The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2193, 24 September 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1907.

ELECTION OF HOSPITAL STAFFS. The method of appointing hospital staffs in this colony has occasionally como in for adverso comment, and, judged by local experience, with somo reason, but thero may bo soino consolation in tho fact that there aro localities where an even more unsatisfactory state of affairs exists. Tho other day the annual elections to fill positions on the medical and surgical staffs of tho Melbourne Hospital wore held. It only noeds to bo pointed out that every subscriber to the funds of the hospital of an amount not less than one pound is entitled to a voto to realise that here is opportunity for all sorts of scheming. Any medical officer desiring election might, by tho expenditure of twenty or thirty pounds, easily turn the soalo in tho voting and secure a position that is evidently much coveted amongst the profession. A description of the election shows that tiiis influence was undoubtedly at work. According to the “Austmlasian,” the stranger who came up Collins-street might have felt uncertain when reaching the Athenaeum whether he had arrived at a third-rate race meeting or at a Tammany convention. The touting, canvassing, shoving, and shouting going on in connection with the election were discreditable. It was impossible to go into the hall to vote without being assailed by tho •advocates of candidates —even, in somo cases, by the candidates themselves—up to the very moment at which the voter marked the ballotpaper. At the entrance to tho hall in which the polling-booths had been fitted up the expert button-holers avere again to be found. When the voter got past them, it was only to discover that the hall was half-filled with candidates, their energetic friends, or idlers, who watched many interesting things happen. A doctor would rush a voter to the table to receive a ballot-paper, and was sometimes observed to be obliging enough to show how tho jaaper should bo marked. Ladies who seemed in some confusion how to vote avere given chivalrous assistance, and one enterprising man saw a dozen of them through their difficulties in the course of an hour. Hundreds of times ballot-papers avere taken out of the room to he marked. What cannot truly ho described as anything hut the purchase of votes was con-, ducted on a huge scale. Legil opinion has declared that £1 paid, even oil the day of election, avill entitle tho subscriber to a voto. So within the Athenaeum building an office aa-.us prepared, avhero the obedient voter paid somebody’s pound, and avent straight from tho payment to the poll. A,t lmlf-past 3 o’clock it was said that £250 had been received. A lifctlo later tho benefit to tho hospital funds aa-as said to be £3OO. Our own methods aro undoubtedly faulty', but thoy do not, at any rate, invite such degrading exhibitions as that just referred to.