An hour before the close of the poll I saw, with the unnatural clearness of polling-day fatigue, a large white face at the window of the ward committee-room, while a hoarse voice roared: 'Where's your bloody pigtail?
We cut it off last time: and now we'll put it round your bloody neck and strangle you.' In February 1907, during the County Council election, there appeared on the London hoardings thousands of posters which were intended to create a belief that the Progressive members on the Council made their personal livelihood by defrauding the ratepayers.

If a statement had been published to that effect it would have been an appeal to the critical intellect, and could have been met by argument, or in the law courts.
But the appeal was made to the process of subconscious inference.

The poster consisted of a picture of a man supposed to represent the Progressive Party, pointing a foreshortened finger and saying, with sufficient ambiguity to escape the law of libel: 'It's your money we want.' Its effectiveness depended on its exploitation of the fact that most men judge of the truth of a charge of fraud by a series of rapid and unconscious inferences from the appearance of the man accused.

The person represented was, if judged by the shape of his hat, the fashion of his watch-chain and ring, the neglected condition of his teeth, and the redness of his nose, obviously a professional sharper.

He was, I believe, drawn by an American artist, and his face and clothes had a vaguely American appearance, which, in the region of subconscious association, further suggested to most onlookers the idea of Tammany Hall.