take the next greater integer as
"quota." Let the returning officer publish the list of
candidates, with the votes given for each, and declare as
"returned" each that has obtained the quota. If there are
still Members to return, let him name a time when all the
candidates shall appear before him; and each returned Member
may then formally assign his surplus votes to whomsoever of
the other candidates he will, while the other candidates may
in like manner assign their votes to one another.

This method would enable each of the two parties in a
district to return as many Members as it could muster
"quotas," no matter how the votes were distributed. If, for
example, 10,000 were the quota, and the "reds" mustered
30,000 votes, they could return three Members; for, suppose
they had four candidates, and that A had 22,000 votes, B
4,000, C 3,000, D 1,000, A would simply have to assign 6,000
votes to B and 6,000 to C; while D, being hopeless of
success, would naturally let C have his 1,000 also. There
would be no risk of a seat being left vacant through two
candidates of the same party sharing a quota between
them--an unwritten law would soon come to be
recognised--that the one with fewest votes should give place
to the other. And, with candidates of two opposite parties,
this difficulty could not arise at all; one or the other
could always be returned by the surplus votes of his party.

Some notes from the Diary for March, 1885, are worth reproducing
here:--

_March_ 1_st_.--Sent off two letters of literary
importance, one to Mrs. Hargreaves, to ask her consent to my
publishing the original MS. of "Alice" in facsimile (the
idea occurred to me the other day); the other to Mr. H.
Furniss, a very clever illustrator in _Punch_, asking
if he is open to proposals to draw pictures for me.

The letter to Mrs. Hargreaves, which, it will be noticed, was earlier
in date than the short note already quoted in this chapter, ran as
follows:--

My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--I fancy this will come to you
almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of
silence, and yet those years have made no difference that I
can perceive in _my_ clearness of memory of the days when we
_did_ correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man's
failing memory is as to recent events and new friends, (for