For more than a decade, and until he became enamoured of books and bibliomania, Field was the most widely quoted political paragrapher in America.  It was not in vain that he mingled with the “statesmen” frequenting the capitals of Missouri, Colorado, and Illinois, attended state and national conventions, and spent many weeks in the lobby of the capitol, and of the lobbies of the hotels in Washington.  It was the comprehension of men, and not of measures, he was after, and he got what he sought.  In St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver his sketches, notes, and Primer stories attracted more attention and caused more talk among politicians than all the serious reports and discussions of the issues of the times.  He had the gift of putting distorted statements in the form of innocent facts so artfully developed that his victims had difficulty in disputing the often compromising inferences of his paragraphs.

Many a time and oft have I known every one of the paragraphs in Field’s column in the News, sometimes numbering as high as sixty, to relate to something of a political nature, and most of them containing a personal pin-prick.  With the assistance of the printer, let me reconstruct here in the type and narrow measure of the Morning News a column of specimens of Field’s political paragraphs.  The reader must allow for the lapse of time.  Only those referring to persons or matters of national note are, for obvious reasons, preserved.  The first one has the peculiar interest of being the initial paragraph in “Sharps and Flats.”  In point of time they ran all the way from 1883 to 1895, thus covering the entire period of Field’s work on the News and Record: 

  SHARPS AND FLATS

  Senator Dawes has been out among the Sioux Indians too.  They call
  him Ne-Ha-Wo-Ne-To—­which, according to our office dictionary, is
  the Indian for Go-To-Sleep-Standing-Up.

  Sol Smith Russell, the comedian, is reported to have contributed
  $5,000 to the National Prohibition campaign fund.

  The suspicion is still rife that when the Democratic party wakes up
  on Christmas morning it will find S.J.  Tilden in its stocking.

[Illustration:  Drawing of a flower sitting on a barrel.]

  See the Flower.  It is sitting on its Barrel derisively Mocking the
  Eager hands that strive to Pluck it.  Oh, beautiful but cruel Flower.

  If the mild weather continues Secretary Chandler will be able to get
  the American Navy out of its winter quarters and on to roller skates
  by the first of April.

  Mr. Charles A. Dana has appeared as the third witch in “Macbeth.”  He
  says Roosevelt cannot be Mayor, but may go to Congress, to the
  Senate, or be elected President.

  It is believed that a horizontal reduction in the Democratic
  statesmen of the time would leave nothing of the Hon. William R.
  Morrison but a pair of spindle legs, three bunions, and seven corns.