“Why,” sais I, “skilful politicians, who so arrange the electoral districts of a State, that in an election one party may obtain an advantage over its opponent, even though the latter may possess a majority of the votes in the State; the truth is, it would be a long story to go through, but we are corrupted by our liberals with our own money, that’s a fact. Would you believe it now, that so long ago as six years, and that is a great while in our history seein’ we are growing at such a rate, there were sixty thousand offices in the gift of the general government, and patronage to the extent of more than forty million of dollars, besides official pickings and parquisites, which are nearly as much more in the aggregate? Since then it has grown with our growth. Or would you believe that a larger sum is assessed in the city of New York, than would cover the expenses of the general government at Washington? Constructive mileage may be considered as the principle of the party, and literally runs through everything.”
“What strange terms you have, Mr Slick,” said he; “do pray tell me what that is.”
“Snooping and stool-pidgeoning,” sais I.
“Constructive mileage, snooping and stool-pidgeoning!” said he, and he put his hands on his ribs, and running round in a circle, laughed until he nearly fell on the ground fairly tuckered out, “what do you mean?”
“Constructive mileage,” says I, “is the same allowance for journeys supposed to be performed as for those that are actually made, to and from the seat of government. When a new president comes into office, Congress adjourns of course on the third of March, and his inauguration is made on the fourth; the senate is immediately convened to act on his nominations, and though not a man of them leaves Washington, each is supposed to go home and return again in the course of the ten or twelve hours that intervene between the adjournment and their reassembling. For this ideal journey the senators are allowed their mileages, as if the journey was actually made. In the case of those who come from a distance, the sum often amounts, individually, to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Why, Mr Slick,” said he, “that ain’t honest.”
“Honest,” said I, “who the plague ever said it was? but what can you expect from red republicans? Well, snooping means taking things on the sly after a good rumage; and stool-pidgeoning means plundering under cover of law; for instance, if a judge takes a bribe, or a fellow is seized by a constable, and the stolen property found on him is given up, the merciful officer seizes the goods and lets him run, and that is all that ever is heard of it—that is stool-pidgeoning. But now,” sais I, “sposin’ we take a survey of the place here, for in a general way I don’t affection politics, and as for party leaders, whether English reformers or American democrats, critters that are dyed in the wool, I hate the whole caboodle of them. Now, having donated you with my reasons for being a conservative, sposin’ you have a row yourself. What do you consider best worth seeing here, if you can be said to see a place when it don’t exist? for the English did sartainly deacon the calf1 here, that’s a fact. They made them smell cotton, and gave them partikilar Moses, and no mistake.”
1 To deacon a calf, is to knock a thing on the head as soon as born or finished.
“Of the doings of the dead,” he said, “all that is around us has a melancholy interest; but of the living there is a most extraordinary old fellow that dwells in that white house on the opposite side of the harbour. He can tell us all the particulars of the two sieges, and show us the site of most of the public buildings; he is filled with anecdotes of all the principal actors in the sad tragedies that have been enacted here; but he labours under a most singular monomania. Having told these stories so often he now believes that he was present at the first capture of the fortress, under Colonel Pepperal and the New England militia in 1745, and at the second in 1754, when it was taken by Generals Amherst and Wolfe. I suppose he may be ninety years of age; the first event must have happened therefore nineteen and the other six years before he was born; in everything else his accuracy of dates and details is perfectly astonishing.”
“Massa,” said Sorrow, “I don’t believe he is nuffin’ but a reeblushionary suspensioner (a revolutionary pensioner), but it peers to me dem folks do libb for ebber. My poor old missus used to call ’em King George’s hard bargains, yah, yah, yah. But who comma dere, Massa?” said he, pointing to a boat that was rapidly approaching the spot where we stood.