Part 25 (1/2)

”LUCE A JUG--THE HANDLE ALL ONE SIDE.”

Lincoln's intimates thought it remarkable that he should keep his finger on the political pulse and show himself as fully cognizant of the trend of popular feeling. Oddly enough the professional politicians themselves would not own that he was a king among them, though Douglas affirmed him to be in his time the most able man in the Republican party. On clas.h.i.+ng returns coming in, he humorously remarked on two reports: ”If that is the way doubtful districts are coming in, I will not stop to hear from the certain ones.” He observed to Alexander H. Rice, then up for Congress in Ma.s.sachusetts: ”Your district is a good deal like a jug--the handle is all one side!”

”SUCH A SUCKER AS ME, PRESIDENT!”

When Lincoln's wife, at his prospect of being United States senator was on the verge of realization, reminded him of her prophecy, away back in the fifties, that he would attain the highest niche--the inevitable feminine ”I told you so!” he clasped his knees in keen enjoyment, and, laughing a roar, cried out:

”Think of such a _sucker_ as me as President!”

But presently, he said with his dry smile: ”But I do not pretend I do not want to go _to the Senate_!”--(Henry Villard, then newspaper reporter.)

ONE HAPPY DAY.

To his friend Bowen, Lincoln avowed during the electioneering-time that he was sure ”from the word go,” to become President, though the split of the opposition into three parties was materially helpful: Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge. He thought the reward due him as having gone ”his whole length” for the Republican party, almost his creation. So he frankly said on his success:

”I cannot conceal the fact that I am a very happy man. Who could help being so under such circ.u.mstances?”--(To H. C. Bowen, of the New York _Independent._)

OLD ABE WILL LOOK BETTER WHEN HIS HAIR IS COMBED.

”Did I ever tell you the joke the Chicago newsboys had on me? (To the War Department telegraph manager, A. B. Chandler.) A short time before my nomination (for President), I was at Chicago attending to a lawsuit. A photographer asked me to sit for a picture, and I did so.

This coa.r.s.e, rough hair of mine was in particularly bad tousle at the time, and the picture presented me in all its fright. After my nomination, this being about the only picture of me there was, copies were struck off to show those who had never seen me how I looked. The newsboys carried them around to sell, and had for their cry:

”'Here's your ”Old Abe”--he will look better when he gets his hair combed!'”

He laughed heartily, says Mr. Chandler.

NOTE.--Mrs. Lincoln seems to have perceived this bar to her husband's facial beauty. For the journalist, Fiske, relating the arrival of the Lincolns in New York for the Eastern tour in 1860, speaks thus of the toilet to befit him for the reception by Mayor Fernando Wood:

”The train stopped, and Mrs. Lincoln opened her handbag, and said:

”'Abraham, I must fix you up a bit for these city folks.'