Curiosity now prompted me to enter into the thickest of the throng; and I had never seen such fury in the maddest contests between old George Clinton and Mr. Jay, or De Witt Clinton and Governor Tompkins, in my native State. They each reproached their adversaries in the coarsest language, and attributed to them the vilest principles and motives. Our guide farther told us that the same persons, with two others, had been candidates last year, when the schoolmaster prevailed; and, as the supporters of the other two unsuccessful candidates had to choose now between the remaining two, each party was perpetually reproaching the other with inconsistency. A dialogue between two individuals of opposite sides, which we happened to hear, will serve as a specimen of the rest. "Are you not a pretty fellow to vote for Bald-head, whom you have so often called rogue and blockhead?" "It becomes you to talk of consistency, indeed! Pray, sir, how does it happen that you are now against him, when you were so lately sworn friends, and used to eat out of the same dish?" "Yes; but I was the butcher's friend too. I never abused him. You'll never catch me supporting a man I have once abused." "But I catch you abusing the man you once supported, which is rather worse. The difference between us is this:--you professed to be friendly to both; I professed to be hostile to both: you stuck to one of your friends, and cast the other off; and I acted the same towards my enemies." A crowd then rushed by, crying "Huzza for the Butcher's knives! Damn pen and ink--damn the books, and all that read in them! Butchers' knives and beef for ever!" We asked our guide what these men were to gain by the issue of the contest. "Nineteenths of them nothing. But a few hope to be made deputies, if their candidates succeed, and they therefore egg on the rest."