of eight or ten kilometres, and Beuvron only remained to be heard from.
It was possible harm might have been done there. For a law passed under
the Empire in 1852, and undisturbed for obvious reasons by the Third
Republic, allows the prefect of a department to determine into what
sections he will divide a large commune for the purpose, according to
the law, of 'bringing the electors nearer to the electoral urn.' This
opens the way, of course, to a good deal of what in America would be
known as official 'gerrymandering.' The thing may be of any country. The
name we owe to Mr. Elbridge Gerry, once Vice-President of the United
States; who, when his party controlled Massachusetts, devised a scheme
for so framing the electoral districts of that State as to get his
scattered party minorities together, and convert them thus into
majorities. An outline map of the State thus districted was declared by
one of his opponents to 'look like a salamander.' 'No! not like a
salamander,' said another; 'it is a gerrymander.'

Val Richer was full of little fairies in that bright summer weather. The
Pied Piper of Hamelin must have passed that way, losing some stragglers
of his army as he moved along. Wherever you strolled in the park you
came unexpectedly upon little blonde heads and laughing eyes peering
through the shrubbery, and saw small imps scampering madly off across
the meadows. On the Sunday night of the election, music and mirth chased
the hours away, till, just after midnight, a joyous clamour in the outer
hall announced some event of importance. From the far-off Cambremer and
Beuvron-sur-Auge a delegation of staunch electors had arrived to
announce the crowning victory. Thanks to the distance and the
'sections,' the votes had been long in counting, but they had been
counted, and not found wanting. One of these bringers of good tidings
might have sat or stood for a statue of William the Conqueror preparing
to make France pay dearly for the jest of the French King anent his
colossal bulk. He was a man in the prime of life, but he cannot possibly
have weighed less than 400 pounds. Yet he moved about alertly, and he
had driven over in a light wagon at full speed (the Norman horses are
very strong) to congratulate his candidate on the issue of a fray in
which he had borne his own part most manfully. M. Pierre de Witt had
received 1,042 votes as Councillor-General, against no more than 140
given to his medical competitor!

One bold