haze.
Her fairy foot, as in the graceful waltz it glides,
Our admiration equally divides.
And proves, that of her many charms of form and voice,
If one you had to choose, you could not make the choice.
Their perfect harmony is like the arch's span;
Displace one stone, you destroy the noble plan."

My political attacks did not seem to make much impression on my
Democratic contemporary, and he paid very little attention to what I
said, feeling, no doubt, indifferent in the overwhelming majority of the
Republican party, but when I branched out in the line I have indicated,
he opened on me savagely in several editorials. He said the _Appeal_ had
discovered a soft-soap mine, and had used it lavishly to lather
governors, sheriffs, ladies, and a great many other people, for the
purpose of gaining their support and patronage, all of which afforded me
a fine opportunity of getting back at him in a humorous, and at the same
time effective manner, so I shot at him in verse, which I will repeat;
but to a full understanding of it, I will explain that all mining claims
are measured by the number of feet the claimant owns on the ledge, and
the word "feet" became synonymous with the mine itself. This was my
answer:

"SOAP."

"Great renovator of the human race!
Great cleanser of the human face!
Thy potent art removes each stain
From dirtiest mortal on this sphere mundane.
'Tis sad to think thy mystic spell
Can't penetrate within the shell,
And to a soiled, perverted heart
Cleanliness and purity impart.
Thy subtle essence, heretofore confined
In bars of Windsor toilet cakes refined;
In Colgate's honey for the barber's brush,
And shapeless masses much resembling slush,
Has now, according to our evening sheet,
Been found in ledges, known as "_feet_."
To use the language of the _Post_, in fine,
The great _Appeal_ has found a mine;
And having now much soap to spare,
Soaps governors--sheriffs--ladies fair.
How sad it is, with all this soap,
To know there's not the slightest hope
If all the Chinamen in town
Should wash it up and wash it down,
And scrub 'till it gave up the ghost,
Of making clean the _Evening Post_."

The effect of my shot was equal to a thirteen-inch shell in the camp of
the enemy. The whole community laughed, and the _Post_ left me
studiously alone until the new editor came and relieved me