Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-02-26
TIE NATIONS PAGES.
characteristics of the Boys Who Walt on
Senators and congressman.

characteristics of the Boys Who Wait on
Senators and congressman.
Some interesting character and pecu-
liar bits of life are found in the pages
of the Senate and House of Represen-
tatives. In the upper branch of Con-
gress there are about fifteen and in the
lower branch about %thirty-five pages.
Their duties are well-known to the
average reader. Their fields of labor
are the floors of the two branches of
Congress. A page for the Senate, how
ever, never does anything for q menu
Der of the House, and vice versa.
Sometimes a page is found who is
almost of age and nearly full-grown;
but they average from nine to fourteen
years, and most of them are very small
in stature, and upon first appearance
boyish in character. As years go on,
if they are retained, the little fellows
become sagacious, often proud, and not
infrequently initiate the statesmen in
bearing and conversation. There is nc
better school for a boy in which to be-
come an actor. He has the best of OPP
portunity to study every phase of char
acter. Speaking of the pages ome
times initiating the acts of their superb
ors, reminds me of m incident that
| occurred a few days ago. A very
diminutive page who was borne upon
the rolls of the last Congress was SUI
pcrseded. When he learned that his
place had been given to another he be-
came considerably detected, for this
little fellow had dissipated in a mild way
and had been profigate, so that he was
found almost without funds, and was
as far away from home as the State of
Missouri is from Washington. But the
boy had been an observer and knew q
trick or two. He studied the situation.
He solved it. Going to his boarding
house he hastily packed up his effects
without attracting the attention of any
one. With great caution he removed
them to another quarter of the city.
Then he went out to bid his confreres
adieu. Meeting one of them, who was
about ten years old, and as tall as q
mans I'm is long, he said:
"Well, goodbye, old fellow; I'm of.
My constituents have given me the
shake. I was defeated in caucus and
beaten in convention. The situation,
however, leaves me q little flat. / am
nearly broke; but 1 have found a way
out. l will jump my board bill. They
all do it,"
Sometimes the pages run in schools,
like fish, and become clannish. Not
infrequcntly one meets q crowd Of
them, all under three feet in height, at
the midnight hour, making the town
howl. Many of them smoke cigarettes
and play billiards. There is not Il very
great proportion of them, however,
who fall into these channels of dissipa-
ton. Those who do generally come
from the larger cities. Then the page
have a way of ''hazing," and some of
the capers they play upon %plcbians or
inexperienced boys are wonderfully
severe and terribly embarrassing. One
of the favoritc tricks in the line of
hazing is to take a new boy down in the
lower basement under the hall of the
House and show him the rubber man."
The basement is very dark and very
broad and ~cavernous. Portions of it
arc unlighted, and the unsophisticated
youth soon finds himself lost. The sur
%roundings are weird and frightful, and
! it sometimes takes an hour to get out.
Pages receive %seventy-tivc dollars per
month during the session. Those in
the House arc generally changed every
two years, but the boys i'll the Senate
are retained, and some of them grow
up to manhood from childhood at their
posts of duty, as did Senator German,
of Maryland. 1t is said that a con-
siderable number of the pages in the
House are blood relatives to members,
and sometimes the members have their
sons appointed Washington Cor. In
didnGpoliS Sentinel.