The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-31
FRIDAY, MARCH 81, 1871.
SCENES IN THE SENATE.

The performances in the United States Senate
yesterday were unusually entertaining, varied,
and dramatic. Some of the choice spirits of
the ''most potent, grave, and reverend
seigniors' of the land used their best efforts
to delight a secesh and semi-secesh Washing
ton audience, and they we're wonderfully sue
cessful. Garulous Garret Davis, of Ken
tucky, was the star actor of the OCCASION but
he was well supported by his colleague, Mr..
Stevenson, and, at one stage of the drama, by
Frank Blair, of Missouri. The times
seem to be returning when the ad-.
vocacy Of the rights of shareholders, and the
praises of the demeanor of such grand ex-
emplars of American life, bring down the
plaudits of the galleries of the Senate. Mr..
Davis consumed several mortal hours in
Offering resolutions and making speeches in
support of his favorite plans for emptying the
treasury into the purses of Kentucky ex-
shareholders and notorious Rebels, and he
gave new emphasis to the opinion of one of
the best of the Union generals in the late
war, that, while the decaying aristocracy rep
resented by Davis is too lazy to work
and too thoroughly cowed to fight, it will
signalize its declining days by inventing num-
berless schemes to steal the public money. If
we are ever to have another amendment to
the National Constitution, it should be one
providing that under no circumstances shall
any Southern claim growing out of the late
war ever be paid, and that any Senator or
Representative who consumed the time
of Congress by pressing such
measures should be expelled. AS matters are
progressing now, there is serious danger that
the patient, forbearing, long-suffering, and
overbprdened Taxpayers of the North will
eventually be Obliged to enrich hordes of
Southern lazzaroni and their Congressional
champions; and this danger is rather increased
than diminished by the fact that repressive
measures against the Ku-klux Klans are dis.
cussed during the same sessions that
consider appropriations to ex-slavehold-
ers for ex-slaves; for, practically, the con-
tinued agitation of such themes tends to prove
that the war is not yet over, and that, while
submission is incomplete on the one hand,
claims for Southern war losses are not yet de-
barred on the other.
Aside from the serious interest connected
with the proceedings yesterday, and the
threatened danger of Northern taxpayers, an
amusing interlude completed the artistic
charm of this national drama. AS Shake
speare puts comic scenes into his most i'm
pressive ragedies-thrusting witty grave
digger into Hamlet and a whimsical nurse
into Romeo and Juket-so the controversy
which involves the ultimate welfare of ma
tion was enlivened by the passage at arms be-
tween Garret Davis and Ben Butler. This
scene, as reported, commenced by the doughty
Massachusetts, radical casting insulting looks
at Davis while he was making his disgrace
full speech. The reports are silent as to
whether Ben bit his thumb or made mouths
at the Kentucky gamecoek (and soreiy as the
garrulous Senatorial champion of ex-slave-
holders and ex-rebels is aggrieved, he does
not pretend that Ben did bite his thumb or
distort his bewitching countenance), but that
insulting looks were cast he most solemnly
AYERS; whereupon, in wrathful and resentful
mood. and in the grand style of the brave old
Southern gentlemen all of the olden time, he
marched up to Ben (who was seated near by,
on the floor of the Senate), shaking his fist
meanwhile, and said:-"Do You mean to in
suit me, you - old scoundrel?" To which
pertinent query the astute Massachusetts,
ex-advocate of the nomination of Jefferson
Davis as a candidate for President of the
United States Enthusiastically replied:-"l
don't care a - for you. The people may
well wonder that men capable of participating
in such performance habitually consume a
large portion of the time allotted to public
affairs in the national councils and the most
consolatory report connected with this scene
is the statement that Davis offers to Butler
satisfaction anywhere out of the Senate cham
ber. We are no advocates of the barbarous
code, but if ever good can come out of evil,
there would he hope to expect it from such
an armed encounter between these bellige-
rents which proved fatal to both parties.