Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1876 — Seeking Political Information. [ARTICLE]

Seeking Political Information.

Miss Dimity knows all about it now. She languished a long time in ignorance, and felt her situation keenly, but at last she is wiser and sadder. She always wanted to talk politics and belong to some party; but how could when she did not know the difference between \ democrat and a republican? She looked auxiously through all the papers to gam some information on the subject, but the only plain statements she found were that the democrats were all liars and swindlers, and the republicans all thieves and scoundrels. Finally she asked her papa about it, and be looked over his spectacles and said, “A democrat, my dear child, is—by the way, you left lumps in the- heels of my stockings when you darned them last week. Girls nowadays are good for nothing.” Then she asked her big brother, and he said, “That’s easy; ask fne a harder one. A democrat supports the government as. long as the government will support him, and a republican lets no guilty man escape until he has crammed all of his pock ns aud the crotvu of his hat.” She next asked her sweetheart, but he turned pale, and falling back on his chair fanned himself furiously while lie gasped, “Emmiline, my love, I hope you are not getting stroug-iuinded. I could not think of marrying a Woman who knows more than I—than other womeli.”

Next she asked a wise learned man, and he looked pompously at her and said : “Too deep, my dear, too deep; difference in platforms; very complicated subject; could never explain it to a woman. In tact, it’s so deep that I don’t exactly under —ah, believe you could uud.:?stand it.” " Then 'she went to an' editor. They always know everything. It is a peculiarity of the profession. They chii get up a theory or explanation ot, or remedy for, anything inside ot toriy tive seconds. She asked him, with soffits* d eyes, if he would please tell her the difference between a democrat and a republican. He looked a little startietj.at first, stuck his pen into the glue-pot, tumbled a pitcher of ice-water over » pile of exchanges, jerked up his collar and was “himself again.” He said, “A republican has an office, and wants U> keep it. He thinks rag-money good, hard-money better, but either kind good enough. He thinks the country needs reform. Salaries are too low, and the people too inquisitive. He caunol buy a $2,000 team ot horses oil a salary of $1,500 a year, but some one must ask tin pertinent questions, llis country is dear to him, but be is dearer to his country. A democrat has no office, and wauts one. He scorns to ask whether the money is hard WsnfCf ire only gasps '-now much?” He thinks the country needs reform. He wants change in office and change iq his pockets. He holds his i-onqify’s honor above price,

and sells his own to the highest bidder. He—” but Miss Dimity put her hands over her ears and cried, “Flease lell me the name of the other party to which honest men and patriots belong?’’ Then that editor laughed an inhuman laugh, and said, “Long ago they took a lantern when they wanted to find an honest inau; you had better borrow half a dozen headlights and a garden rake and go and look for that party. However, if you are a true patriot you will work for the republicans, for they all have cottages at Long Branch and villas in Washington and Paris, anil are pretty well sup plied with funds; hut the democrats have been out a long tune, their money is all gone, aiid their villas are mortgaged. It will be a dreadful strain on the treasury, and 1 Miss Dimity did not wait for more. And now when any one talks politics in her presence she listens wiih that benign sadness that is born of superioi wisdom. OmqfUl Rtpvbhnmr