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For in contested elections, the voting lasted forty days, during which time the price of votes might rise to L25 or more. Votes might be purchased with safety, too, for voting was public and any one might learn from the poll-book how each man had voted. Not infrequently it cost several thousand pounds to carry such an election.

Presently Lord Glistonbury took Vivian with him to his study to examine some poll-book, and then put into his hands a letter from Lady Julia Lidhurst, which had been enclosed in one to himself.

Lincoln's life in this period; he has unearthed in the official files of the county several new documents, and he has secured several unpublished portraits of interest. Photographed from the original poll-book, now on file in the county clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln's first vote was cast at New Salem, "in the Clary's Grove precinct," August 1, 1831. At this election he aided Mr.

Graham, who was one of the clerks. In the early days in Illinois, elections were conducted by the viva voce method. The people did try voting by ballot, but the experiment was unpopular. It required too much "book larnin," and in 1829 the viva voce method of voting was restored. The judges and clerks sat at a table with the poll-book before them.

This had so much promise of success about it, that the opposite party, who had the sheriff for the county in their interest, bethought of a novel expedient to frustrate the petition when a reference to the poll was required. They declared the principal poll-book was lost. This seemed not very satisfactory to one side of the committee, and the question was asked, "how could it be lost?"

What miracle can restore the books we borrow and lose, or the books we borrow and spoil with ink, or with candle-wax, or which children scrawl or paint over, or which "the dog ate," like the famous poll-book at an Irish election, that fell into the broth, and ultimately into the jaws of an illiterate animal?