76 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



the county agricultural society had to choose new officers. 

 Dea. Smith had been president for some time, and wanted 

 somebody else put in. So they chose Colonel La wson, up 

 to Smithville, and most of the managers were up in that 

 neighborhood. The Colonel is a smart fellow, but ha n t 

 no more respect for public morals than a cow has for a 

 milking stool. He goes in for making money by the short 

 est cut possible, keeps tavern, farms considerable, trades 

 cattle, jockeys horses, and, they do say, attends the races 

 in the neighborhood of your city, and has brought home 

 considerable money that he don t like to tell exactly how 

 he came by. What in the world folks were thinking of, 

 when they put him into office, I don t see. 



But they put him in, and the Colonel being a military 

 character, and famous for riding a horse well on a general 

 review day, was bound to make a sensation, and throw 

 Deacon Smith s administration all into the shade. There 

 was folks enough up in Smithville, just like him, that had 

 just as lieves scandalize our place as not. You see, Smith 

 ville is a sort of Nazareth up here, in the land of steady 

 habits, was settled in the beginning by the fag end of 

 creation, and has always drawn that kind of people since. 

 If a man got broken down in character, idle, or dissipated, 

 he was pretty sure to fetch up in Smithville or vicinity. 

 There he found congenial company, and could race horses, 

 Sunday, to his heart s content. It is not until within ten 

 years that they have had any meeting up there, and though 

 they are somewhat reformed, the old odor sticks to them 

 like pitch. 



The great trouble with the Colonel was to find any de 

 cent woman that would put herself on exhibition before 

 five thousand people, and make a fool of herself. He tried 

 all the towns around, and everybody told him it would 

 not do in Connecticut ; that our young women were well 

 educated and modest, and knew what belonged to their 

 rights and to their sex as well as a militia colonel could 



