DKAGGING THE SEINE. 135 



By the way, I shall never forget the first picture of Mr. 

 Clay at one of these dances, as drawn by my mother to my 

 eager and boyish questioning. He was then, for the first 

 time, a candidate for the Legislature, and, of course, very 

 youthful, and " dressed like a young demagogue," as she 

 laughingly used to say, in the home-made jeans cloth woven 

 by the wives of the farmers of Kentucky. 



It was considered that this dress was to propitiate the stout 

 dames and ruddy-cheeked daughters of his constituents ; and 

 as the gentlemen of that day were excessively fastidious in 

 their dress, and wore it of English cloth, and much more 

 ornate and rich than now-a-days, the plainness of Mr. Clay's 

 garb was laughed at among the young people of his own 

 class, as an affectation. Nothing regardful of their sneers, 

 the youthful politician, with his tall, thin figure, his graceful 

 bow and fascinating smile, glided among the people, tri- 

 umphantly winning everywhere the frank suffrages of simple 

 and honest hearts. 



They laughed, but he won and a suit of that same Ken- 

 tucky jeans has, since, consistently graced many a high po- 

 sition and noble circle, proudly worn by the older " dema- 

 gogue" (perhaps?) in testimonial of his respect for that 

 homely and honest constituency. It was, then, something 

 of a sharp joke among the social peers of the rising politi- 

 cian, to accuse him of playing the demagogue in this earliest 

 and manly expression of his preference for that home pro- 

 tective policy, which has now become one of the chiefest 

 and most honorable distinctions of the great statesman's re- 

 putation. 



While these more important festivals had all a political or 

 public end, the fish-fry was entirely a social affair ; a gath- 

 ering of friends and equals for the purposes of out-door en- 

 joyment. The event was usually talked of for a week or 

 so, and, on one occasion which I particularly remember, the 

 invitations to attend had been circulated by a sort of free- 

 masonry, known amoDg the elect, the responsible source of 



