DRAGGING 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 
