Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1876-05-18
A Warming to Candidates for Office.

1t was just after the fall election
that we met him. His name was not
Stretch, but we will so designate him
He poured his sorrowful story in the
ear of an attentive listener:
"No, sir; I'll never run for Office
again, said Mr.. Stretch. "You know
when they came and asked me il PC
accept a nomination in the Legisla.
ture they told me that the whole
community wanted me to run, and
that / was certain TO be elected, be-
cause l was a man whose character
was so good that nobody could find
fault with it. / thought so myself
and agreed to run, and accordingly
they nominated me. Well. sir, the
very next morning the Argus came
out with an assertion that had been
detected in stealing chickens, and il
gave a full history OF the case, to-
gether with pictures Of the chickens
and after darkly limiting that since
abandoning chicken stealing / had
been continually engaged in other
forms OF robbery, it asked il the peo-
pie OF this State wanted to see q
chicken thief making laws for them
And the mischief of it was that / did
hook couple OF chickens from my
grandmother's coop when / was a
small boy, but how'n the thunder they
ever found it out beats me. 1t was
fifty-two years ago.
Now, look at my nosel 1t amt
much of "a nose for beauty, is it?
know well enough that its crooked
But nobody ever alluded to it until j
was nominated, and then the Argus
said that there was tradition, that j
had my nose mashed around sideways
during my career as a prize fighter,
although some people insisted that
had run ii hard against door while
was drunk. And then all the illus
trated papers in the State began to
publish pi lures of me with nose
like the jib-sheet of an oyster sloop,
only twisted around sideways; and
one of them said that when L sneezed
on the front porch the concussion
acted like boomerang and blew the
back door open.
"And then they tackled me about
my war record. You know 1 was out
with the militia. And the Argus
published "a letter from man who
said that during the battle of Gettys-
burg / was hid in a refrigerator i'm a
cellar in the town, pretending that j
was ordered there to mount guard
over some rations of cold beef. And
the Argus asserted that the only
man9vre / was ever good at was fall
ing back; that whenever the enemy
was expected to be approaching al
ways made bee-line for Nova Scotia
and never turned up until after the
fight but once, and then we wer sur
prised, and l fired my musket so wild
ly that L shot our own colonel i'm the
leg and surrendered to an Irishman
who belonged to our regiment and
who came up to me to borrow a plug
of tobacco. To tell the truth | wasn't
much Of a fighting man, but how in
the mischief they found out about
that refrigerator gets me. Awful, isn't
it? / wouldn't have minded it sc
much only they got up a poster and
stuck it around the street and headed
it Stretch's War Record and put on
it picture of me with a monstrous
lopsided nose sitting inside that re.
frigerator gnawing at bone out ol
the roast beef.
"And then, as the campaign went
along, they accused me of having de.
lirium tremens, OF beating my wife
of wiping my nose on my sleeve, o.