in mock heroics, but said
that the trial was so even that he would divide the prize, ten cents to
one and five to the other--a stroke of justice that greatly increased
his popularity. And then he dismissed the assembly, saying that he had
promised the mayor to do so early, because he did not wish to run an
opposition to the political meeting going on in the courthouse.

The scene in the large court-room was less animated than that out-doors;
a half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and stuck on the
judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of black and white
who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and cast only a fitful
light upon the orator, who paced back and forth and pounded the rail.
It was to have been a joint discussion between the two presidential
electors running in that district, but, the Republican being absent, his
place was taken by a young man of the town. The Democratic orator took
advantage of the absence of his opponent to describe the discussion
of the night before, and to give a portrait of his adversary. He was
represented as a cross between a baboon and a jackass, who would be a
natural curiosity for Barnum. "I intend," said the orator, "to put
him in a cage and exhibit him about the deestrict." This political hit
called forth great applause. All his arguments were of this pointed
character, and they appeared to be unanswerable. The orator appeared
to prove that there wasn't a respectable man in the opposite party who
wasn't an office-holder, nor a white man of any kind in it who was not
an office-holder. If there were any issues or principles in the canvass,
he paid his audience the compliment of knowing all about them, for he
never alluded to any. In another state of society, such a speech of
personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but no doubt his
adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met, and
the exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
enlightened political canvassing for votes. The speaker who replied,
opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first speaker
had ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in the gloom of
a corner. The young man was moderate in his sarcasm, and attempted to
speak of national issues, but the crowd had small relish for that sort
of thing. At eleven o'clock, when we got away from the unsavory room
(more than half the candles had gone out), the orator was makin