70 JEALOUSY OF WEALTH. [CHAP. XXIV, 



recent election for Clarke county, the popular candi 

 date admitted the upright character and high qualifi 

 cations of his opponent, an old friend of his own, and 

 simply dwelt on his riches as a sufficient ground for 

 distrust. &quot; A rich man,&quot; he said, &quot; cannot sympa 

 thise with the poor.&quot; Even the anecdotes I heard, 

 which may have been mere inventions, convinced me 

 how intense was this feeling. One, who had for 

 some time held a seat in the Legislature, finding 

 himself in a new canvass deserted by many of his 

 former supporters, observed that he had always voted 

 strictly according to his instructions. &quot; Do you 

 think,&quot; answered a former partisan, &quot; that they would 

 vote for you, after your daughter came to the ball in 

 them fixings ?&quot; His daughter, in fact, having been 

 at Mobile, had had a dress made there with flounces 

 according to the newest Parisian fashion, and she 

 had thus sided, as it were, with the aristocracy of the 

 city, setting itself up above the democracy of the 

 pine woods. In the new settlements there the small 

 proprietors, or farmers, are keenly jealous of thriving 

 lawyers, merchants, and capitalists. One of the 

 candidates for a county in Alabama confessed to 

 me that he had thought it good policy to go every 

 where on foot when soliciting votes, though he could 

 have commanded a horse, and the distances were 

 great. That the young lady, whose &quot; fixings &quot; I 

 have alluded to, had been ambitiously in the fashion, 

 I make no doubt; for my wife found that the cost of 

 making up a dress at Mobile was twenty dollars, or 

 four times the ordinary London price ! The material 

 costs about the same as in London or Paris. At 



