Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/187

 zouaves into the war and became a brigadier-general. Such a condition of things always arouses envy and opposition, and Collis was ever followed by the stories of incapacity and even of lack of courage. I do not believe any of them. He suffered from the disadvantages of a man who pursues fortune too eagerly and he was not always equipped, but he had energy and alertness and I have seen him display a brave spirit where it was required. He became city solicitor for Philadelphia, married a beautiful woman and removed to New York. I wrote the pronunciamentos, served on the election board, became a member of the Executive Committee for the ward, went to the judicial convention and voted for the nomination of James T. Mitchell when first he became a judge, and in 1868 I was elected a member of the school board.

Turbulence very often marked the political struggles. On one occasion a contest arose at the primary election over the selection of delegates to the nominating conventions, the chief controversy being over the naming of a sheriff. Collis was on the regular ticket as a delegate to this convention and it was arranged that I should go to the convention to nominate a city solicitor. Just before the polls closed a man came up to the window to vote; while the clerk was looking up his name, he reached in through the window, seized the ballot box and ran with it down the street and scattered the ballots in the gutters for two squares. It was done very suddenly; his friends stood in the way to block pursuit and he succeeded in escaping. He left an angry lot of politicians around the polls. We went to a neighboring tavern, I drew up a lot of affidavits to the effect that in our judgment we had a large majority of the votes cast, and upon these credentials we secured our seats in the conventions. A little fellow, hardlj^ larger than a dwarf, with a squeaky voice, named Robert Renshaw, and who was always called the “Colonel,” had a room in the Press Building, where he slept. His appearance, claiming Rh