planning the world's redemption and giving him a few pointers for those political harangues which he has substituted for the Sermon on the Mount, and was sleeping as though pneumatic tired, when suddenly awakened by A terrible rattle and rumble and roar,

As tho' hell had broke loose once more,

And Sheridan down in Texas.

I thought at first that Uncle William Cameron had caught his Arizona nephew, or that Fitzsimmons' lion was devouring the cypress man on Main street. It was only Jim Lawlor's big dogs baying the royal beast, and Capt. Alsdorf Faulkner, who inadvertently strayed into the arena, protesting that he was no Roman gladiator.

The ostensible cause of all this clamor is the financial question; but it is in reality the official "phat." The udders are not sufficiently numerous to accommodate all the hungry pigs; hence there is much squealing and scrougeing; those before kicking up behnd, those behind rearing up before the "ins" determined to remain in, the "outs "noisily impatient for a turn at the public teat. The one must have an excuse for holding on, the other a pretext for pulling the public udder out of the Culberson crowd and inserting it in itself. Such is the situation.

I opine that the contestants for public pap will find it impossible to "fool all the people all the time "—that while they are wrangling anent who shall mouth and mumble the public teat, the Populist calf will get in its gentle graft .and fill itself so full of the lacteal fluid that it will resemble a Galveston mosquito that has slept with a fat man. The Texas Democracy reminds me of the Reuben who left his mule standing in the middle of the road while he adjourned to an adjacent field to have a fit. A careful farmer, after watching the fellow's convulsions a few minutes, concluded that he'd have no further use for the mule and proceeded

to appropriate it. When the Texas Democracy comes out of its convulsions its mule will be missing.

It makes not the slightest difference whether the party holds one convention or a dozen-whether it sends a delegation to Chicago instructed for mono-metalism, bimetalism or trimetalism, gold, silver, greenbacks or wildcat currency. The world would probably go on just as well-and with much less noise-if it sent no delegation at all. The party will put forth for president the man who stands the best show of making a winning, regardless of his views anent anything in the heavens or the earth, or the waters under the earth. That is "practical politics." The chief end and aim of national conventions is the public fleshpots, political principle being a secondary consideration that may be altogether dispensed with in a pinch. The business of such a convocation is not to consider what the country needs, but rather what a particular joblot of professional pap-suckers want, and the easiest way to obtain it. It considers the "availability" of candidates rather than their fitness, and devotes its best energies to the construction of a platform that will appeal to the sentiment of the largest possible number of suckers. If the Democratic nominee is elected-which is not at all likely he will be governed by "conditions" rather than "theories ”—will pursue his own " policy " without much regard to platform pledges. Latter-day presidents have been prone to regard platform "planks" much as Sara Bernhardt does the Decalogue. Being asked if there should be an Eleventh Commandment, she promptly replied that there were ten too many already. Congressmen will do as they have ever done-reflect the prejudices and predilections of their constituents rather than enforce the edict of the national party; hence all this hullabaloo anent committing the Texas Democracy to some particular system of federal

finance is the sheerest folly-scarce rises to the economic level of a nigger debate anent forms of baptism or foreordination. Were the American people not infinitely better than the gangs in charge of the various partisan machines, we would soon see the end of the Republic.

"Democratic policy!" "Platform pledges "-rodents! Jno. J. Ingalls blurted out the unpalatable truth when he 'declared "honesty in politics an iridescent dream.” What's a platform for but to get in on? If the Texas contingent in congress is on the Chicago platform of '92, where doth the lord of the cuckoos appear? And if his three hundred pound avoirdupois be planted squarely on the median line, what kind of political heretics are a majority of our Democratic governors? Yet Dudley imagines the fate of worlds depends on his ability to patch up a free silver delegation, while Hardy is sweating blood lest the soaptails succeed in their hellish design upon our monetary system! There is much running to and fro—on free railway passes-caucusing and consultation, whereasing and resoluting the people meanwhile reading the ICONOCLAST and planting hogs, blessedly unconscious that they are passing through a monetary maelstrom, a crisis in human history.

If I might presume to give a little disinterested advice to Dudley, Hardy, et al., it would be to this effect: Don't transform your undershirts into inverted parachutes. This old world wagged along in its poor weak way for oh, so many years without the guidance of your supernal wisdom. Even the Texas Democracy withstood much storm and stress ere you had shed your diapers. Prithee, apply the soft pedal and-" let us have peace."

If I might advise the Texas Democracy, I would say, in the language of Herr Pretzel, “Don't get excited." Keep cool. This is none of your funeral anyhow, but

merely a quarrel among the sutlers and other camp-followers anent the prospective spoil. "God reigns and the American nation still lives "-will continue to do so if Hardy and Dudley don't talk it to death. Whether Cassio kill Roderigo, Roderigo kill Cassio or they do kill each other, mox nix ouse. It is of infinitely more importance that we get a sure-enough man in the gubernatorial mansion, and a modicum of brains located in our legislative bodies, than that we send to the national convention a cooked-up delegation with some particular monetary trademark blown in the bust of its store britches. Let us sweep before our own door before ostentatiously carrying our broom abroad; let us demonstrate that we have sufficient financial gumption to keep Texas warrants at par without bankrupting the taxpayer, before attempting to teach monetary wisdom to the world.

***

JOHN BULL'S CHEAP BLUSTER.

MICHAEL DAVITT, in a recent communication to the London Times, gave John Bull the following good advice, coupled with a prophecy:

"Stop your silly swaggering before America and Germany. Nobody is deceived by all this theatrical displays of ships in the English Channel and of valor on the stage of the London music halls. All that kind of performance has been witnessed before. England acted a similar part when the United States demanded a court of arbitration for the satisfaction of justice in the Alabama claims, and history tells how ingloriously, but wisely, you backed down and willingly consented to put up your ironclads and your music-hall heroism and pay $15,000,000 rather than risk a war with the American Republic. You will repeat the

same prudent action again and submit to President Cleveland's conditions-settlement by arbitration."

And almost immediately Salisbury declared himself an ardent advocate of the Monroe Doctrine. The Queen's speech breathed peace on earth and good will to men, Chamberlain worked off his blood-is-thicker-than-water bosh, and all the Tory organs, whose voices, like that of Norval, had been for war, began to slobber on Uncle Sam. Davitt may be neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet: but he evidently has John Bull sized up to a cent. The professional bully of the world has been served during the past few months with humble pie on three plates, and he has licked it as though he liked it. He undertook to bull'doze little Venezuela, and when Uncle Sam went out of his way to meddle in the matter, the lion roared at the eagle until the welkin rang and the echoes reverberated among the distant Rockies. Finding that the Bird o' Freedom couldn't be frightened by a beast it had twice sent to cover with his eyeballs swinging in the breeze, he ceased prancing on his hind legs with mane erect and tail churning the circumambient ether, and began to whine like a half-grown brindle pup cornered by an angry wildcat. "Those impudent Americans who are spoiling for a trouncing, with good prospect of getting accommodated," became "our trans-Atlantic brethren, upon whom to wage war were a colossal crime!" The raw talk about Canada "invading the States," and "British ironclads dictating terms of peace off New York and Boston," suddenly ceased-John Bull's "defiance unto death" became an amorous ditty, wafted on perfumed airs through Miss Columbia's lattice.

Instead of “mounting barbed steeds, to fright the souls of fearful adversaries," John Bull prefers to “ caper nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious pleasing of a lute." England did not find “the ties of consanguinity