ponsible for much
mental confusion. Election oratory is an old and cherished
institution. It is designed to make candidates show their paces, and
to give innocent amusement to the crowd. Properly reinforced by brass
bands and bunting, graced by some sufficiently august presence, and
enlivened by plenty of cheering and hat-flourishing, it presents a
strong appeal. A political party is, moreover, a solid and
self-sustaining affair. All sound and alliterative generalities
about virile and vigorous manhood, honest and honourable labour,
great and glorious causes, are understood, in this country at least,
to refer to the virile and vigorous manhood of Republicans or
Democrats, as the case may be; and to uphold the honest and honourable,
great and glorious Republican or Democratic principles, upon which,
it is also understood, depends the welfare of the nation.

Yet even this sense of security cannot always save us from the chill
of collapsed enthusiasm. I was once at a great mass meeting, held
in the interests of municipal reform, and at which the principal
speaker was a candidate for office. He was delayed for a full hour
after the meeting had been opened, and this hour was filled with good
platform oratory. Speechmaker after speechmaker, all adepts in their
art, laid bare before our eyes the evils which consumed us, and called
upon us passionately to support the candidate who would lift us from
our shame. The fervour of the house rose higher and higher. Martial
music stirred our blood, and made us feel that reform and patriotism
were one. The atmosphere grew tense with expectancy, when suddenly
there came a great shout, and the sound of cheering from the crowd
in the streets, the crowd which could not force its way into the huge
and closely packed opera house. Now there are few things more
profoundly affecting than cheers heard from a distance, or muffled
by intervening walls. They have a fine dramatic quality, unknown to
the cheers which rend the air about us. When the chairman of the
meeting announced that the candidate was outside the doors, speaking
to the mob, the excitement reached fever heat. When some one cried,
"He is here!" and the orchestra struck the first bars of "Hail
Columbia," we rose to our feet, waving multitudinous flags, and
shouting out the rapture of our hearts.

And then,--and then there stepped upon the stage a plain, tired,
bewildered man, betraying nervous exhaustion in every line. He spoke,
an