this Achates, "but he's never the fellow to get drunk when he's got any thing to do."

"Vote for Spriggins," said one; "he's a highflyer! he licked Kneeland last winter 'cause he said he wa'n't no gentleman!"

"Don't put Kneeland in," said a ragged youth, confidentially to a circle of a dozen; "don't vote for him; he's a mean tee-totaller!"

A cart, drawn up within convenient distance from the scene of action, contained the elements of a hundred quarrels and twice the number of black eyes; and there was still standing-place left on the back part. On this conspicuous perch, sure of entranced and stationary auditors, Mr. Rice now exhibited his well-known person, not dressed as for a gala-day, but studiously slovenly and common in his array. The time for opening the poll was near at hand, and not a moment was to be lost.

35

CHAPTER XXXVI.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known laws of modern liberty.

MILTON.

"GENTLEMEN," said the orator, taking off his hat and waving it in a courteous and inviting manner, while he wiped his brow with a faded cotton handkerchief, "Gentlemen! may I beg your attention for a few moments! You are aware that I do not often draw very largely on your patience, and also that I am not a man who is fond of talking about himself. It is indeed a most unpleasant thing to me to be in a manner forced to advocate my own cause, and nothing short of the desire I feel to have an opportunity of advancing the interest of my friends and neighbors in the legislature would induce me to submit to it."

Somebody groaned, "Oh, Tim, that's tough!

"Yes, gentlemen! as you observe, it is tough; it is a thing that always hurts a man's feelings. But as I was observing, we must go through with whatever is for the good of our country. The greatest good of the greatest number, I say!"

By this time the auditory had greatly increased, and comprised indeed nearly all the voters. Mr. Rice went on with increasing animation.

"This is the principle to go upon, and if this was only carried out, we should all have been better off long ago. This is where the legislature wants mending. They always stop short of the right mark. They get frightened, gentlemen! yes, frightened, scar't! they always have a lot of these small souls among them souls cut after a scant pattern

souls that are afraid of their own shadows that object to all measures that would really relieve the people, so they just give the people a taste to keep them quiet, and no more, for fear of what folks a thousand miles off would say! You've heard of the jackass that was scar't at a penny trumpet — well, these jackasses are scar't at what isn't louder than a penny trumpet, nor half so loud.”

Here was a laugh, which gave the orator time to moisten his throat from a tumbler handed up by a friend.

"Now you see, gentlemen, nobody would have said a word against that exemption bill, if every body was as much in favor of the people as I am. I don't care who knows it, gentlemen, I am in favor of the people. Don't the people want relief? And what greater relief can they have than not to be obliged to pay their debts, when they have nothing to pay them with? that is, nothing that they can spare conveniently. I call that measure a half-way measure, gentlemen, it is a measure that leaves a way open to take a man's property if he happens to have a little laid by—a little of his

hard earnings, gentlemen; and you all know what hard earnings are.

"What is the use of having the privilege of making laws if we can't make them to suit ourselves? We might as well be a territory again, instead of a sovereign state, if we are a-going to legislate to favor the people of other states at the expense of our own people. I don't approve of the plan of creditors from other states coming here to take away our property. Folks are very fond of talking about honesty, and good faith, and all that. As to faith they may talk, but I'm more for works; and the man that works hard and can't pay his debts is the one that ought to be helped, in my judg

ment.

They'll tell you that the man that sues for a debt is owing somebody else, and wants his money to pay with. Now, I say, he's just the man that ought to feel for the other, and not want to crowd him hard up. Besides, if we pass exemption laws, don't we help him too? Isn't it as broad as it's

long?"

A murmur of applause.

"Then as to honesty; where'll you find an honest man if not among the people? and such measures are on purpose to relieve the people. The aristocracy don't like 'em perhaps, but who cares what they like? They like nothing but grinding the face of the poor."

Here a shout of applause, and a long application to the tumbler.

"Gentlemen," continued Mr. Rice, "some people talk as if what debts were not paid were lost, but it is no such thing. What one man don't get, t'other keeps; so it's all the same in the long run. Folks ought to be accommodating, and if they are accommodating they won't object to any measures for the relief of the people, and if they don't want to be accommodating, we'll just make 'em, that's all!

"Some say it's bad to keep altering and altering the laws, till nobody knows what the law is. That's a pretty principle, to be sure! what do we have a legislature for, I should be glad to know, if not to make laws? Do we pay them two dollars and fifty cents a day to sit still and do nothing? Look at the last legislature. They did not hold on above two months, and passed rising of two hundred laws, and didn't work o' Sundays neither! Such men are the men you want, if they'll only carry the laws far enough to do some good.

Now, gentlemen, I see the poll's open, and I s'pose you want to be off, so I will not detain you much longer. All I have to observe is, that although I am far from commending myself, I must give you my candid opinion that a certain person who has thrust himself before the public on this occasion is unworthy of the suffrages of a free and