which endeavors to make criminal any promise of employment or
advantage, or even for a corporation, at least, to employ any person
at the recommendation of any member of the legislature. It is very
difficult to draw such laws to make them apply fairly, but they have
been copied with even greater elaboration in many Southern States. The
statute of Alabama, for instance, covers nearly a page in describing
the various acts or promises which are thus forbidden to officers or
candidates for office.

Then there is the long range of lobby acts aimed at the very serious
abuse of lobbying. Massachusetts divides the offence, or rather the
business, into two general classes: First, the legislative counsel who
appears before legislative committees in support or in opposition of
measures. This practice, of course, is perfectly legitimate in many
cases, but the law provides that his advocacy must be open, he must
disclose the client for whom he appears, if there be one, and at the
end of his services file a statement of the counsel fees actually
received. Such legislation, however, is easily evaded by the payment
of an annual salary. Then there is the legislative agent or lobbyist,
properly so called, who does not openly appear before legislative
committees, but waylays members of the legislature at their dwelling
or meeting places, or elsewhere. He must also register as legislative
agent by the Massachusetts law, and file an actual account of his
receipts and expenses. Such legislation properly observed would,
of course, have made impossible the celebrated "House of Mirth"
at Albany. Then there are many statutes against intimidation in
elections, particularly in the South; and there were many acts of
Congress passed under the Fourteenth Amendment, but these have
practically all been held unconstitutional.

The form of the ballot is another matter that has been the subject of
much legislation. Our States vary, as does still public opinion in
England, between the extreme of providing by the Constitution itself
for the secrecy of the ballot, and the other extreme of requiring that
all voting should be _viva voce_, as was formerly the case at least
in Kentucky. Public opinion has universally settled in favor of the
former; and to protect the voter's freedom, the so-called Australian
ballot has very generally