e to say, that our little capital town of C.,
with its thousand votes, presents more stir, makes more noise, drinks
more whiskey, and is the arena of more fistic science and club play,
during an ordinary election, than any city in New England, of four times
the population, during a presidential struggle. The open polling-booths
in the heart of the city surrounded by crowds of intelligent (and
highly-excited) voters; the narrow gangways crowded, rain or shine, by
those immediately claiming the right of suffrage; the narrow precincts
of the sheriff's court, the sublime majesty of that important officer;
the ineffable serenity of the city clerk; the various bearings of the
candidates or their representatives; the frantic efforts of a few
uniformed police to keep order; the evident and good-natured
determination of the crowd that the aforesaid officials shall 'have
their hands full;' the loud voices and sharp questions of the
challengers and their victim; the dainty bits of family history made
public property; the overbearing insolence of the old lawyers, and the
overweening impudence of the young ones; the open taverns; the rival
carriages for the accommodation of doubtful, drunken, and lazy voters,
together with the lively little incidents which diversify the picture as
the culminating glory of these various provocative elements,--form a
picture which it hath not entered into the heart of the average American
citizen to conceive of.

"But, however lively the picture, an election in these degenerate later
days is but a tame affair compared with those which took place during
my first years of labor in political matters. As all know, the island
was given away on one day to certain individuals, on conditions of which
nothing more may be said here than that one was, that a certain number
of settlers were to be placed on each estate within a given number of
years. Accordingly, from almost every section of the British Isles, the
proprietors sought out such emigrants as could most easily be procured.

"The result was, that we still have settlements in close proximity to
each other, whose peoples use different languages in daily conversation,
who vary radically in religious belief, have few natural traits in
common, and are almost, if not altogether, 'natural enemies' each to
each. Thus we have a settlement of Protestant Highland Scotch close by a
large estate peopled with Monaghan or Kilkenny Irish Catholics; and
perhaps a littl