Democratic blunders thrust the sectional issue needlessly to the fore. Mr. Cleveland's willingness to return to their respective States the Confederate flags captured by Union regiments in the civil war; his fishing trip on Memorial Day; the choice of Mr. Mills, a Texan, to lead the tariff fight in Congress; and the prominence of southerners among the Democratic campaign orators at the North, were themes of countless diatribes. A clever Republican device, known as "the Murchison letter," did a great deal to impress thoughtless voters that Mr. Cleveland was "un-American." The incident was dramatic and farcical to a degree. The Murchison letter, which interested the entire country for two or three weeks, purported to come from a perplexed Englishman, addressing the British Minister at Washington, Lord Sackville-West. It sought counsel of Her Majesty's representative, as the "fountainhead of knowledge," upon "the mysterious subject" how best to serve England in voting at the approaching American election. The seeker after light recounted President Cleveland's kindness to England in not enforcing the retaliatory act then recently passed by Congress as its ultimatum in the fisheries dispute, his soundness on the free trade question, and his hostility to the "dynamite schools of Ireland." The writer set Mr. Harrison down as a painful contrast to the President. He was "a high-tariff man, a believer on the American side of all questions, and undoubtedly, an enemy to British interests generally." But the inquirer professes alarm at Cleveland's message on the fishery question which had just been sent to Congress, and wound up with the query "whether Mr. Cleveland's policy is temporary only, and whether he will, as soon as he secures another term of four years in the presidency, suspend it for one of friendship and free trade." [Illustration: Portrait.] Lord L. S. Sackville-West. The Minister replied: