wning severely over a similar sheet
having broader memoranda-spaces. One after another the chiefs call off
the names of the legislators, reporting as they go along. The outsider
would have heard droned monotonously: "..... from ..... not my man;
..... from ..... my man and .....'s man; seen to-day, stood same as
yesterday; ..... from ....., raised price $20, making it $150; agreed;
$10 paid on account, total of $90 due; raised because ..... told him
that he had got $20 more from ....."

As each man reports the other chiefs and Towle discuss the details, and
when a decision on disputed points is arrived at, Towle makes a
memorandum on his blank, and the chief concerned records the order in
the little note-book which each carries. All reports at last in, Towle
retires to Room 11 and speedily returns with the "stuff," consisting of
cash, stocks, puts, calls, or transportation tickets, which he deals out
to the chiefs to make good their promises for the day. It would have
been obvious to the outsider, as soon as he had learned what was being
dealt in, that a large proportion of the members of the Great and
General Court of Massachusetts had bargained with the different members
of "the machine" to sell their votes not only in committee but in full
session of the Legislature, and that the price was to be paid when the
votes were cast, though something was invariably exacted on account, to
tie the bargain. Payment was made in cash, calls on Bay State Gas or
Dominion Coal, or transportation on any of the railroads in the United
States or Canada. The latter appears to be a class of remuneration Towle
favored, probably because it cost nothing.

The conference seldom closed for the day without Towle admonishing his
subordinates: "The old man's getting dead sore at the way his leg is
being pulled, and if you fellows don't get those countrymen to play a
more liberal game, they'll just drive the boss out of the business, and
then there'll be a slump in prices that'll make them prefer to stay home
and farm."

You may ask here, Could such things happen without attracting public
attention? Or are the citizens of Boston so habituated to the corruption
of their Legislature that they could witness unmoved this wholesale
bribing campaign conducted in full daylight from Young's Hotel? Thank
Heaven, this is not so. There are in every American community honest,
sturdy souls who can be depended on to come forward in emergencies and
cry out a