To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and institutions towards the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say frankly that they owe it to themselves. I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into the reception-room and wait for people to come and feel my pulse. In the afternoon I lie down on a lounge for two or three hours, wondering in what way I can endear myself to the laboring man. I then dine heartily at my club. In the evening I go to see the amateurs play "Pygmalion and Galatea." As I remain till the play is over, any one can see that I am a very robust man. After I get home I write two or three thousand words in my diary. I then insert myself into the bosom of my piano and sleep, having first removed my clothes and ironed my trousers for future reference. In closing, let me urge one and all to renewed effort. The prospects for a speedy and unqualified victory at the polls were never more roseate. Let us select a man upon whom we can all unite, a man who has no venom in him, a man who has successfully defied and trampled on the infamous Interstate Commerce act, a man who, though in the full flush and pride and bloom and fluff of life's meridian, still disdains to present his name to the convention. Lines ON HEARING A COW BAWL, IN A DEEP FIT OF DEJECTION, ON THE EVENING OF JULY 3, A. D. 18-- [Illustration] Portentous sound! mysteriously vast And awful in the grandeur of refrain That lifts the listener's hair, as it swells past, And pours in turbid currents down the lane. The small boy at the woodpile, in a dream Slow trails the meat-rind o'er the listless saw; The chickens roosting o'er him on the beam Uplifted their drowsy heads with cootered awe. The "Gung-oigh" of the pump is strangely stilled; The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly, Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy. Yet I would join thy sorrowing madrigal, Most melancholy cow, and sing of thee Full-hearted through my tears, for, after all 'Tis very kine of you to sing for me. Me and Mary