asks our suffrages on his family’s merits rather than his own. “Gentlemen, I am not one to disregard any claim which a man, who has in any way served his country, makes upon his own merits. To such a man I reckon it an impertinence to ask any question as to his pedigree. But when a young man says to me, Elect me, because I am my father’s son, I ask, Is it certain that he is the son of the man he claims as father? All that we know of his history is against it. His reputed father has studiously kept out of the way. Why, if he is Richard Ross’s son, whom we all know, is not Richard Ross here to acknowledge him? Instead of Richard Ross, we have nothing but a fond old man who has adopted an ingratiating boy. Lord Eskside has a right to adopt whom he pleases; but he has no right to set up some base-born pretender--some chance child thrown on his bounty--as the heir of his honours and the representative of his family. Will you send to Parliament, as a Ross of Eskside, an old man’s pet and pensioner, a supposititious heir? or will you not rather demand a searching inquiry into a history so mysterious, before you strengthen, by your election of him, the pretended rights of an impostor? He may be an innocent impostor, for I say nothing against the young man in his own person; but until his claims have been investigated, and some reasonable evidence afforded, an impostor he must be considered by all Eskside men whose ambition it is to have everything about them honest and above-board. “AN ESKSIDE ELECTOR.” “The demons!” cried Lady Eskside. Hot tears were shining in her eyes, forced there by pressure of rage and shame. She clenched her hand in spite of herself. “Oh, the word’s not bad enough! Devils themselves would have more heart.” “It’s Sandy Pringle’s doing,” said the old lord. “I thought he was too mim and mild. He’s been preparing it these dozen years; and now the moment’s come, and he’s struck home.” “It’s too bad for Sandy Pringle,” said the old lady, pushing her chair from the table. “Oh no, no; it’s too bad for that; the man has bairns of his own.” And the tears ran down her cheeks with sheer pain. “We were never ill to anybody,” she moaned; “never hard-hearted that I know of. Oh, my poor old lord!--just when your heart was light, and you had your way!”