第58章

"Stop," said Mr.Smith, "what was that figure for bacon?""Fourteen million dollars," said Nivens.

"Not enough," said Mr.Smith, "make it twenty.They'll stand for it, them farmers."Nivens changed it.

"And what was that for hay?"

"Two dollars a ton."

"Shove it up to four," said Mr.Smith: "And I tell you," he added, "if any of them farmers says the figures ain't correct, tell them to go to Washington and see for themselves; say that if any man wants the proof of your figures let him go over to England and ask,--tell him to go straight to London and see it all for himself in the books."After this, there was no more trouble over statistics.I must say though that it is a wonderfully convincing thing to hear trade figures of this kind properly handled.Perhaps the best man on this sort of thing in the campaign was Mullins, the banker.A man of his profession simply has to have figures of trade and population and money at his fingers' ends and the effect of it in public speaking is wonderful.

No doubt you have listened to speakers of this kind, but I question whether you have ever heard anything more typical of the sort of effect that I allude to than Mullins's speech at the big rally at the Fourth Concession.

Mullins himself, of course, knows the figures so well that he never bothers to write them into notes and the effect is very striking.

"Now, gentlemen," he said very earnestly, "how many of you know just to what extent the exports of this country have increased in the last ten years? How many could tell what per cent.of increase there has been in one decade of our national importation?"--then Mullins paused and looked round.Not a man knew it.

"I don't recall," he said, "exactly the precise amount myself,--not at this moment,--but it must be simply tremendous.Or take the question of population," Mullins went on, warming up again as a born statistician always does at the proximity of figures, "how many of you know, how many of you can state, what has been the decennial percentage increase in our leading cities--?"There he paused, and would you believe it, not a man could state it.

"I don't recall the exact figures," said Mullins, "but I have them at home and they are positively colossal."But just in one phase of the public speaking, the candidacy of Mr.

Smith received a serious set-back.

It had been arranged that Mr.Smith should run on a platform of total prohibition.But they soon found that it was a mistake.They had imported a special speaker from the city, a grave man with a white tie, who put his whole heart into the work and would take nothing for it except his expenses and a sum of money for each speech.But beyond the money, I say, he would take nothing.

He spoke one night at the Tecumseh Corners social hall at the same time when the Liberal meeting was going on at the Tecumseh Corners school house.

"Gentlemen," he said, as he paused half way in his speech,--"while we are gathered here in earnest discussion, do you know what is happening over at the meeting place of our opponents? Do you know that seventeen bottles of rye whiskey were sent out from the town this afternoon to that innocent and unsuspecting school house?

Seventeen bottles of whiskey hidden in between the blackboard and the wall, and every single man that attends that meeting,--mark my words, every single man,--will drink his fill of the abominable stuff at the expense of the Liberal candidate!"Just as soon as the speaker said this, you could see the Smith men at the meeting look at one another in injured surprise, and before the speech was half over the hall was practically emptied.

After that the total prohibition plank was changed and the committee substituted a declaration in favour of such a form of restrictive license as should promote temperance while encouraging the manufacture of spirituous liquors, and by a severe regulation of the liquor traffic should place intoxicants only in the hands of those fitted to use them.

Finally there came the great day itself, the Election Day that brought, as everybody knows, the crowning triumph of Mr.Smith's career.There is no need to speak of it at any length, because it has become a matter of history.

In any case, everybody who has ever seen Mariposa knows just what election day is like.The shops, of course, are, as a matter of custom, all closed, and the bar rooms are all closed by law so that you have to go in by the back way.All the people are in their best clothes and at first they walk up and down the street in a solemn way just as they do on the twelfth of July and on St.Patrick's Day, before the fun begins.Everybody keeps looking in at the different polling places to see if anybody else has voted yet, because, of course, nobody cares to vote first for fear of being fooled after all and voting on the wrong side.

Most of all did the supporters of Mr.Smith, acting under his instructions, hang back from the poll in the early hours.To Mr.

Smith's mind, voting was to be conducted on the same plan as bear-shooting.

"Hold back your votes, boys," he said, "and don't be too eager.Wait till she begins to warm up and then let 'em have it good and hard."In each of the polling places in Mariposa there is a returning officer and with him are two scrutineers, and the electors, I say, peep in and out like mice looking into a trap.But if once the scrutineers get a man well into the polling booth, they push him in behind a little curtain and make him vote.The voting, of course, is by secret ballot, so that no one except the scrutineers and the returning officer and the two or three people who may be round the poll can possibly tell how a man has voted.

That's how it comes about that the first results are often so contradictory and conflicting.Sometimes the poll is badly arranged and the scrutineers are unable to see properly just how the ballots are being marked and they count up the Liberals and Conservatives in different ways.Often, too, a voter makes his mark so hurriedly and carelessly that they have to pick it out of the ballot box and look at it to see what it is.