Scattered. The votes at the tail-end of the returns are said to be scattering. In 1806, by a transcriber’s error, these votes were in one case credited to “Mr. Scattering.”
1798. The votes stood as follows: Brown, 214; Tillinghast, 33; Champlin, 230; Scattering, 3.—The Aurora, Phila., Sept. 5.
1800. Id., Dec. 16.
1806. Are we uncorrupt when we reject the people’s votes, when Mr. Scattering is put on the list as a man?—Mass. Spy, July 9.
1806. A facetious letter from the participle scattering: id., July 30.
1806. The Boston Repertory, Aug. 1, prints a ballad from the Farmer’s Museum, to the tune of ‘Unfortunate Miss Bailey’:
| Oh! Mr. Scattering, unlucky Mr. Scattering, | |
| He took to counting false returns, and thought of Mr. Scattering. |
[1808. The Federal Senators are certainly chosen, unless scattered votes are uncommonly numerous.—Mass. Spy, May 4].
1808. Democratic “Scats,” 26.—Id., Nov. 9.
1821. The settlements in these places, however, if we except the sites occupied by the towns and villages just enumerated, are still very scattering, and but a small proportion of the land susceptible of agriculture is yet under cultivation.—E. James, ‘Rocky Mountain Expedition,’ ii. 346 (Phila., 1823).
1824. I have taken the same course with the scattering trees on the farm.—Mass. Yeoman, March 10.
1824. The jostles and stumbles in walking at night thro’ streets with solitary scattering lamps, and those half-lighted.—The Microscope, Albany, N.Y., May 15, p. 40/2.
1824. There were but half a dozen scattering votes in all.—New Bedford Mercury, May 28.
1833. The scattering houses around its borders, with the island of timber in the centre, and the range of six or seven miles of prairie on every side, assured me that this was Prairie Ronde.—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ i. 212 (Lond., 1835).
1834. We saw in the evening plenty of scattering bulls, all with their faces turned to the south, and we knew that the cows could not be far behind them.—Albert Pike, ‘Sketches,’ &c., p. 68 (Boston).
1837. Scattering houses formed an irregular village the whole way.—John L. Williams, ‘The Territory of Florida,’ p. 160 (N.Y.).
1840. Gentlemen may specify a scattering Abolitionist, here and there, who occasionally co-operates with the Democratic party from local causes.—Mr. Watterson of Tennessee, House of Repr., Jan. 16: Cong. Globe, p. 104, Appendix.
1869. I recognized the old picture [The Last Supper] in a moment—the Saviour with bowed head seated at the centre of a long, rough table with scattering fruits and dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long robes, talking to each other—the picture from which all engravings and all copies have been made for three centuries.—Mark Twain, ‘The Innocents Abroad,’ ch. xix.
