Daily Kennebec journal., 1883-08-31

Confined from first paee.)


ed for the House to resolve its own questions
and come to order. have witnessed the ex-
ercise of the duties of this Office when they
were difficult and hard, but they we're made
so by the want of knowledge on the part OF
parliamentary rules, and of the most direct
method by which results should be obtained.
but with the elearest understanding of what
results were most desirable to attain. But
this winter there has been nothing of this.
Every question has been apparently under
| stood by every member. and the chair has
had little more to do than to perform the
routine part of the work
This legislature will always be q verv
arked and conspicuous one in the legisla
tive history of the State. Few legislatures
have had occasion to encounter questions and
to dispose and ordsin for the future of the
State this legislature has. You have
touched profoundly great questions of social
ecoDomy and the social order. You have al
It red the la~ relating to divorce. You have
changed the death penalty in case of murder
in the first degree. Yoa have prepared to
incorporate into the Constitution of the State
the sreat principle of temperance. You
have revised. codifed and arranged the
whole body of laws under which we live,
and il has been done in such a manner
that il will continue to be source
OF pride and monument of your wisdom
and of the State for good manv years to
come. The time that YOU have taken to do it,
the determination 10 have this adjourned
session for the purpose OF having that revis.
ion made perfect and complete, testifies to
yonr determination TO make a complete re-
vision of the laws, and to codify and arrange
them in the best possible manner.
When one day of mans life is like an
other it flows like a waveless stream; but
sometime the stream encounters distractions
and is turned in eddies or falls PERCEPTIONS,
lis ht enters it, it sparkles and has voice
and becomes power. This session of the
Legislature has entered the peaceful flow of
your lives. You have been stirred with new
emotions. Light aud knowledge have en-
tered sou and you have found voice, and
have been, believe, a power for the good
and the glory and the progress and the de-
velopement of your State.
Somewhere, believe, in an opera, | have
heard song of wbicn | remember only
leading strain, that Memory is the only
friend that grief can call its own" We are
about TO separate and to incur that grief and
melancholy for which only memory can give
us friendly consolation. In parting from
YOU, gentlemen, l cannot assume to advise or
instruct you, but perhaps together We can
resolve 10 live for the honor and the glory of
our State that has honored US, and to live,
mindful of the value of that priceless liberty
which, born in The brain of Luther and CAL
win, agltated through centuries, tossed in the
Mayflower, has at last, here, in its political
aspect, developed into this perfect form of
free self government.
In accepting this gavel which you have in
your generosity presented to me, | desire to
say that it shall continue in NV possession, a
constant reminder of all that has been pie u.s.
ant and beautiful in our intercourse this
winter; a constant reminder of the duties of
the offic> and of the assistance which you
have rendered me in the discharge of its
duties.
And now, gentlemen, painfully and sadly
pronounce this legislature adjourned with
out day.
The Speaker at 10 o'clock declared the
House adjourned without day.