POLICY IN ELECTIONEERING.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 576, 4 November 1869, Page 2

POLICY IN ELECTIONEERING.

The " Peripatetic Philosopher " thus philosophises on the effect usually produced on the electoral mind bv newspaper or other agitation in favor of one candidate. For Eeeves and Vale our readers are at liberty to substitute the names of GHbbs and Akersten, or vice versa: — " Vote early ! Vote often !" Such was the observation made to me by a red-nosed gentleman in a suit of shiny black, who comes every day to the threepenny drinking bar of my special hotel. I asked him how it was that he had taken such a sudden interest in politics (knowing him to be a mute, with_ a large family and no fixed opinions), and he said that he had been hired by the friends of Mr Vale to go about and ask the nobility and gentry to vote for Eeeves. Somewhat surprised by this inconsequential proceeding, I desired him to explain. " Well," says he, allowing his right cheek to bulge with about half a pound (avoirdupois) of semi-masticated beef sandwich, " it has been discovered that the only way to make the People do anything is to beg and pray them not to doit. If we told them that Eeeves was a most abominable scoundrel, and Vale a political angel, they would go in a body and vote for Reeves. Now I go round and say ' Vale is a traitor, a ruffian, a miscreant, and a blackguard. He has no principle and no money; he has about as much sense as a bull-calf, and as much honesty as a cheap publican; he Las murdered his mother, poisoned his father, and brought bis son's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; he leaves out his h's

and spells things generally with a " v;" he has no more religion than a patent chaffcutter, and his conscience is as crooked as a dog-leg fence; he is a disgrace to his sex, a libel on his parents, an insult to humanity, and scarcely fit to be termed a connecting link. If you vote for him, you will be untrue to every principle you ever heard of, and will render yourself liable to be soundly kicked by every honest man who has the misfortune to meet you.' They will go up to the poll and return Vale by an overwhelming majority." Now, I have been pondering over my friend's exposition of popular policy, and I think that he must be right.