The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1896. BRYAN'S GLINT. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5699, 19 October 1896, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1896. BRYAN'S GLINT. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

[Probi Our Correspondent.] LONDON. Sept. 4. One important part in the qiiatrennial Presidential campaign in America, is the hunt for "bad boy "stories in the youthful homes of the candidates. In the case of Mr Bryan the hunt has been in vain, not one bad boy tale having been unearthed. Mr Bryan's boyhood seems to have been entirely lacking in colour — a period of monotonous virtue unredeemed by any of those falls from grace and splashes of devilment which . render the average boy interesting. The search has, however, resulted in the discovery that since Mr Bryan's nomination people have been struck by a peculiar glint in his left eye. His enemies profess to believe tho glint to be the outcome of incipient insanity consequent on his sudden elevation to notoriety. They point out that he has a superstitious belief in his own future as a Child of Destiny, and further aver that a " meagrim which has possessed his brain for many years," is that he has been "raised up by God to head a great and popular revolution." THE HINT of course is that Br\an has a bee of some size and strength in his bonnet, and his opponents point out that his father, Judge Bryan, was a peculiarly eccentric man. He always opened his court with a long and fervent prayer, and in the midst of a knotty case would kneel in open court and invoke Divine guidance. After such an invocation he assumed that his decisions were inspired, and when the higher Courts took the liberty of reversing them on appeal — which they did very frequently — Judge Bryan would complacently remark/," Well, the Supreme Court's wrong and God is right." Whether the candidate for the Presidency^ faith in himself rests on the same foundation as his father's is not quite clear, but it is tolerably certain that some of the Western agriculturists are quite ready to accept the " glint" as a sign that Mr Bryan is inspired from above for the special purpose of freeing the commercial world from the tyranny of gold. '