All seemed so utterly out of keeping with the fondest hopes and expectations of the sagacious chieftains of Democracy, that incredulity was stamped upon every countenance. It seemed to be utterly beyond the comprehension of the wisest of the political world of both parties, that, possibly, they had been treating an unknown and unappreciated disease, the nature whereof they had failed to recognize. The result was not compatible with any established theory of either party. The people had evinced such utter disregard for all the old arguments and well-tried remedies, that it dumbfounded the physicians who pretend to minister to the wants of the nation. From such unsuspected quarters, and in such ridiculous proportions, had come the disapproval of the people, that all were at sea; some wrapping themselves in their own glory, proclaiming, like Cock Robin, “I did it, with my little bow and arrow;” others, seeking to shield themselves behind the transparent, fragile shield of another’s fault: “He did it, his unpopularity;” “Protection did it; it was his policy;” each trying to escape the general stampede, occasioned by the long-suppressed indignation of the people who objected, not so much to the economic doctrines of the Republican party (not that they had become converted to the tenets of the Democratic faith), but to that crime of “caste” which, with its many ramifications in the whole mass of society, was causing them unhappiness. It is not well for the Democratic party to lay the flattering unction to its soul, that the mass of the people had become converted to the principles enunciated by that party in Chicago, at the Convention where Mr. Cleveland was nominated. It would be as delusive and disappointing to them, in some future election, as it has proved to the Republican party upon the occasion of their late discomfiture. On the other hand, the Republican party should be well convinced, by its downfall, that the people will not endure the wrapping up, in silken garments, of the progeny of the deformed and diseased state of European society, palming the enshrouded babe off as an offspring of that land that lit the torch of freedom for the world. CHAPTER IV. SOCIETY AS THE PEOPLE FOUND IT, NOVEMBER 8, 1892. Society, as the people found it, on last election day, was certainly not as attractive as that autocratic gentleman, the distinguished Ward McAllister found it, and has helped to make it, as related by him in a book which has been published with much flourish of trumpets, entitled “Society as _I_ Have Found It.”