He had begun his career as a stone-cutter in a quarry, and was, not
unreasonably, proud of the fact. During the campaign this incident
had, of course, filled a large space in the public mind, or, more
exactly, in the public eye. "The Stone-cutter of the Wabash," he
was sometimes called; at others "the Hoosier Quarryman," but his
favourite appellation was "Old Granite," although this last
endearing name, owing to an unfortunate similarity of sound, was
seized upon by his opponents, and distorted into "Old Granny." He
had been painted on many thousand yards of cotton sheeting,
either with a terrific sledge-hammer, smashing the skulls (which
figured as paving-stones) of his political opponents, or splitting by
gigantic blows a huge rock typical of the opposing party. His
opponents in their turn had paraded illuminations representing the
Quarryman in the garb of a State's-prison convict breaking the
heads of Ratcliffe and other well-known political leaders with a
very feeble hammer, or as "Old Granny" in pauper's rags,
hopelessly repairing with the same heads the impossible roads
which typified the ill-conditioned and miry ways of his party. But
these violations of decency and good sense were universally
reproved by the virtuous; and it was remarked with satisfaction
that the purest and most highly cultivated newspaper editors on his
side, without excepting those of Boston itself; agreed with one
voice that the Stone-cutter was a noble type of man, perhaps the
very noblest that had appeared to adorn this country since the
incomparable Washington.
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