Public Ledger

POLITICAL INFLUENZA.

The political dead-beats, bummers, loafers and frauds who squeeze surplus cash out of the pockets of would-be candidates, have commenced their usual labors in view of the approaching election, and they are busily engaged in selling their political influence, or "infloonce," as the coloreds call it, at any price or all prices to correspond with the liberality of the individual who invests in their supposed valuable goods. Squads of these dead beats may be seen scattered over the city, but chiefly around the courthouse, and generally wherever two or three of them are gathered together a guileless, confiding, innocent candidate is sure to be in the midst of the crowd, listening with full faith to that same old siren song the dead-beat always has in store for a victim. Bright visions flit through the candidate's mind as he yields to the seductive hopes of his enchanter, and his hand involuntarily grasps a pile of greenbacks to purchase the influence of this champion talker, who manages primaries, controls conventions, names the candidate and secures his election by the people with a wild hurrah. During a campaign these political leeches suck the life-blood of the candidate, and, like a leech, they have no soul, no honor, or other quality men respect, though they may make the office-seeker believe they are his guardian angels. Promises of support and influence, with them, is a trick of the trade, and they issue these promises as liberally as a wild-cat, Indiana, bank issued shinplasters or "promises to pay" before the war, and with the same object. It is a sad commentary upon human government that a candidate should even indirectly buy votes or political influence, and that a ward-bummer or pot-house politician should be base enough to sell his political influence for money, even if he had any influence. Generally, however, the ward loafer, dead beat and bummer has no influence, controls no votes, and could not even control his own vote if he gets a drink ahead on election day. The man is a fool who gives this class of beats a cent, even under their most specious and plausible tales, and as such he deserves to be beaten, no matter what party he affiliates with. These political dead-beats are the camp-followers of every party, and, like Sherman's bummers in his raid through Georgia during the late war, they do no fighting or other hard work, but pillage friend or foe alike.