allowed, and a
unanimous vote by a jury was not always required. Growing wealth and the
consequent multiplication of litigants necessitated an increase in the
number of judges in most courts. Efforts were made, with some success,
by combining common law with equity procedure, and in other ways, to
render lawsuits more simple, expeditious, and inexpensive.

Restrictions were enacted on the hours of labor, the management of
factories, the alien ownership of land. The old latitude of giving and
receiving by inheritance was trenched upon by inheritance taxes. The
curbing of legislatures, the popular election of executives, civil
service reform, and the creation of a body of administrative
functionaries with clearly defined duties, betrayed movement toward an
administrative system.

A stronghold of political corruption was assaulted from 1888 to 1894 by
a hopeful measure known as the "Australian" ballot. It took various
forms in different States yet its essence everywhere was the provision
enabling every voter to prepare and fold his ballot in a stall by
himself, with no one to dictate, molest, or observe. Massachusetts, also
the city of Louisville, Ky., employed this system of voting so early as
1888. Next year ten States enacted similar laws. In 1890 four more
followed, and in 1891 fourteen more. By 1898 thirty-nine States, all the
members of the Union but six, had taken up "kangaroo voting," as its
foes dubbed it. Of these six States five were southern.

[Illustration: About twenty men in a room with tables, some voters, and
others officials.]
A New York Polling Place, showing booths on the left.

An official ballot replaced the privately--often dishonestly--prepared
party ballots formerly hawked about each polling place by political
workers. The new ballot was a "blanket," bearing a list of all the
candidates for each office to be filled. The arrangement of candidates'
names varied in different States. By one style of ticket it was easy for
the illiterate or the straight-out party man to mark party candidates.
Another made voting difficult for the ignorant, but a delight to the
discriminating.

The new ballot, though certainly an improvement, failed to produce the
full results expected of it. The connivance of election officials and
corrupt voters often annulled its virtue by devices growing in variety
and ingenuity as politicians became acquainted with the reform. Statutes
and sometimes constitutions therefore