I do not aver that these stories were true. I only know that they passed current and were not challenged by those who were around us. "Thoughtful persons," who exist in the United States as well as in the vicinity of Pall Mall clubs, lament, deplore and hate the evils of growing corruption with all the fervour of honest and powerless natures. The mechanism is scarcely concealed. It stands before the world with less attempt at disguise than the gallows in the gaol. Mr. Parton, in the 'North American Review' of this July, writing on the power of public plunder, says: "At present, in the ninety-fifth year of the Constitution, we are face to face with a state of politics of extreme simplicity, of which money is the motive, the means and the end. What was the last Presidential election but a contest of purses? The longest purse carried the day, and it carried the day because it was the longest. Some innocent readers perhaps have wondered why the famous orators who swayed vast multitudes day after day and night after night, have not been recognised in the distribution of office. They were paid in cash from ten dollars a night to a thousand dollars a week." And then he goes on to describe the business in detail, and to show what this power is. He says: "There is a boss in the city of New York who will take a contract for putting a gentleman into Congress. Pay him so much and you may go to sleep, wake up and find yourself member elect. A boss is a man who can get to the polls on election days masses of voters who care little or nothing for the issues of the campaign and know of them still less. They operate upon the strangers in the land who are unable to use its language and are unacquainted with its politics." Mr. Parton describes with humour one of these "bosses," an improvement on the pugilists and cormorant thieves of a remote period. "The Emerald Isle gave him birth; the streets of New York, education. To see the brawny, good-tempered Irishman walking abroad in his district when politics are active is to get an idea of how the chief of a clan strode his native heath when a marauding expedition was on foot. He lives in a handsome house, and has more property than any man has ever been able to get by legitimate service to the United States. He treats his dependants and retainers nobly, but as the agent and organiser of spoliation he is a prey to every minor scoundrel, for at certain seasons he dare not say no to any living creature. And yet it requires tact, self-possession and resource to move about among needy people with a pocket full of money, an embodied "yes," and have some of it left after the election. The strikers, as they are called, go for solid cash now instead of target companies and clambakes for which the candidates paid the bills." "Money, money," exclaims Mr. Parton, "everywhere in politics, in prodigal abundance, money, except where it could secure and reward good service for the