It is this that gives the liquor-sellers their enormous influence in politics. Preparatory to the general election of 1884, there were held in the various districts of New York ten hundred and seven primaries and political conventions of all parties, and of these no less than six hundred and thirty-three took place in liquor-saloons,--a showing that leaves small ground for wonder at the low average grade of the nominees. The reason for such a condition of things is perfectly evident: it is because the liquor-saloons are places of social resort for the same men who turn the local political organizations into social clubs. Bar-tenders form perhaps the nearest approach to a leisure class that we have at present on this side of the water. Naturally they are on semi-intimate terms with all who frequent their houses. There is no place where more gossip is talked than in bar-rooms, and much of this gossip is about politics,--that is, the politics of the ward, not of the nation. The tariff and the silver question may be alluded to and civil-service reform may be incidentally damned, but the real interest comes in discussing the doings of the men with whom they are personally acquainted: why Billy so-and-so, the alderman, has quarrelled with his former chief supporter; whether “old man X” has really managed to fix the delegates to a given convention; the reason why one faction bolted at the last primary; and if it is true that a great down-town boss who has an intimate friend of opposite political faith running in an up-town district has forced the managers of his own party to put up a man of straw against him. The bar-keeper is a man of much local power, and is, of course, hail-fellow-well-met with his visitors, as he and they can be of mutual assistance to one another. Even if of different politics, their feelings towards each other are influenced purely by personal considerations; and, indeed, this is true of most of the smaller bosses as regards their dealings among themselves, for, as one of them once remarked to me with enigmatic truthfulness, “there are no politics in politics” of the lower sort--which, being interpreted, means that a professional politician is much less apt to be swayed by the fact of a man’s being a Democrat or a Republican than he is by his being a personal friend or foe. The liquor-saloons thus become the social head-quarters of the little knots or cliques of men who take most interest in local political affairs; and by an easy transition they become the political head-quarters when the time for preparing for the elections arrives; and, of course, the good-will of the owners of the places is thereby propitiated,--an important point with men striving to control every vote possible.