Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office DepartmentHolbrook, James
History
Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department
Holbrook, James
Postal service -- United States
"Here," said the merciless reviewer, with genuine satire, "here is
a beautiful instance of love and harmony in political life! Here
is prophecy fulfilled. 'The lion and the lamb shall lie down
together, and a little child shall lead them.' Savage--rightly
named--is the lion. Blake--innocent, harmless, dove-like Blake,
who never did anything wrong, is the lamb; and Atkins is the
little boy. He leads them into sweet pastures of public office;
and gives them to drink of Congress water and post-office pap. O
happy trio! O honest and consistent coalition!
"What makes the union appear all the more admirable, is the fact
that the most discordant elements have here been made to blend and
intermingle. Savage is a moderate drinker, who loves his wine at
dinner, and his punch before going to bed. Atkins is a stiff and
uncompromising temperance man. One is Maine law, the other is
anti-Maine law. As for Blake, he is sometimes one, sometimes both,
and sometimes neither one thing nor the other. But Atkins supports
Savage, Savage supports Blake, and they all support each other.
"Now, as our grandmother used to say, 'wherever you see a
turnip-top growing, you may be sure that there's a turnip at the
bottom of it. Large or small, it's still a turnip.' Now, we have
long admired the luxuriance of Savage, Atkins, Blake & Co.'s
turnip-tops. We have recently been looking for the turnip, and lo!
here it is! Who secured Savage's re-election? Blake, when at the
last county convention of the Maine Laws, he advised them not to
make an independent temperance ticket for Congress. Who devoted
his paper to the cause of the moderate drinker? Atkins. Who got
Blake the post-office? Atkins and Savage. But what are Savage and
Blake doing for Atkins all this time? Is Atkins so unselfish as to
work for them gratis? Nobody believes it! Where then does the milk
in the cocoa-nut come from? Let us see.
"In the first place--we have it on the authority of an old lady
who knows the genealogy of every family in the county, and can
trace most people's ancestry back to Noah--Blake is Atkins's
second cousin. There's one point. Now for another. Blake owns
three-fourths of the entire Goblet printing establishment, and
holds the property in such a way, that he can any day take the
paper into his own hands, and manage it to suit himself!
Therefore, whoever edits the Goblet, is Blake's tributary. We were
going to say tool or slave, but concluded to sacrifice truth to
politeness. Thus it happens that Atkins is only as it were Blake's
left hand," &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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