The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-07

does the honorable member expose all this
golden magnihcence2 Perhaps he does not
know the time of day. But If this be so, why
does he not return the magnificent gold watch
to its proper receptacle, unless 1t is that he
wishes to excite the envy of his less fortunate
coeagues2 Or, perhaps, as the session is
drawing to close, and time is money, literally
as well as proverbially he intends to speak pre-
cisely seven seconds and half by the dial of the
magnificent time-kceper With an infinitude of
such surmisings the Speaker and the audience
beguiled themselves for minute or so, until the
honorable member could clear the cobwebs from
his throat.
Then he broke forth, still holding the magnin-
cent gold watch and chain in his hand, and in
eloquent and appropriate terms proceeded to
pronounce an elaborate eulogy upon the aston
ished occupant of the chair of the august
semblage. We are told by one of the Albany
correspondents that the honorable member
spoke of the Speaker in ''neat and highly COM
plimentary' terms This means, of course, that,
in his eyes, the Speaker was u paragon of public
and private virtue, gentleman, a scholar, a
good judge of whisky, and withal a statesman
sans pelr ct sans reprOche-a man whose sole
study had been the dearest interests of the peO-
pie, man who had labored increasingly and
uncomplainingly to promote these interests in
every way man whom no corrupt lobbyist
would venture to approach for fear of such a
bubbling and boiling over of virtuous wrath
as would suffice to overwhelm the whole tribe of
lobbyists, and to stem the Shiny tide of corrup-
tion itself. The audience began to perceive the
drift of the eulogy, but the virtuous and in
genuous Speaker did not. Therefore Awhen the
honorable member, in concluding his "neat and
highly complimentary" remarks, presented
q tba olor In cold oh aud
chain, as a gift from the members of the Assem-
bly,, without distinction of party" the bewil-
dered recipient of the testimonial, we are told
by the correspondent, was entirely taken aback
by the unexpected compliments taken
aback, in fact, that his response was characte-
rized by ''much feeling" and was compressed
into less than nineteen lines of nonpareil
What contrast is here presented to the closing
scenes in our own Legislature, where, it is safe
to say, not soul was taken aback in this singu-
lar fashion. On all Sides from the youngest
page up to the virtuOus gentlemen who
welded the gavel with so much grace
magnificent gold watches and still more
magnificent gold chains, silver ice-pitchers,
golden gavels, patent Connecticut clocks, lead
pencils tooth-picks, bottles of German bitters,
bundles of half-hose, elastic suspenders, tin
cups, cakes of soap, papers of pins shoe-strings,
shirt buttons, and 'every such thing" were
scattered by the generous and Open-hearted
members, and in not a solitary instance is it re-
corded that the recipient of any of
these delicate and deserved compliments
was taken aback, or that his response was
characterized by any considerable amount of
feeling" or possessed, to an extraordinary
degree the rare virtue of brevity. The contrast,
indeed, is so marvellous that we might be in
clined to regard the New York Legislature as
being made up of material altogether different
from that which formed the staple of our own,
were it not for the following paragraph in a
recent number of the New York Times:-'It is
with great thankfulness that the people of New
York city observe that the days of the Albany
| Legislature are almost numbered, and the sense
of relief will be general when that body is
gathered to its predecessors"