The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1870-01-20
seeretarIes RObesOn and WeILes.

IN
The following, from the Hartford
Posi-, is a good specimen of a slashing
style:
1t isn't always safe to go fooling
around fossils or kicking dead lions.
The Hon. George NJ Robson, Secre-
it. A great maDy years ago we re-
member to have read a very thrilling
story about a gentleman of elegant
leisure, who was travelling for the fun
of it in the tropics. D~isPorting him
self on the banks of q river, he
amused himself with trying to turn
over and roll into the stream, for the
sake of hearingi it splash. what he sup
posed to be a black walnut log. Before
he had succeeded it turning it over,
one end Of the log-which happened,
strangely enough, to be the tail of an
archaeological round aud knocked
him over; there was a sort of splitting
| open of the log at the other end, a
flash of white teeth in the sunshine
a quiet advertisement of a good
opening for a man Of means the
lazy winkiug of black eye that look
cd like a knot in the log-and the
gentleman of elegant leisure had dis
appeared, leaving in his wake the
glitter of a procession of brass but
tons, and just a tsste of verdegris and
linen In the roof of the aliigator's
mouth; and then the alligator re-
sumed his slumbers. Aud that gen.
tleman left on record nothing to indi-
cate his feelings. We only know that
it must, in the very nature of the
event, have been a great surprise to
him.
No man in this country can tell
more nearly how that gentleman felt
than the Hon. George NJ. Robson,
Secretary of the Navy. For Mr..
Robson has been engaged for some
months in poking sticks at his veneer
able predecessor, the Hon. Gideon
Welles. Mr.. Welles has made mis-
takes In his time-sOme Of them, as.
we conceive, grave ones. The one for
which he has been chiefly blamed, is
that of being advanced in years and
so far froh correcting this be has
been IN one way and another adding
TO it constantly. And so he has
been called by the various names
which we are IN the habit Of attach
ing to those persistent sinners who
deliberately and unscTdpulously grow
old-such as fossil and old fogy."
and all that. No doubt he deserves
it all. We are not defending him.
We are simply recording the untimely
end of George NJ. Robson. Mr..
Robson meant well. He sup
posed Mr.. Gideon Welles had
lost his teeth that the cid gentleman
t0as really in the lean and slippered
p~antalooD, and that being so sans
everything an absolute and confessed
fossil, he might pry him overheard
and hear the plash of him. Ard
noWit occurs to US that just here Mr..
Robson made a mistake. Any one
who will read the letter which we
publish herewith, from the ex-Secre-
tary to the acting Secretary, will, we
think discern it. 1t strikes us that
in the crack of two or three senten-
ces there is something very like the
snap of that alligater's tail, and in
Che paragraphs relating to the coal
contracts. wherein he shows that Sec
rotary Robeson's saving of 81, 200, 900
dollars per annum is to be made
where the whole expenditure has only
been $4,000 per annum, we re-
mark that craunching sound of brass
buttons, wooden, teeth, ribs and hair,
that must have accompanied the dis
appearance of the gentleman of leisr
ure. 1t seems to us-and we are per-
feetly disinterested in the natter
that, so far as Mr.. Robson is con-
cerned, obituaries are now in order.
Meantime, Mr.. Gideon Welles splits
out a button or two, Winks his eyes
lazily at a wondering universe, and
continues to bask in the sun and grow
old on Charter Oak Hill, in this city,
where he may be found at any time in
or out of business hours.
Seriously, though, Mr.. Robson has
made a mistake in attacking Secretary
Welles' administration Of the Navy
Department. In his department Mr..
Welles was as honest, vigorous and
efficient an officer as the country ever
had.