tform of the former contained
nothing but a few false statements and glowing promises, and the
policy of the latter was only a few counter-acting war-whoops, and
there was no honesty, common-sense, or matter-of-fact business in the
campaign from end to end?

In this connection that remote rag, 'The Noonoon Advertiser,' shone as
a reproach to its great contemporaries. Not by their grandeur and
acclamations shall they be judged, but by the quality of their
fruits.

No bias or spleen seemed to sway the mind of this journal to one side
or the other. It recognised itself as a newspaper, not as a political
tout for this party or that, and so kept its head cool and its honour
bright and shining.

Three days after Leslie Walker's second speech he sent up a woman
advocate to address _the ladies_ and start the business of
house-to-house canvassing. This plenipotentiary, a person of rather
plethoric appearance, made herself extremely popular by assuring every
second _vote-lady_ she met that she was sure she (the vote-lady) was
intended by nature for a public speaker. This worked without a hitch
until the votresses began to tell each other what the great speaker
had said, when it naturally followed that Mrs Dash, though she thought
that Mrs Speaker had been discerning to discover this latent
oratorical talent in herself, immediately had the effervescence taken
out of her self-complacence on finding that that stupid Mrs Blank had
been assured of equal ability.

Then the Ministerialists discovered Mrs Speaker's place of abode in
Sydney, and averred her children ran about so untended as to be
undistinguishable from aboriginals, and that her housekeeping was
sending her husband to perdition; and such is the texture of human
nature unearthed at political crises, that some even went so far as to
suggest that she was a weakness of Walker's, and sneered at the
_ladies'_ candidate who had to be "wet-nursed" in his campaign by
women speakers. Henderson, they averred, had not to do this, but
fought his own battle.

"Yes," said Grandma Clay; "he mightn't be wet-nursed, but he is
bottled, _brandy_-bottled, by the men." And this could not be denied.

The women rallied round Walker because he was a temperance candidate,
whereas the tag-rag rolled up _en masse_ for Henderson, who shouted
free drinks and carried the publican's flag.

Each candidate, while praising his opponent, wound up with _but_--and
after that conjunction spoke most da