Pot-Pourri 219 



A hayseed and shirtsleeve campaign is peculiar 

 to the West. The candidate, born of poor but 

 honest parents, makes up accordingly. For a sea- 

 son he shuns soap and water, leaves the hayseed 

 in his hair, travels about in a ramshackle buggy, 

 and thereby harvests most of the votes of his sock- 

 less brother man. One of these fellows was speak- 

 ing at our county town. He held out a pair of 

 singularly dirty hands, and assured us that he 

 could wield the lariat better than he could the pen, 

 that he was more at home in the corral than on 

 the rostrum. Whereupon a sage sitting behind me 

 observed with a inimitable drawl: 



" Yes — he prefers the smell of manure to that of 

 rosewater." 



A seat in the State Legislature entitles the holder 

 to write "Honourable" before his name. I knew 

 one man who boasted that during his two years at 

 Sacramento he had paid off a heavy mortgage on 

 his ranch. He was not re-elected, but he remained 

 " honourable " till he died. Such gentlemen begin 

 their careers by attacking some wealthy corpora- 

 tion. They end as staunch supporters of the people 

 they have assailed, for — as one of them once 

 observed to me — political opinions are subject 

 to modification. To the man "with the sack," 

 Anglic^, the millionaire, the word legislator is 

 practically a synonym for blackmailer, although 

 the majority of state senators and assembly-men 

 would refuse scornfully a direct bribe. The Devil 

 has many baits; witness the parson who rejected 

 gold and preferment, but swallowed greedily a 

 garter. 



