the red-pepper diet of his native heath, and sigh for the serenade of the lowly burro beneath his lattice at break of day. His cheek would loose its peach bloom, his eye its brightness, and that fund of quaint humor, which makes him the Mark Twain of the chaparral, would cease to flow. A congressional career is like a mescal jag-there's an hilarious eclat at the opening that makes life seem one universal fandango, a perpetual fiesta; but at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like a bumble-bee in a pair of bedticking pants. I call upon Judge Earnest's friends to save him from himself. Consul-general Donnely should take him across the river and charm him with some new and greater Queen Scheherazade serial until the election is

over.

Col. Dick Wynne, of Fort Worth, has secured his tardy consent to an "interview" anent the political situation, and made everything translucent as mud. How tired these laboriously extracted" interviews " do make an old newspaper man! After an editor has systematically dodged the inevitable for days, he is run to earth and a bulky document emptied upon him with an urgent request that he "work it in." He pleads pressure upon his columns, twists and tergiversates, only to be met with the cool suggestion, "Oh, well, use it for time copy." He opens it with an air of chronic ennui, and learns that he has had a reporter camping on the trail of the Hon. So-and-So for days, and that at last-praise Heaven!-the great man consented-albeit with evident reluctance to talk!" Consented?" Ye gods, what immaculate gall! The type-written "interview" is the bete noire of every editor. A yard of spring poetry is a godsend by comparison, a kick by "Old Subscriber" a positive relief. All the weary years I was engaged in diurnal deviltry these faker "inter

viewers" supplied me with fuel. Col. Wynne has taken his type-writer in hand to inform the Texas people that they will re-elect Charles of the office holding tribe of Culberson. That is indeed important—the more so as they hadn't suspected it. We can only wonder who told Col. Wynne. As he speaks like one having authority, it's possible that he's been consulting familiar spirits. The goldbug and free-silver wings of the Texas Democracy cannot get together without self-evident stultification-political perjury for the sake of pie; yet that is exactly what Wynne wants and expects. The bosses may be willing, but the people will not tolerate such brazen prostitution of principle. A coalition of protectionists and free-traders for the sake of office were not so insufferable, for the tariff is not a recognized issue. If the two wings flap together in another office-jobbing truce, and renominate a man who has ignored his every platform pledge with the insouciance of a Machiavelli, the name of the Democracy is Dennis. There is but one man who stands a ghost of a chance to lead the party to victory, and that's the ancient political mariner of Palestine. The "Boy Statesman" began as a fraud and will end as a failure. He has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. He rattles in his gubernatorial robe like a cowpea in a quart pot. He mistakes ward politics for statecraft and his own prurient ambition for the general welfare. Despite his woeful shortcomings he might be re-elected were his faults those of a sovereign instead of the vices of a slave. The errors of Hogg were human; his mistakes were those of the head. There was a warm, flesh and blood tint to his every fault that made us admire the man while we condemned the magistrate. He fought ever in the open-set his battle in array and issued his defi like a knight-errant of old. Culberson is a bushwhacker and policy-player. His heart is frozen and all his

instincts are those of the fox. There's craft in his stereotyped smile and icicles in his handshake. He is about as magnetic as a last year's corpse. His suavity suggests the sinuosity of the serpent, his hypocrisy that of Uriah Heep. Before he had been a member of Gov. Hogg's official family six months he had a conspiracy afoot to retire his chief at the end of one term. Re-elect Culberson? Col. Wynne has hynotized himself with a false hope and is talking in a trance. Tennyson assures us that

"All men do walk in sleep and all

Have faith in what they dream."

Somebody should turn the hose on Col. Wynne and wake him up.

***

HAS THE SALOONIST A SOUL? WHENEVER Our prohibition friends speak of the man of ecstatic mixtures they devoutly cross themselves and wonder how long the Almighty will allow a world so wicked to dodge the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Prohibitionist regards the saloonist as a son of Satan if not his infernal majesty in propria persona; his place of business as a spider-web into which the poor buzzing human fly has no more gumption than to go, with or without invitation, and be devoured, body and breeches. That the saloonist would, without compunction, sweep into his till the last copper of a man whose family was freezing in the street, or put the finishing touches to an inebriate wreck; that he would welcome money realized from the sale of an infant's shroud or picked from the pockets of a blind beggar, is the chief tenet in the Prohib's confession of faith.

Now I am aware that some men engaged in the liquor traffic have touched the nadir of human degradation; but

the same is true of all avocations. How many merchants, lawyers, doctors, farmers, even preachers, have been guilty of arson, murder, rape, incest! How many men engaged in "respectable" avocations have robbed the widow of her mite and the orphan of his patrimony, blasted the reputation of honest men and noble women with a breath of slander?

It were as fatuous to judge all men engaged in the liquor trade by the worst specimens as to measure all ministers by those who have "fallen from grace," all merchants by those who make money by failures, all lawyers by the "shysters."

I will not pretend to say that retailing spirits is either a noble or necessary avocation, one in which a man may properly feel pride; but it is sheer folly to condemn a man for seeking fortune in fields legitimized by law, to expect the individual seeking sustenance for a family to rise superior to public sentiment as manifested in legislative enactments. We should remember that it is not the opinion of the few, but of many that constitute the world's code of ethics, and that to question a man's moral and legal right to do what the majority approve, is to strike at the very tap-root of representative government. If the man who sells liquor over a bar is sinning against society, he is doing so with its sanction. If he is guilty of a moral crime, every man who voted to legitimatize his business is equally culpable, so responsible for all the ill effects that may follow,—as deserving of the anathemas of purists and Prohibitionists. Those who denounce the saloonist thus ask the court of public opinion to render a verdict against itself and become its own executioner.

The two classes who denounce the saloonist most bitterly are those who know nothing about him, and those weakkneed brethren who must keep their Prohibition enthusiasm

ever at white heat or plunge back into the gutter. The better class of saloonists do not want their patrons to drink to excess,- -are quick to warn them when they are overstepping the line that divides good cheer and drunkenness; will flatly refuse them liquor if they persist in going too far. They want only the patronage of men to whom liquor is a luxury, not a necessity; who can drink like gentlemen and go about their business. I have seen saloonists refuse to sell to men and urge them to let liquor alone, and have seen those same men at public assemblages denouncing all saloonists, without exception, in the most violent language. The better class of saloon men deplore the existence of the disreputable "doggeries " as much as reputable lawyers do the methods of their barratrous brethren. They are usually progressive citizens and liberal contributors to church and charity. Their manners and morals are equal to those of men in other lines of business, their intelligence equal.

The existence of saloons unquestionably causes some drunkenness; but so long as liquor is made it will be sold, and it is a debatable question whether it does the most damage when sold by the dram or the gallon,—whether the man who keeps it in his house or the one who does all his drinking at the bar, is the most likely to allow his appetite to master his judgment. It is much easier to resist the temptation to make a pilgrimage to a saloon and buy a drink (and perhaps spend a dollar treating chance acquaintances) than to convince yourself that your system does not need a little toning if you have a demijohn of ten-year-old in the cupboard. Thanks to the damnable American folly of "treating," one is more liable to get drunk in company than by himself; but an occasional "drunk-and-down" is infinitely preferable to a chronic state of semi-inebriety. It is the solitary, rather than the