272 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



trolled by prejudice and he will tell you, u for his party; 

 he never scratches a ticket. ' ' 



And he means what he says, and will vote for the ver- 

 itable "yaller dog" if said dog was the nominee of the 

 party. The Hindoo mothers exercise the same admirable 

 and heroic devotion when they sacrifice their children to 

 the crocodiles of the Ganges. A story is told that in the 

 canton of Berne, in Switzerland, the people had grown up 

 under the system of keeping a bear at the public expense ; 

 and had been taught that if the bear died there would be 

 some great national calamity fall upon them. So they 

 kept the bear notwithstanding the expense and the fact 

 that he would frequently inflict fatal injuries on the child- 

 ren, and make raids on the pigs and lambs that came 

 within his jurisdiction. But one day he sickened and 

 died. Great efforts were made in vain to secure another 

 bear. "During the interim the people were amazed and 

 delighted to see that the sun continued to shine, the corn to 

 grow and the vintage to flourish, and everything went on 

 the same as before, saving the danger and expense of the 

 bear, so they came to the sensible conclusion not to keep 

 any more bears." There are those in this country who 

 insist that it is necessary to keep two bears, and maintain 

 that if either dies the country will go to wreck and ruin. 

 And not only that, but they still further insist that one por- 

 tion of the farmers and laborers shall worship one bear and 

 the balance the other. We may be dull of comprehen- 

 sion, but we have been studying the color, size, weight 

 and habits of these two animals for fifteen years and hope 

 we may be excused if we can not discover any material 

 difference in the two, except that at times one gets more to 

 eat than the other and appears fat, sleek and contented, 

 while the other keeps up a continuous growling, and acts 

 * ( worse than a bear with a sore head. ' ' We can not see 

 how the death of either one or both of these provided 



