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The election law was the ball-and-chain to the feet of the party of Order, that hindered them from walking, and now assuredly from storming. Furthermore, by the official disbandment of the "Society of December 10," and the dismissal of the Minister of War, d'Hautpoul, Bonaparte had, with his own hands, sacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the fatherland.

If it wasn't for administerin' town business right I'd have got him a spider-web and let him sail away on it. As it is, I reckon I've scared him about twenty-four hours' worth. He'll stick there in torment for near that time. But about noon to-morrow he'll get away unless I scare him again or ball-and-chain him with a thread and a buckshot."

She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, though so courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she had heard how a colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested as a vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a day.

She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, though so courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she had heard how a colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested as a vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a day.

In 1836 he came out from Virginia to "take toll" of the Mexicans for killing some relatives of his in the Fannin Massacre, and he considers that he has squared his accounts; but they had him on the debit side for a while. Being captured in the Meir expedition, he walked as a prisoner to the city of Mexico, and did public work for that country with a ball-and-chain attachment for two years.

I looked upon them with disgust. Fettered to that pavement, like a convict to his ball-and-chain, I passed and repassed in wretchedness whose quality I cannot express, and would not if I could. "I am punished," I said; "I am punished for that which I have done. This is my doom. I am imprisoned here." Sometimes I broke into uncontrollable misery, crying upon my wife's dear name.

After keeping them in fearful suspense for hours he would order them to be punished with the stocks, the ball-and-chain, the chain-gang, or if his fierce mood had burned itself entirely out as was quite likely with a man of his shallop' brain and vacillating temper to be simply returned to the stockade.

Those sentenced to ball-and-chain were brought in immediately, and had the irons fitted to them that had been worn by some of our men as a punishment for trying to escape. It was not yet determined how punishment should be meted out to the remainder, but circumstances themselves decided the matter.

After keeping them in fearful suspense for hours he would order them to be punished with the stocks, the ball-and-chain, the chain-gang, or if his fierce mood had burned itself entirely out as was quite likely with a man of his shallop' brain and vacillating temper to be simply returned to the stockade.

Those sentenced to ball-and-chain were brought in immediately, and had the irons fitted to them that had been worn by some of our men as a punishment for trying to escape. It was not yet determined how punishment should be meted out to the remainder, but circumstances themselves decided the matter.