Litchfield enquirer., 1877-06-14
The Sister.in-Law Militant.

Sophomores of the old collegiate class es of 40 to '50 no doubt remember the opening book of the Iliad (Sub-Fresh- men get it now); how the insulted priest of Apollo set his patron on the Greeks. and the dreadful slaughter of man and beast that ensued. At the safe distance of 5000 years aud more, this is a grand sight, which Sophomores, and Freshmen, and about eighteen other Americans, enjoy Just so. the obscure local journal, out of harms way from it's insignifcance, can not but read with keen interest "Gail Hamilton's" deadly letters in each Satur- days Tribune. Beginning with the va- rious prominent Republican journals that have supported the Hayes as against the Blaine policy, as Apollo first took the lives of the domestic animals of the Greeks, the typical Sister-in-Law has f. nalIy sent her "silver shaft" right into the Presidents family. straight at the heart of ''Mrs. Hayes Brother Joseph's wife's husband" Matthews! (Having no Greek type, and Greek in Roman let. ters being an abomination, we fall back on Pope);
 Hayes friends in view, she twanged her deadly bow, And missing fly the feathered fates below. On mules and dogs the infection first began;
 And. last the vengeful arrows nx'd in man
 After detailing numerous supposed in- st4nces of interference on the part of Mir. Matthews, with power of sarcasm be- side which even the ink of so ready wr1- ter as Benjamin F. Butler pales into a neutral tint, this dreadful woman re- marks,
 So did this Little Busy Bee Improve Each Shining Hour, till an admiring na- tion came to put him in the same rela- ton to the President that the old divines considered Satan to bear to the Almighty, ''not equal in original power, but making up for it by an internal activity"
 She follows up the attack on Matthews for another half column ;then stops brief space to torture the leading journalist for the absurdity of pretending to believe in Reform; then lashes the ''proverbial mod esty" of Ohio; and, finally, settles down to tearing to tatters the following sweet little newspaper story, the myth, as we must hereafter esteem it of ''Stillwell." "
 The President looked all Mir. Stillwell's papers carefully through, and then looking Stillwell full in the face said: ''Your papers are unexceptionable. There is nothing in your record which does not seem to show that you are fully qualified for the position; but there IS one insuperable objection to your ap- pointment to any Federal ofice-that is that your wife is favorite cousin of Mrs. Hayes"
 And thus Abigail begins her criticism:
 Now we must draw the line somewhere between belief and disbelief, and l draw mine at wife's cousins husbands. What ever becomes of Civil Service Reform, l openly avow that I don't believe one word of this story.
 The truth that gives it's sting to these diatribes is simply this: Stanley Matthews has meddled good deal, and therefore has "muddled" occasionally. The news papers have sloshed over with nonsense about Hayes refusal of preferment to personal friends; while, in reality, he has been pretty liberal 10 them, and to his own State. No doubt the censure is as indiscriminate as the praise. but the smell of incense is offensive to republican nostri!s, and an invigorating breeze like this Blaine side-wind is on the whole refreshing.