He was a man of paramount influence at home, for he was public spirited, he was chief of the fire department, he had an admirable command of profane language, and had killed several “parties.”  His shirt fronts were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a pound; the gold in his finger ring was worth forty five dollars; he wore a diamond cluster-pin and he parted his hair behind.  He had always been, regarded as the most elegant gentleman in his territory, and it was conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired governor himself.  The Hon. Higgins had not come to serve his country in Washington for nothing.  The appropriation which he had engineered through Congress for the maintenance, of the Indians in his Territory would have made all those savages rich if it had ever got to them.

The Hon. Mrs. Higgins was a picturesque woman, and a fluent talker, and she held a tolerably high station among the Parvenus.  Her English was fair enough, as a general thing—­though, being of New York origin, she had the fashion peculiar to many natives of that city of pronouncing saw and law as if they were spelt sawr and lawr.

Petroleum was the agent that had suddenly transformed the Gashlys from modest hard-working country village folk into “loud” aristocrats and ornaments of the city.

The Hon. Patrique Oreille was a wealthy Frenchman from Cork.  Not that he was wealthy when he first came from Cork, but just the reverse.  When he first landed in New York with his wife, he had only halted at Castle Garden for a few minutes to receive and exhibit papers showing that he had resided in this country two years—­and then he voted the democratic ticket and went up town to hunt a house.  He found one and then went to work as assistant to an architect and builder, carrying a hod all day and studying politics evenings.  Industry and economy soon enabled him to start a low rum shop in a foul locality, and this gave him political influence.  In our country it is always our first care to see that our people have the opportunity of voting for their choice of men to represent and govern them—­we do not permit our great officials to appoint the little officials.  We prefer to have so tremendous a power as that in our own hands.  We hold it safest to elect our judges and everybody else.  In our cities, the ward meetings elect delegates to the nominating conventions and instruct them whom to nominate.  The publicans and their retainers rule the ward meetings (for every body else hates the worry of politics and stays at home); the delegates from the ward meetings organize as a nominating convention and make up a list of candidates—­one convention offering a democratic and another a republican list of incorruptibles; and then the great meek public come forward at the proper time and make unhampered choice and bless Heaven that they live in a free land where no form of despotism can ever intrude.