Curiosity now prompted me to enter into the thickest of the throng; and I had never seen such fury in the maddest contests between old George Clinton and Mr. Jay, or De Witt Clinton and Governor Tompkins, in my native State.  They each reproached their adversaries in the coarsest language, and attributed to them the vilest principles and motives.  Our guide farther told us that the same persons, with two others, had been candidates last year, when the schoolmaster prevailed; and, as the supporters of the other two unsuccessful candidates had to choose now between the remaining two, each party was perpetually reproaching the other with inconsistency.  A dialogue between two individuals of opposite sides, which we happened to hear, will serve as a specimen of the rest.

“Are you not a pretty fellow to vote for Bald-head, whom you have so often called rogue and blockhead?”

“It becomes you to talk of consistency, indeed!  Pray, sir, how does it happen that you are now against him, when you were so lately sworn friends, and used to eat out of the same dish?”

“Yes; but I was the butcher’s friend too.  I never abused him.  You’ll never catch me supporting a man I have once abused.”

“But I catch you abusing the man you once supported, which is rather worse.  The difference between us is this:—­you professed to be friendly to both; I professed to be hostile to both:  you stuck to one of your friends, and cast the other off; and I acted the same towards my enemies.”  A crowd then rushed by, crying “Huzza for the Butcher’s knives!  Damn pen and ink—­damn the books, and all that read in them!  Butchers’ knives and beef for ever!”

We asked our guide what these men were to gain by the issue of the contest.

“Nineteenths of them nothing.  But a few hope to be made deputies, if their candidates succeed, and they therefore egg on the rest.”

We drew near to the scaffold where the candidates stood, and our ears were deafened with the mingled shouts and exclamations of praise and reproach.  “You cheated the corporation!” says one.  “You killed two black sheep!” says another.  “You can’t read a warrant!” “You let Dondon cheat you!” “You tried to cheat Nincan!” “You want to build a watch-house!” “You have an old ewe at home now, that you did not come honestly by!” “You denied your own hand!”—­with other ribaldry still more gross and indecent.  But the most singular part of the scene was a number of little boys, dressed in black and white, who all wore badges of the parties to which they belonged, and were provided with a syringe, and two canteens, one filled with rose-water, and the other with a black liquid, of a very offensive smell, the first of which they squirted at their favourite candidates and voters, and the last on those of the opposite party.  They were drawn up in a line, and seemed to be under regular discipline; for, whenever the captain of the band gave the word, “Vilti Mindoc!” they discharged the dirty liquid from their syringes; and when he said “Vilti Goulgoul!” they filled the air with perfume, that was so overpowering as sometimes to produce sickness.  The little fellows would, between whiles, as if to keep their hands in, use the black squirts against one another; but they often gave them a dash of the rose-water at the same time.