s predecessor, and at the same time a ham,
saying in his letter: "My dear Chief Justice, I send you to-day
one of my prize hams and also my eulogy on Chief Justice Chase,
both the products of my pen."

The good things Mr. Evarts said would be talked of long after
a dinner. I remember on one occasion his famous partner,
Mr. Choate, who was a Harvard man, while Evarts was a graduate
from Yale, introduced Mr. Evarts by saying that he was surprised
that a Yale man, with all the prejudices of that institution
against the superior advantages of Harvard, should have risked
the coats of his stomach at a Harvard dinner. Mr. Evarts replied:
"When I go to a Harvard dinner I always leave the coats of my
stomach at home."

Mr. Evarts once told me when I was visiting him at his country
place that an old man whom he pointed out, and who was sawing
wood, was the most sensible philosopher in the neighborhood.
Mr. Evarts said: "He is always talking to himself, and I asked
him why." His answer was: "I always talk to myself in preference
to talking to anybody else, because I like to talk to a sensible
man and to hear a man of sense talk."

VIII. GENERAL GARFIELD

The triumph of the Democrats in Maine in the September election,
1880, had a most depressing effect upon the Republicans and an
equally exhilarating one upon the Democrats. The paralyzing effect
of the simple utterances in popular elections almost makes one
think that every candidate should follow Matthew Quay's famous advice
to his candidate for governor: "Beaver, keep your mouth shut."

In the campaign when General Winfield Scott ran for the presidency,
he began an important communication by stating that he would answer
as soon as he had taken a hasty plate of soup. That "hasty plate
of soup" appeared in cartoons, was pictured on walls, etc., in every
form of ridicule, and was one of the chief elements of his defeat.

When towards the close of the canvass Garfield had succeeded
in making the tariff the leading issue, General Hancock was asked
what were his views on the tariff. (You must remember that the
general was a soldier and had never been in politics.) The general
answered: "The tariff was a purely local issue in Pennsylvania."
The whole country burst into a gale of laughter, and Hancock's
campaign had a crack which was never mended.

There never were two more picturesque opponents than General Garfield
and General Hancock. Hancock was the idol