At twelve o'clock on the morning of the election Mr. Hart was declared by his own committee to be nine ahead, and was admitted to be six ahead by Mr. Cornbury's committee. But the Cornbury folk asserted confidently that in this they saw certain signs of success. Their supporters were not men who could be whipped up to the poll early in the day, whereas Hart's voters were all, more or less, under control, and had been driven up hurriedly to the hustings so as to make this early show of numbers. Mr. Hart was about everywhere speaking, and so was Butler Cornbury; but in the matter of oratory I am bound to acknowledge that the Jew had by much the mastery over the Christian. There are a class of men,--or rather more than a class, a section of mankind,--to whom a power of easy expression by means of spoken words comes naturally. English country gentlemen, highly educated as they are, undaunted as they usually are, self-confident as they in truth are at the bottom, are clearly not in this section. Perhaps they are further removed from it, considering the advantages they have for such speaking, than any other class of men in England,--or I might almost say elsewhere. The fact, for it is a fact, that some of the greatest orators whom the world has known have been found in this class, does not in any degree affect the truth of my proposition. The best grapes in the world are perhaps grown in England, though England is not a land of grapes. And for the same reason. The value of the thing depends upon its rarity, and its value instigates the efforts for excellence. The power of vocal expression which seems naturally to belong to an American is to an ordinary Englishman very marvellous; but in America the talking man is but little esteemed. "Very wonderful power of delivery,--that of Mr. So-and-So," says the Englishman, speaking of an American. "Guess we don't think much of that kind of thing here," says the Yankee. "There's a deal too much of that coin in circulation." English country gentlemen are not to be classed among that section of mankind which speaks easily in public, but Jews, I think, may be so classed. The men who speak thus easily and with natural fluency, are also they who learn languages easily. They are men who observe rather than think, who remember rather than create, who may not have great mental powers, but are ever ready with what they have, whose best word is at their command at a moment, and is then serviceable though perhaps incapable of more enduring service.