The orator appeared to prove that there
wasn't a respectable man in the opposite party who wasn't an
office-holder, nor a white man of any kind in it who was not an
office-holder. If there were any issues or principles in the canvass,
he paid his audience the compliment of knowing all about them, for he
never alluded to any. In another state of society, such a speech of
personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but no doubt his
adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met, and the
exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
enlightened political canvassing for votes. The speaker who replied,
opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first speaker
had ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in the gloom of
a corner. The young man was moderate in his sarcasm, and attempted to
speak of national issues, but the crowd had small relish for that sort
of thing. At eleven o'clock, when we got away from the unsavory room
(more than half the candles had gone out), the orator was making slow
headway against the refished blackguardism of the evening. The german
was still "on" at the hotel when we ascended to our chamber, satisfied
that Asheville was a lively town.
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