e the
same uniform tint to all objects near and remote, so the political
glasses, with which the young gentleman assists his mental vision, give
to everything the hue and tinge of party feeling. The political young
gentleman would as soon think of being struck with the beauty of a young
lady in the opposite interest, as he would dream of marrying his sister
to the opposite member.

If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually some
vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very clearly
explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing, and not to be
very easily got over by the other side. He has also some choice
sentences regarding church and state, culled from the banners in use at
the last election, with which he intersperses his conversation at
intervals with surprising effect. But his great topic is the
constitution, upon which he will declaim, by the hour together, with much
heat and fury; not that he has any particular information on the subject,
but because he knows that the constitution is somehow church and state,
and church and state somehow the constitution, and that the fellows on
the other side say it isn't, which is quite a sufficient reason for him
to say it is, and to stick to it.

Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people. If a fight
takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are broken, and a few
windows, the young gentleman throws down the newspaper with a triumphant
air, and exclaims, 'Here's your precious people!' If half-a-dozen boys
run across the course at race time, when it ought to be kept clear, the
young gentleman looks indignantly round, and begs you to observe the
conduct of the people; if the gallery demand a hornpipe between the play
and the afterpiece, the same young gentleman cries 'No' and 'Shame' till
he is hoarse, and then inquires with a sneer what you think of popular
moderation _now_; in short, the people form a never-failing theme for
him; and when the attorney, on the side of his candidate, dwells upon it
with great power of eloquence at election time, as he never fails to do,
the young gentleman and his friends, and the body they head, cheer with
great violence against _the other people_, with whom, of course, they
have no possible connexion. In much the same manner the audience at a
theatre never fail to be highly amused with any jokes at the expense of
the public--always laughing heartily at some other pub