general election its members were told to knife Mr. Bryan whenever they wished. It is the most persistent and thoroughly equipped warrior in our political lists. There is not a square foot of New York City that it does not know. On the day before election it is able always to tell within a fraction the number of votes it will poll. Every member is forced to go to his voting place and deposit his ballot. The political preference of every man in every precinct of every ward is known. Its agents are everywhere and always at work. It spends money like water. It is quick to reward and fierce to punish. It has no sentiment. It battles for so much place, so much power and the handling of so many dollars. If it wins, its spoils are promptly and equitably divided. Against such a machine, so intelligently and mercilessly handled, a divided enemy is almost certain beaten. The Republican party of New York and the respectability of New York are able to defeat Tammany when they go hand in hand, but only when they go hand in hand. It is to be feared that the chasm between them in the present campaign is not to be bridged. Their active and unscrupulous foeman may be trusted to leave no stone unturned and no device untried. Chicago, Ill., October 1. * * * THE HON. BARDWELL SLOTE, OF COHOSH. BY JUNIUS. The man whom poor dead Billy Florence used to make the dominant, laughter-breeding memory-haunting figure in "The Almighty Dollar," is with us still. He infests Washington for many months of each year. He saves the country with persistency. I purpose to tell of him as I have known him. A residence of three years in the Capital City and a daily converse with its legislators has convinced me that nearly all congressmen are Bardwell Slotes, more or less. It is a fact that to a dweller in the District of Columbia there are no great men. Washington people are valets to these heroes. They get to know them with their rouge and corsets off. The sight is not pretty, but it is instructive. Sometimes it fills a man with despair of the future of this country. It convinces him that the greatest republic of history cannot hold together for another century. It makes him think that statesmanship is dead, never to resurge, and that its place is taken by narrow foul politics. But generally mirth comes as a relief. There is so much of the ridiculous in the modern American Cicero or Catiline that one's visions of his shortcomings is blurred by the tears that laughter brings. In nine cases out of ten the man sent to Washington to represent his people is uneducated. In the tenth case he is ill-bred. I once showed to twenty congressmen the following stanza, asking them to translate it. "Le bruit est pour le fat, La painte est pour le sot, L'honnete homme s'eloigne trompe, Et ne dit pas mot."