y knew other things--the
youngsters--strange methods of the city ward; and the philosophic
observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the
corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to
the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to
rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, virtual county
leader and his party's candidate, Shelby, double-weighted, prepared to
wage the battle of his life.

The demands upon his time were incessant. He would rise in his
unlovely room at the Tuscarora House, leaden from insufficient sleep,
to be buttonholed before he breakfasted--sometimes, even before he
dressed; this man must be placated, that threatened, the other
convinced by reason; another must be visited in sickness, another found
work, for yet another must gratuitous lawyering be done--all this with
jovial front and a camel's capacity for drink. This was his
domesticity, amidst which must be sandwiched conferences and
journeyings in Tuscarora County and the other counties of his district,
and speeches on behalf of the party outside the Demijohn, entailed by
too successful stumping in the past. Capping all was the perverse
closet-reformer, Sprague, and his figurehead, Graves.

Shelby was a believer in short campaigns, and the time left the
independents for attack was brief. They retrieved the handicap by
added vigor, and subjected his every public act to merciless scrutiny.
Sprague formulated the case against him in an early issue of the
_Whig_:--

"We are asked," he wrote, "to publish our specific reasons for
rejecting this candidate. We gladly comply. The counts of his
indictment are many; we select five:--

"We refuse to support a candidate of any party whatsoever whose
nomination issues from dishonest primaries. It is notorious that the
caucuses preliminary to this man's nomination were packed. Can you
gainsay it, Mr. Shelby?

"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination never so spotless,
who degrades himself and the office to which he aspires by the theft of
another's intellectual property. Can you deny your plagiarism, Mr.
Shelby?

"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination irreproachable,
his sense of mine and thine otherwise undulled, whose legislative
record is tainted by traffickings peculiar to the Black Horse
Cavalry--wanton blackmailers of corporate rights. It is of common
knowledge that this man introduced in th