New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-09-13
THE FROZEN SMILE.

There's something very startling in the
aspect of man who in the midst of great
and hearty laugh over what he thinks is an
excellent joke discovers suddenly that 1t Is no
Joke at all. The laugh stops short and freezes
into an expression that may be imagined but
cannot be described. 1t is doubtful If this
frozen smile, under such circumstances, IS more
ludicrous or frightful. Not to gointo the sub
icct Mt length or dwell upon theinfnite variety of
smiles and sudden variations OF expression which
congelation may effect in them, take the SIN
Gle instance OF the politician, who, at the very
height of his merriment over successful
game against the people, with platform or
candidate, finds suddenly that the people, after
all, have won the game, and he has deceived
no one but himself. Fancy that smile frozen
and tnat laugh chOked with a hollow gurgle
in his throat. Nay fancy battalion of
them drawn up, and the freeze catching
them in sections or running slowly but
surely down the line Or an army
of them transiixed by regiments and brigades
and divisions, until the whole force had fairly
stiilened into the voiceess and motonless
form of inextingulshable mirth. There are the
hands on the hips, the half-bent bodies, the
mouth wide open with the cha, ha, ha " ex-
preston, and all the countenance wrnkled up
with fun, but no sound nor movement in it
ALL the whole thing struck dead and frozen
stiff with wonder and surprise.
1t is not altogether fancy. The frozen smile
is the current spectacle. 1t pervades the
country. There is no custom house, however
watched and tended, but one dead smile is
there. No village post Office is now without
it they have it everywhere. The smiles that
have so abruptly frozen, like the Revolutionary
soldiers addressed by the late Mr.. Webster,
4" have come down to us from former gene
"ration." The gentlemen who own them
were iii the habit, for many years, of amusing
the people and entertaining each other
with political platforms that absolutely
overlooked with promises OF an immedi-
ate settlement of the Southern question,
and the reform of the Civil Service. They
nominated candidates, too, who reiterated
the promises, and added more to them in
their letters of acceptance. And when they
had done this, the carpet-baggers Mt the South,
who knew the settlement of the Southern
question would end their political careers
and the office hOldcrs, who drew large salaries
for no work. and knew that Civil Service Re-
form would send them "kiting," doubled
themselves up with laughter at the way people
swallowed it all. But they laughed longest
and loudest when the c0nfiding voters
ventured TO inquire, after the election,
how soon the settlement and the reform
would begin. So the smile became, in a
measure, chronic, and the men in Office came
to be much more careless than the Roman
Augurs; they openly winked and smiled and
thrust their tongues IN their cheeks when they
met. Last year they assembled at Cincinnati,
passed resolutions and nominated candidate
for President in the old way, and-smiled.
The candidate wrote letter of acceptance APP
proving the platform and promising to carry
out the reforms it suggested. They read it
and-smiled. 1t was the old story.
so after the election and inauguration, there
still was the smile radiant in all fat places,
and unctuous in two OF three Southern States.
Bat the smile of the carpet-bagger shortly be-
gan to turn to a sickly yellow about the lips.
and settle into hard lines .sDd one day the
President did what he had said he would
settled the Southern question-and it frozc.
1t was not pretty, but it did look picturesque.
Then there came. one day. to the NewYork
Custom House number of gentlemen of an
ipquiriDg turn of mind, with authority to
ask questions, and they began to ask the
weghers if they weighed. the gaugers
if they gagged, the inspectors if they
inspected. and all sorts of ridiculous things of
that sort. At which the weighers who didn't
weigh, and the gaugers who didn't gauge, and