Year: 1869

"Who think you," says DOgberry to the
Watch, "the most desartless man to be con-
stableir "Hugh 0atcake, Sir, or George
" Seacoal. for they can write and read"


We presume that the same argument which
carried such weight to the minds of the watch
men of Messina, has convinced our fellow
Democrats that Oakley Hall is the most sense
less and fit man for Mayor of New York, and
that it is therefore he bears the official lantern
with which he throws about that darkness
which he very naturally prefers to light, be-
cause his political deeds are evil. Indeed,
nothing is more amusing, and at the same
time more touching, than the simple hearted
admiration with which our more ignorant fell
low-citizens follow after the few men in their
party-it is superfuous to say we mean the
Democratic party-who have the least smat-
tering of what with them passes for learn
ing. The unlettered mob has tempers in
which it is quite ready, with Jack Cade, to
hang the man who dares talk about noun and
q verb; but it also has moods, and these not
less common than the first, in which it is
ready to worship those who can write and read.
No doubt, 20 the people who make
up the bulk of the Democratic party, person
of Mayor Halls schoolboy requirements seems
quite prodigy. No doubt, the man who can
write n thing which Democratic managers,
anxious to fiatter so-called Democrat and a
Mayor by brevet, are willing to announce as
n play, or who can write another thing which
publishers of an equally facilo turn are not
ashamed to call n book, is eminently calculated
TO be hero TO his friends of Mackerelyie;
and if it be taken into consideration that the
author himself leaves no stone unturned to
herald his achievement, we can easily under
stand how his name may come to be writ on
congenial brass.


To the Democratic rabble it makes no differ
ence that the educated world laughs ut its
idols claims and gives him only nOtoriety when
he hopes for fame. When the audience Kisses
his play they think it atones that it is hi-hied
and stamped in Tammany-Tammany, that
temple of the muses., where the great farce of
the Democratic Convention has been succeeded
by the farces of the stage. When people who
know a good book smile incredulously at the
notion of Oakey's having written one, the aris-
tocrats of Manhattanville frown upon such
mere partisan injustice to distinguished merit.
None the less either does Mackerelyille believe
what the Manhattan tells it, and crowns Oakeys
head with b'hays.


And so when our George Seacoal writes his
message the men for whom he is quite ready
to sacrifice what little principle he has, and
conscience, if they will only keep on electing
him to office, applaud the impudent, tlippant
production, as if it were n miracle of sense
and wit. It's shallow repetitions of what the
newspapers have been saying for years,
passes with his party for wisdom; his
ISLANDERS upon honest men pass easily for
wit with those who never deal in any other
kind. But there are two parties who know
bcttsr how to rate this farrago-the educated
public, and Oakley himself. We give him
credit for carrying on his little kna-
veries without hypocrisy his dependence
lies in the gullibility of the public; he has had
demonstration how easily a reputation for
learning may be made out of q knowledge of
the alphabet by a judicious flOurishing of the
letters, and for wit, by the free use of a few
slang phrases, and for political skill, by tricks
that not many men beside himself would have
the assurance to play. He knows well enough
that the better sort Of people despise him, that
educated people laugh at his pretensions; but
so long as the Dogberrys of his party tell him
to bear the lantern, and pay him for it, ho is
ready to do their bidding.