National Republican., 1884-03-03
ON THE AVENUE.
Small Talk About Men and Measures.


last Thursday upon Congressman Haskell was
one by Judge Belford. Tho prose of it was
poetic and beautiful, but occasionally the
orator borrowed the rhymed language of
other men to illustrate his thought Ho
quoted stanza of Schiler's, another of Ten
nyson's, and seven stanzas of Col. Joyces
poem, unknown" Afterward Col. Joyce
was talking with some of his friends about
the speech and the poetry, and the colonel
remarked: ut don't often happen that
living American has his poetry printed
at the expense of the government. There
are my lines made imm ortal in the pages of
the Congressional Record. They are printed
with Schiller's and Tennyson's. / expect
| Schiller and Tennyson will be mad enough
about il when the Record gets to them.
presume Schiller will make some fuss--come
out in card, or something of that sort-but
| Tennyson will probably suffer in silence
But it's great thing for me. Government
printing my poems. They didn't use to do
that sort Of thing years ago when Poe was
alive" Col Joyce looked as if he should
much enjoy reading Schiler's card.
| ne
~ didn't think no would ever be able to
get through with it," said the man in tho
gallery, as the chaplain of the house finished
his recital of the Lords Prayer. "He GER
tainly said, Give us this day our daily bread
and | was looking straight at Holman, but
he never opened his mouth"
"What did you expect Holman to do?"
Expect him to do? Why, object to the pres
ont confederation of the petition, of course,
and move to refer it to tho committee OH
! md oil 1o
thing else but object Holman poses before
tho country as great economizer-a sort OF
watch dog of the treasury, as it werc-and
probably that's the reason why Belford takes
every occasion to rap him. It's all q mistake.
In his small way Holman is helping Belford
to unlock the treasury vaults. There's no
one man in congress who is responsible
for so much waste of good time
as Holman. Whenever there is an
opportunity he objects Let the plainest
possible proposition como up,with every man
in the house, except Holman, willing to pass
it right along, up jumps Holman with his
everlasting Il object Then it has to go the
longest way round through several commit
tees, only to be passed at last after hours
spent in useless discussion and u lot of useless
printing aud red tape. have known him to
cause $4,000 worth of time to be wasted in
objecting to the appointment of a $1,000
clerk, when he and everybody else knew
that the clerk was necessary and
would be appointed in the end. If
anybody is fooled into thinking that
Holman is saving money to the government
let him remember, whenever he learns that
Holman has brought on dreary discussion
and caused a long delay by his objection, that
it costs about 81 500 an hour to run the great
American congress. Figure him up on that
basis, and you will see that the government
would have saved money by giving Holman
$4,000 year to stay in Indiana"
&*s
In Virginia there are so many statesmen
to the acre that they are not much regarded;
but warriors are immortal. Many of the in
telligent white men who testified before the
Danville investigating committee, and nearly
all of the colored witnesses persisted in call
Senator Sherman general" They all mis-
took him for his brother.
4@x
: ''Yes, l was in New Orleans to see the
Mardi Gras carnival" said the New Yorker,
and was much impressed with good dea
: that saw. Yoy know the Copish investiga.
y tion was going on then, and being from the
horth l took some interest in that matter
| attended several sessions of the committee
and learned a good deal. found out that thC
southern chivalry were pretty keen in som'
things. For instance, they had summoned
o some thirty Of the leading democrats from
, that section of Mississippi as witnesses but
not q one of them ever testified. They sim.
q ply had good time, and enjoyed the festiva
of the Mardi Gras at government expense
They had only one grievance and that was
y as one of them told me confdentially, tina
they had been compelled to divide their wit
ness fees with big fat fellow with ret
4. pimply nose--a native 'kunnell who wa
- acting as adviser to the democrats on th
committee. They were compelled to suffe
u this in silence because this adviser
" had insisted on such n divide befor
Is he would agree to have then
70 subpenaed. There was another thing, though
that struck me as highly edifying, On tn
night of the carnival ball Jefferson Davi:
president of the late confederacy, occupied
box in the theater. He was accompanied b.
the daughters of Gen. Lee, Stonewall jackson
=. and a number of other ladies. The bo
r was draped with confederate flags, how
n ers, and evergreens, and at point i
r the programme a magnificent floral swor
s was brought in. This was TASTEFUL
o decorated with confederate bunting
- and attached to it was card bearing thes
h words: ITO the President After bein
IS examined by many of those present, tn
m sword was handed into the box and presente
70 to Mr. Davis.
t, "Now, as he was not the presiding officer
Of tho festival, it looked q good deal like a
ovation to him as the chief magistrate of tn
defunct confederacy.
N 81 guess if such thing had occurred @
" the other side of the water, say in Englant
ir there would have been some Englishmen @
.y centric enough to call this misapplcatic
y of terms treason. 1t may be all right for NJ
W Davis to be dubbed president by those wi
supported him and the lost cause, but
seemed to me that it would be likely to excl
SO some reference to illusions among the mar
,n northerners who had visited New Orleans
lg witness the Mardi Gras festivities"
~
"I'm glad we are going to have some mo
st, ships" said the commodore when he hea
Ill that the steel cruiser bill had passed in h
Ir, senate. "Thcre's q tremendous quantity