The custodian of great wealth, he uses it in a spirit of wise benevolence, and his public and private benefactions, while large, are made without ostentation or affectation. Affable, approachable, companionable, devoted and faithful in his personal friendships, it is little wonder that some of them now and then impulsively speak of him as "the best man in the world." In the full vigor of a robust manhood, Mr. Ames attends to his vast private business affairs, performs faithfully his official and public duties, finds time for his favorite authors, and keeps fully abreast with current thought and the progress of the age. His brow is yet unwrinkled and cares rest lightly upon him. Free from the pride of wealth, temperate, conservative, clear-headed, and distinguished for his strong common sense, his generous, unsuspicious nature, and unswerving fidelity to the interests committed to his trust justly win for him a multitude of friends. Faithful in his devotion to the principles of the Republican party, and in his services to his native Commonwealth, Massachusetts has reason for a just pride in her Lieutenant Governor. His name may yet stand the Republican party of the State in good stead in a political exigency not unlikely to arise in the near future. Whatever may be said of the causes of the defection from the Republican ranks which took place in the last national campaign, there is no doubt about one of its results,--it has driven the Republican party to seek a closer alliance with the working-people of the Commonwealth. The Republican bolters were almost exclusively drawn from the aristocratic end of the party. It was Harvard and Beacon Hill that revolted. To make good the loss the Republican leaders had to appeal for support to the same class of voters which gave to Republican principles their first triumphs,--the intelligent mechanics and artisans, the laboring men. However many or few of the deserters of 1884 may re-join the standard now that Mr. Blaine is defeated it is not likely that for many years to come, if ever, the Republican party in Massachusetts will be able, to lean upon the immense majorities of former years, that ran away up to sixty, seventy, and eighty thousand. With a Democratic administration installed at Washington, and the power and prestige which that fact will imply and apply in the local politics of the States,--and in no State more powerfully than in Massachusetts, where the shifting body of Independent voters, so-called, is largely made up of the Hessian element that will incline to whichever side has spoils to bestow,--the Republican party in order to hold Massachusetts will have to cultivate and strengthen the alliance which it formed in the late election with the laboring class of voters. It will have to revert to the sympathetic and liberal policy touching all questions that affect labor, and the welfare of the working people of the State, which marked the earlier years of its power. The