ery kind of
sacrilegious indignity, vituperated as a usurper and an "accident," struck
with rotten eggs and dead cats, and undergoes the meanest
misrepresentation. Its attitude in the chair, its fallen jaw, glazed eyes
and degree of decomposition are caricatured and exaggerated out of all
reason. Yet such as it is it must be endured for the unexpired term for
which its predecessor was chosen. To guard against a possible interregnum,
however, a law has recently been passed providing that if it should tumble
out of the chair and be too rotten to set up again its clerks
(_seiraterces_) are eligible to its place in a stated order of succession.
Here we have the amazing anomaly of the rulers of a "free" people actually
appointing their potential successors!--a thing inexpressibly repugnant to
all our ideas of popular government, but apparently regarded in Tamtonia
as a matter of course.

During the few months intervening between the ax-men's selection of
candidates and the people's choice between those selected (a period known
as the _laitnediserp ngiapmac_) the Tamtonian character is seen at its
worst. There is no infamy too great or too little for the partisans of the
various candidates to commit and accuse their opponents of committing.
While every one of them declares, and in his heart believes, that honest
arguments have greater weight than dishonest; that falsehood reacts on the
falsifier's cause; that appeals to passion and prejudice are as
ineffectual as dishonorable, few have the strength and sense to deny
themselves the luxury of all these methods and worse ones. The laws
against bribery, made by themselves, are set at naught and those of
civility and good breeding are forgotten. The best of friends quarrel and
openly insult one another. The women, who know almost as little of the
matters at issue as the men, take part in the abominable discussions; some
even encouraging the general demoralization by showing themselves at the
public meetings, sometimes actually putting themselves into uniform and
marching in procession with banners, music and torchlights.

I feel that this last statement will be hardly understood without
explanation. Among the agencies employed by the Tamtonians to prove that
one set of candidates is better than another, or to show that one
political policy is more likely than another to promote the general
prosperity, a high place is accorded to colored rags, flames of fire,
noises made upon bras