Reports of concerts, weddings, even deaths, were tinged
with partyism. When Daniel Grover, grand old Conservative
war-horse, was gathered to his fathers at the ripe age
of eighty-seven years, the Reform paper said that Mr.
Grover's death was not entirely unexpected, as his health
had been failing for some time, the deceased having passed
his seventieth birthday.

McSorley, the Liberal editor, being an Irishman, was not
without humour, but Evans, the other one, revelled in
it. He was like the little boys who stick pins in frogs,
not that they bear the frogs any ill-will, but for the
fun of seeing them jump. He would sit half the night over
his political editorials, smiling grimly to himself, and
when he threw himself back in his chair and laughed like
a boy the knife was turned in someone!

One day Mr. James Ducker, lately retired farmer, sometimes
insurance agent, read in the Winnipeg Telegram that his
friend the Honourable Thomas Snider had chaperoned an
Elk party to St. Paul. Mr. Ducker had but a hazy idea of
the duties of a chaperon, but he liked the sound of it,
and it set him thinking. He remembered when Tom Snider
had entered politics with a decayed reputation, a large
whiskey bill, and about $2.20 in cash. Now he rode in a
private car, and had a suite of rooms at the Empire, and
the papers often spoke of him as "mine host" Snider. Mr.
Ducker turned over the paper and read that the genial
Thomas had replied in a very happy manner to a toast at
the Elks' banquet. Whereupon Mr. Ducker became wrapped