Note 1 — Chapter XXIII · THE DEVIL’S HOLE; OR, FISH AND FLESH.

Log-rolling.—In the lumber regions of Maine, it is customary for men of different logging camps to appoint days for helping each other in rolling the logs to the river after they are felled and trimmed, this rolling being about the hardest work incident to the business. Thus the men of three or four different camps will unite, say on Monday, to roll for camp No. 1, on Tuesday, for camp No. 2, on Wednesday, for camp No. 3, and so on through the whole number of camps within convenient distance of each other. The term has been adopted in legislation to signify a little system of mutual co-operation. For instance, a member from St Lawrence has a pet bill for a plank-road which he wants pushed through. He accordingly makes a bargain with a member from Onondaga, who is coaxing along a charter for a bank, by which St Lawrence agrees to vote for Onondaga’s bank if Onondaga will vote St Lawrence’s plank-road. This is legislative log-rolling, and there is abundance of it carried on at Albany every winter. Generally speaking, the subject of the log-rolling is some merely local project, interesting only to the people of a certain district; but sometimes there is party log-rolling, where the Whigs, for instance, will come to an understanding with the Democrats that the former shall not oppose a certain democratic measure merely on party grounds, provided the Democrats will be equally tender to some Whig measure in return.—J. INMAN.