The republicans have carried this state ...

The republicans have carried this state by over 20,000 majority,and are now looking around for a candidate for judge of the supreme court next spring. We are entitled to no voice in the matter but we cannot refrain in reminding our republican brethren, while searching for a candidate, thatthey can find an excellent one in Ann Arbor in Hon. A. J. Sawyer, who has long been one oí the leaders at this bar and has triumphed in many hard fought legal contests. He is far superior in legal attainments and in the other qualities which go to make up a good judge to many of the names we have seen mentioned. It has been suggested by Mr. E. B. Pond that in the proposed new charter, the mayor be taken out of the council altogether and that an alderman at large be elected who will be president of the council. This would give an odd number in the council and obviate deadlocks. It would be a position oí honor, without the work attached to the present presidency of the council, the mayor ha ving to act in that cppacity. It would relieve the mayor of about thirty nights' work a year, and enable him to use his veto power more freely than if he were himself entitled to a vote on the question at issue. If this change is made in the first drat of the new charter, as seems hkely, the city ticket will be slightly longer than at present. Every year, a mayor, president of the council and assessor would be elected, while every two years a city clerk and justice of the peace would be elected, the ward tickets remaining as at present The legislature which meets next week can do nothing for the people which will work more ger.eral good than to devise some method for preserving the purity of the ballot box. One thing they can do which will work much good is to secure a secret ballot. Fix it so that there can be no way in which unscrupulous men can teil that the votes they buy stay bought. As it is now, votes must be delivered to be paid for. If the election laws could be so changed that it would be absolutely impossible for any one to teil whether the vote Was delivered, there would be much less money used. For a man, who would sell his vote would take money and then vote as he pleased if he could do it without detection. The Australian system is much talked of in this connection. The state, under this system furnishes the ballots. Each voter is handed a ticket which contains the names of all the candidates. He steps into a booth, where he is absolutely secluded, marks the names of the men on the ticket for whom he desires to vote and fold? it up before he steps from the booth and hands it to the election inspector. But whether this system is adopted or not, it cannot be denied that the present election laws should be changed. i