Always wanting to relieve somebody of a burden, you see! * * * * * WHISKERED, TO PLEASE THE LADIES AND GET VOTES. As Mr. Lincoln was utterly unknown in the East, the "engineers" of his campaign for President planned to have him make himself liked by a tour of the Middle and Northern States. To lessen the impression from one unprepossessing in aspect, "some fixing up" was compulsory. The journalist, Stephen Fiske, recites that on arriving at New York, Mrs. Lincoln, a sort of valet for the trip, had hand-bag of toilet essentials, and that she "brushed his hair, and arranged that snaky black necktie of his--which would twist up and play the shoe-string in five minutes after adjustment. But it was not she, as thought, who coaxed him into making the lower part of his features become cavernous as strong feeling surged upon him. He revealed the source of the improvement. "Two young ladies in Buffalo wrote me that they wanted their fathers and sweethearts to vote for me, but I was so homely-looking that the men refused! The ladies said that if I would only grow whiskers (what were called "weepers," or the Lord Dundreary mode, was popular) it would improve my appearance, and I would get four more votes! I grew the whiskers!" (In the Lincoln iconology, his pictures before and after the whiskers is a distinction.) * * * * * AFTER VOTES. Lincoln had become the readiest of public speakers by his long experience. So it was matter for surprise that he, famed for rapid repartee, should have refrained from taking any notice of an interrupter whose shout could have been turned on him; so thought a friend on the platform. "Why don't you answer him?" "I am after votes and that man's is as good as any other man's!" replied Mr. Lincoln. (The Honorable Mr. Palmer says of above: "Mr. Lincoln told me this.") * * * * * THE HIGHWAYMAN'S NON SEQUITUR. "But you will not abide the election of a Republican President? In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool! A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth: 'Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you--and then you will be a murderer!'"--(Speech, New York City, February 27, 1860.) * * * * * "HOW TO GET MEN TO VOTE!" "Let them go on with their howling! (Political opponents.) They will succeed when, by slandering women, you get them to love you, or by slandering men you get them to vote for you!" * * * * * BEGINNING AT THE HEAD WITH CLOTHING. Upon Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 1860, a hatter sent him a silk hat for the advertisement and send-off. He put it on before the glass, and said to his wife: "Well, Mary, we are going to have some new clothes out of this job, anyway!" * * * * *