is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles
communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote,
so the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists
his mental vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party
feeling. The political young gentleman would as soon think of
being struck with the beauty of a young lady in the opposite
interest, as he would dream of marrying his sister to the opposite
member.

If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually
some vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very
clearly explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing,
and not to be very easily got over by the other side. He has also
some choice sentences regarding church and state, culled from the
banners in use at the last election, with which he intersperses his
conversation at intervals with surprising effect. But his great
topic is the constitution, upon which he will declaim, by the hour
together, with much heat and fury; not that he has any particular
information on the subject, but because he knows that the
constitution is somehow church and state, and church and state
somehow the constitution, and that the fellows on the other side
say it isn't, which is quite a sufficient reason for him to say it
is, and to stick to it.

Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people. If a
fight takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are
broken, and a few windows, the young gentleman throws down the
newspaper with a triumphant air, and exclaims, 'Here's your
precious people!' If half-a-dozen boys run across the course at
race time, when it ought to be kept clear, the young gentleman