Election Day.--"Paddy" versus "Sam."
Everybody knows that Election day anywhere creates an unusual excitement; but it is in the large cities where partisan feeling runs the highest, where strongest and strangest influences are brought into requisition to influence the election of favorite candidates; where the people are made to act as blind confederates in a skilful scheme of party trickery and political legerdemain, which places one man into office, and defeats the expectations of another, whom they fully expected to see invested with the imaginary robes of munic.i.p.al power. So dexterously are the cups and b.a.l.l.s shifted by the party leaders, and so cunningly is the pack shuffled, that the rank and file of the different cliques can"t tell where the "little joker" is, or who holds the trump card, for an hour together.
The first election witnessed by the undersigned, was one of unusual interest, princ.i.p.ally on account of the intense antagonism of the foreign and the know-nothing elements of party, and the tremendous exertions of "_Sam_" to overthrow his great rivals, "_Paddy_" and "_Hans_."
Early in the morning of the day I was in the street, to see whatever fun might turn up--found it filled with big placards, posters, music, notices, split-tickets, rum-bullies, banners, bonfires, and lager-bier--saw a great many flags with appropriate devices, noticed one in particular; the whiskey faction had it; coat of arms as follows:
Within the American shield, two lager-bier casks supporting a rum-bottle rampant, Irishman azure, flat-on-his-back-ant, sustained by a wheelbarrow couchant--sinister eye sable in-base, demijohn between two small decanters--in the distance, policeman pendant, from a lamp-post standant--motto, "Coming events cast their shadows before: Let the M.
P."s beware." On the obverse, ticket for city officers, and opposed an American quarter dollar--motto, "Exchange no Bribery." "Faugh na Ballagh." "Go in and win."
As has ever been the case, from the time of the first inst.i.tution of public elections, it rained as if it was raining on a bet--went to the polls, wanted to vote, wasn"t particular who for, if he only had the biggest flags and the most bullies: was a little puzzled after all how to do it; had read all the political prints to find out the best man, but to judge from what the newspapers say concerning the different candidates, the various factions in this city entertain peculiar ideas about the requisites necessary to qualify a man to fill a public station.
Not an individual is ever nominated for any office, who is not eulogized by some of the public journals, as a drunkard, liar, swindler, incendiary, a.s.sa.s.sin, or public robber.
a.s.suming from the wonderful unanimity of the papers on this subject, that these amiable qualities const.i.tute the fitness of the nominees for places of honor, trust, or profit, I have endeavored to a.n.a.lyze the gradations of criminal merit, and discover exactly how big a rascal a man must be to qualify himself for any given office. The result of my investigation is as follows:--
No one is eligible to the office of Mayor of the city, unless he has forged a draft, and got the money on it; and, on at least two separate occasions, set fire to his house, to get the insurance.
Candidates for Aldermen qualify themselves by carrying a revolver, getting beastly drunk, and stabbing a policeman or two before they can get sober.
A Common Councilman must drink with the Short Boys, give prizes to the Firemen"s Target Excursion, carry a slung-shot in his pocket, and have a personal interest in a Peter Funk auction shop.
A police Justice must gamble a little, cheat a considerable, lie a good deal, and get drunk "clear through" every Sat.u.r.day night; if he can read easy words, and write his name, it is generally no serious objection; but the Know Nothings will not permit even this accomplishment, on the plea that the science of letters is of foreign origin.
A man who can pick pockets scientifically, will make a good constable.
Aspirants to minor offices are cla.s.sified according to desert, but no one who has not at least committed pet.i.t larceny, is allowed a place on any regular ticket.
As to offices of more importance, I should say from what I can now judge, that no man can ever be elected Governor of the State, unless he is guilty of a successful burglary, complicated with a midnight murder.
The rival candidates in this present crisis, had called each other all the names, and accused each other of all the crimes imaginable, for the preceding six weeks.
Boggs had been denounced as the plunderer of orphans, and seducer of innocent maidens, and the pilferer of hard-earned coppers from the poor.
Noggs, according to his charitable opponents, was a pickpocket, a sheepstealer, a Peter Funk, and an Irishman.
The candidate set up by the Know Nothings, to claim votes on the plea of his being an immaculate American, was proved to be the child of a French father, and a Prussian mother, and to have been born in Calcutta--it was a.s.serted that he commenced his education in the northern part of Ethiopia, continued it in Dublin, and finally graduated at Botany Bay.
Hoggs, who had once before held the office he was now striving for, it was a.s.serted, had solemnly promised to pardon all the murderers, liberate all the burglars, reward all the a.s.sa.s.sins, and present all the shoulder hitters with an official certificate of good moral character, which should also testify to their valuable and highly commendable exertions in the public behalf.
Scroggs, too virtuous to be severely handled, was merely mentioned as having been formerly a swindler, and a member of the Common Council.
Got to the polls; man with a blue flag urged me to go for Boggs; man with a red flag said vote for Scroggs; man with a white flag with black letters sung out "Go for Hoggs"--little boy pulled my coat tails and whispered, "Vote for Noggs."
Man challenged my vote, took off my hat, held up my hand, and swore to all sorts of things, told how old I am, where I get my dinners, and what my washerwoman"s name is; got mad and did a little extra swearing on my own account, which was not "down in the bill;" marched up in a grand procession of one, and poked my vote in the little hole.
The great excitement was on the liquor question; it was Noggs, and no liquor shops, or Boggs, and a few liquor shops, Scroggs, and plenty of liquor shops, or Hoggs, and every man his own liquor shop.
Voted for Hoggs, for I feel perfectly justified in taking an occasional toddy, when all Wall street is perpetually "tight."
Noise on the corner, n.i.g.g.e.r boy playing big drum--candidates presented themselves to the sovereign people for inspection.
Know Nothing man on a native jacka.s.s, cap of liberty on his head, and his pantaloons made of the American flag, with the stripes running the wrong way.
Independent candidate, who wants the Irish vote and Dutch suffrages, entered, borne in a mortar hod, bare-footed, with a shillelagh in one hand, a whiskey bottle in the other, a Dutch pipe in his mouth, and a small barrel of beer strapped to his back.
Cold water man stood on a hydrant with the water turned on, and had his pockets full of icicles.
Whiskey man brought in drunk on a cart by admiring friends, who besought the crowd to do as he did, go it blind.
Special deputy, who wanted to be appointed policeman, was very active; he arrested an apple-woman, knocked down a cripple, kicked a little boy, looked the other way while his const.i.tuents were picking pockets, and took a little match girl up an alley and boxed her ears for presuming to show herself in the street without shoes and stockings,--motto on his hat, "_sic itur ad astra_," Go it or you"ll never be a star.
Irish woman, with a big bag of potatoes on her head, came up to vote--she said Dennis was sick, (drunk) but as Mr. Hoggs had paid for his vote, she had brought it herself, in order that it might not be lost. She was, with difficulty, choked off by the heroic aspirant to the civic star.
Whiskey man began to fall behind; messenger sent to Randall"s Island, and one to Blackwell"s ditto, for aid.
Fresh caught Irishman came up--been but fifteen minutes off the ship "Pauper"s Refuge," but was brought up by the bullies to vote for whiskey man--Know Nothing man challenged him--he swore he was twenty-seven years old, had always lived in this country--ten years in Maine--eleven in South Carolina--eight in Maryland, and the last nine years of his life he had spent in this city. Said he was a full-blooded American; that his father was a New Hampshire farmer, and his mother a Mohawk squaw; that they had separated three years before he was born, and had never seen each other since.
Inspector, who was a friend of whiskey man, received his ballot. (Paddy had slipped in two others with his left hand, while his right was on the book taking the oath.) His kind friends took him by turns into eighteen different wards, in every one of which he deposited a whiskey vote, and swore it in; after the polls were closed and he couldn"t vote any more, they sent him to the station-house for being "drunk and disorderly."
Elated with their success in this instance, the B"hoys now brought up a newly imported Dutchman, who could only grin idiotically and say "Yaw."
Inspector asks--"Are you a voter?"
"Yaw."
"Are you twenty-one years old?"
"Yaw."
"Do you live in this city?"
"Yaw."
Here one of Noggs"s friends culpably interposed, evidently with the desire of ridiculing the august proceedings, and asked:
"Have you got thirty-one wives?"--another man asked if he had his hat full of saur-krout--and a third was anxious to be informed if he could stand on his head and smoke a pipe, and balance a potash kettle on his heels to all of which he placidly responded "Yaw."
Inspector hurried to the rescue, and put the test question:
"Do you vote for Hoggs?" and receiving the same complacent "Yaw," he took his vote, and shoved him aside.
All sorts of odd customers came up to deposit their ballots, but it is a remarkable fact that if they wanted to vote for Boggs, Scroggs, or Noggs, or, in fact, any one but Hoggs, they were sure to be crowded, shoved, and hustled, and generally left the room with b.l.o.o.d.y noses, and their ballots still in their hands.
Fun grew fast and furious; whiskey man ahead, but wanted tremendous majority; the pauper forces of Randall"s Island, visiting the city for that occasion only, came up and voted.
This last trick is getting stale, and whoever is elected this time will probably have it denounced as a diabolical invention of the opposite faction, and have a sharp watch kept over these individuals until his own term of office runs out, and he is announced as a candidate for re-election; which circ.u.mstance will blind his eyes for a while unless his opponents bring them over to the other side, when he will turn state"s evidence, and expose the whole trick to his const.i.tuents.