92 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



Silverite may eventually be 'on top,' the 

 Gold -bug and especially during the late 

 campaign earnestly endeavoured to limit 

 his vision in the same mariner. For months 

 he steadily perused the organs of the Silverites, 

 lent a willing ear to eloquent harangues of 

 neighbours, abandoned his reason to the im- 

 passioned speeches of Convention speakers. 

 All in vain. Fallacies so patent as to appeal 

 only to the ignorant formed the foundation 

 of the addresses of these * silver-tongued ' 

 orators. The Gold-bug, still in that dread 

 of the inevitable, clung to a desperate and 

 forlorn hope that fallacies might yet be found 

 to have bottom enough to uphold a huge 

 country struggling in the throes of protracted 

 financial distress ; but this was hope, not 

 conviction. Now and then a working man 



o 



arose, and in strong and ringing words called 

 on his fellow-workmen to pause, to bethink 

 them set before them in lucid argument 

 the fate which would be theirs should silver 

 become the coin of the democracy, and 

 pierced the wind-bags of Free Silverite 

 oratory with the home-driving nails of stern 

 fact. To what avail ? Although, as has 



