its results are good or bad.  But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are the positions belonging to the township, there are in every community many willing to fill them.  To be a supervisor of the roads,[1] to be township constable and collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the peace, is an inclination—­it may be a desire—­entertained by many citizens; and if the ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not make it unworthy or discreditable.  But these men alone, active in the politics of townships, form a surprising array.  If we consider that in Pennsylvania there are sixty-seven counties, with an average of say forty townships in each, here are twenty-six hundred and eighty townships, having each not less than ten officials, and making nearly twenty-seven thousand persons actually on duty at one time in a single State in this fundamental branch of the service.  And if we estimate that besides those who are in office at least two persons are inclined and willing, if not actually desirous, to occupy the place now filled by each one—­a very moderate calculation—­we multiply twenty-six thousand eight hundred by three, and have over eighty thousand persons whose minds are quick and active in local politics on this one account.  But we may proceed further.  There are the cities and boroughs, their official business more complex and laborious, and in most cases receiving much higher compensation.  The competition for these is in many instances very great:  in the case of large cities we need not waste words in elaborating the fact.  It is difficult to estimate the number of persons to whom the municipal corporations give place and pay compensation in the State of Pennsylvania, but five thousand is not an extravagant surmise, while it would be equally reasonable to presume that for each place occupied at least three others would be willing to fill it, so that on this account we may make a total of twenty thousand.  But there are also the county offices.  Besides the judicial positions, altogether honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving liberal compensation, there are in each county an average of fifteen other officials, making in the State, in round numbers, one thousand.  These, again, may be multiplied by four:  there are certainly three waiting aspirants for each place.  But ascend now to the State system, with its several executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and penal institutions and the appointments in the gift of the governor.  Great and small, these may reach one thousand (the Legislature alone, with its officers and employes, accounts for over three hundred), and certainly there are at least five persons looking toward each of the several places.

Upon such an estimate, then, of the political activities of one State we have such a showing as this: