Morning journal and courier., 1883-03-17
THE wRoNe-oF PETITION


 The right of petition is very ancient. It petuated in all the constitutions. But there is form of petition that exists in this com munity that the authors of the great charters never dreamed of. It they had they. would never have done as they did This is the pc tition to be appointed to office.
 In these parts, when politician wants an office and "wants it bad, D he gets up peti- renders him proper subject of charity and in one sense it undoubtedly does. His friends go around with the petition and solicit sigma lures for him as sort of political alms And the signatures are donated just as coppers are given to other beggars to get rid of their inn portunities. Of course it is not at all neces ary that the signers should be personally in terested in the candidate and they generally are not. If, for instance, man wants an office requiring professional qualifications, he will have his petition presented to number of persons who have never employed him and are not at all likely to. The result of it all is that he gets high sounding recommendation from lot of people who don't know, or care, anything about him. It is simply question of vigorous teasing on one side and bored good nature on the other. Sometimes the same signatures will appear on the petitions of rival candidates In other words, the same men will recommend three or four pol iticians for an office to which only one can be chosen Sometimes smart candidate will insert in his petition the words t'do exclu-
 ,,eI SI~as But even this astute device will not prevent the siguer from exclusively" recommending the appointment of several hopeful individ- uals. Still, it is quite a point te put the first petition in the field, for there are really some people who, though they are not at all particular whose petition they sign, have an unreasonable prejudice against signing two. This strikes us all as being singularly absurd andFwhimsical. If the honest citizen is will inc to recommend one candidate for the office just to get rid of him, why in the world should he refuse to recommend two for the same reason, or @ dozen for that matter i? There is no inconsistency in it whatever. There may: be of course some few people in this village who sign such petitions in good faith, although judging by the results there does not seem to ke much evidence of their existence. Inasmueh As everybody knows that these petitions are . farce, and nobody any better than the candidate himself. it is difficult to understand why they should be circulated at all. Still, politicians will trudge around with them for days, and travel untold miles to heap signature upon signature as if they really believed them to be of decisive importance, and then actually present them to some veteran oAiceholder, just as though he didn't know how it is himself, but, like the poor innocent youth that he isn't, would regard them as spontaneous outburst of popular sentiment
 As petitions of this sort are 8 nuisance to everybody and impose on nobody there can scarcely be any good reason for perform ing such pantomime- If they were really of any weight the justice of them would still
 be open to doubt. The power of making cer- | tain appointments is taken by the law from the people and vested in certain public off, eers on the theory that they are best &C.,