348 POCKET PISTOLS. 



After a considerable and hilly drive on a very cold 

 day, we arrived at the straggling village where the cere 

 mony was to be held, and where the polling-booth and 

 speech-house were placed, and put the carriage into the 

 hands of a black slave in whom my friend, the mayor, 

 said he had perfect reliance ; we then walked about, and 

 I had full opportunity for observing that every decent 

 person drove with bottles of brandy, cocktail, and other 

 warm compounds in his pockets, or in the pockets of his 

 carriage, and that it was the fashion of the times to ex 

 change mouthfuls of strong liquors all day long. I de 

 clined compliance with this custom, founding refusal on 

 national prejudice, and really my companion, in his 

 good-natured way, taking my share perhaps as well as 

 his own out of the best of motives, made me fear that I 

 should have to drive him home instead of his doing so 

 by me. 



He more than once hinted that he wished me to see the 

 rough and tumble onslaughts that would probably suggest 

 themselves to these sons of freedom later in the day, but, 

 as I assured him I cared for nothing but a fair upstanding 

 fight, and that I would prefer going home in peace to the 

 chance of having to lick somebody or being roughed and 

 tumbled myself, he stood manfully against the many per 

 suasions that were made to him not to go home before 

 night, and having seen all that was worth seeing early in 

 the day, we prepared to make a start on our return to St 

 Joseph. While at the barbicue I went into the speech- 

 house, to hear the mayor discourse to the people, and 

 therein saw a novel and effective appendage to the public 

 rostrum, and one which I would suggest for the Speaker's 

 adoption in place of the table at which the clerks sit in the 

 English House of Commons. Immediately beneath the 



