All our ills appear to be caused by minute insects that get inside of us, demoralize our system of government and inaugurate a reign of anarchy. Everything, from mugwumpery to the meddler's itch, from corns to crime, is now traced to the pernicious activity of some microbian. Even our currency system is blasted by goldbugs, and Prohibition milk- sickness is being treated with vermifuge.

The sordid necessity of seeing Hinchey taught him afresh the folly of his dabbling in politics at all, and his whole being revolted against the contact with humanity in the raw which even mugwumpery seemed to entail. Left to himself, Sprague might have headed his own John Brown raid into the established order of things; led it with brilliancy perhaps, in any case with honest zeal.