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, nigger boy playing big drum—candidates presented themselves to the sovereign people for inspection.
Know Nothing man on a native jackass, 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 constituents 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.