The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-09-11

Convention met In Mariana on Wednesday the
9th inst; but, owing to the stringent quarant tine
regulations of jackson county, the attendance
was quite small, no delegates from east of the
Suwannee river being allowed to enter the
county.
Il is said that, for some time before the con-
yention met strong petitions and requests were
made to different ones of the old leaders, urging
them to accept the honors q OF the nomination.
but not one of them would agree 10 cast himself
upon the altar OF sacrifice. This backwardness
in coming forward, OF the old, tried and found
wanting men of the party, necessitated the
choosing of new man therefore. as soon as
the convention organized, the name OF Dr. II.
| r Benjamin. of Tampa, was suggested, and he
| not being present and no one else being willing
To accept, he was instantaneously nominated
with astonishing unanimity, although he had
heretofore been entirely unknown in State pol
i,ics Who Dr. Benjamin is, we are at present
unable to say, further than he Is druggist
| doing business IN the city of Tampa. Mayhap
| the Tampa papers can enlghten us upon the
| subject.
The convention, having nothing to fight over,
was unusually quiet and orderly in fact it wascon-
| ducedwith more system and nearer in accordance
with parliamentary rules than any Republican
| convention that We ever before attended, for we
were there and speak from personal knowledge.
Only one delegate wanted to say anything bitter
| about the Democrats and he was very little
| toxicated but he was quickly suppressed and
| not allowed to speak until all the others were
| through He was then mounted on a table aud
allowed to blow off the effects OF bad whisky
and be laughed at by the other delegates.
Speeches were made by John Eagan W. B.
| Saunders Isaac jenkins and others, which were
| attenlively listened to. E.gan, in his speech
explained The new election laws etc, and warn
| ed all their voters to that they were properly
registered, and that all new voters registering
were furnished with certificates, He also said
that he had been requested to say something
about The alvisabiity of Republicans putting
county tickets in the field that he did not like
to mix in their local politics, but as they wanted
| his opinion he would say that he thought it q
useless waste of time for them to nominate
county tickets in any of the counties but that he
did think they ought to nominate legislative
tickets in all of the counties, but they could best
Judge of This themselves.
When we boarded the train at Tallahassee We
found V. J. Shipman. tn" Republican nominee
for Governor, the man with strawberry record
in close consultation with little jim
mie Smythe of Jefferson. the mar
with another sort of record. They made
| quite a comical picture-litte Jimmie weighing
abou, 80 pounds and Shipman nearly 300 pound:
"a pair that would make the fortune of any
reslaur n,eur if used signs-,JImme as D." be
fore eating" and Shipman as :" after eating.
Jimmie got up 10 go into the smoking car anC
we walked mp and introduced ourself to Mr.
Shpman Now, unfortunately this particula
one OF the editorial we, bears the same name al
one of the Republican party of Tallahassee, anC
no doubt Mr.. Shpman took US for he, for he i'm
me,liaiely opened up on the work in the cam
paign that was before ne and let some of the lit
tie cats Jump out for our benefit, but, as Mr.
Shpman told US these little items in conf ence
Of course we won't give them publicity here
They are right handy TO know though and Mr.
! Shipman has our thanks for his ddcace
AT River Junction Mr. Shipman, as well as al
Of us ordinary every day folks, had to show W
his ccrtiticate-not a certificate Of registration
and, As his guarantee of health was dated from
| east of the Suwannec, he was told that he won !,
not be allowed to enter Jackson county but
upon his agreeing to submit to beng locked in
close Car, the officers there decided TO let him try
If he could get past the other health officers
We had special train from River Junction
and, the regular health officers had gon,
on the regular when reached the line O
Jackson county We fell to the mercy Of a quee
countryman, who had been placed there t
watch out for tramps, freight trains, ETC.
and his first work was to refuse
health certificate from Tallahassee, in tn,
hands Of colored delegate on the ground
that Tallahassee was east OF the Suwannee
| He asserted that his orders We're strictly to pu
every one off the train whose health certificate
were signed at points east OF the Suwannee
| There were two ladies on the train, Mrs Han,
and daughter. who had through tickets from LAX.
Helen to Cincinnati and he solemnly told then
that they would have to get off in the woods
AT this point we got riled and interfered, an(
when newspaper man gets to talking he talk:
| wild We won't give away the argument we
used, but in very short while we had con
| vnced that young man OF his error and tina
his authority was small potatoes as compared
| to ours. He was then satisfied that our entire
Car was entitled to pass. Mr.. Shipman wa
looked upon as suspect on account of being II
locked car and was being uncerem onouslv
ushered out into the cold. damp swampty air o
the ChattahoOchee valley, but We felt kindly to
ward Mr. S for the little political items that b,
had entrusted to our keeping, so we went TO hi
assistance. We informed the young health off
Ger that, as matters stood, he could put Mr.
Shipman off, but if Mr.. Shipman would pay his
fare through Jackson county and agree to b,
kept in closely locked car that he coulC
continue on his Journey, he, of course, no
| 10 be allowed to leave the train a
Mariana. This agreed to and Mr. Ship
man again placed in close and solitary confine
ment No doubt Mr.. Shipman wonders why
we ruled that he should be locked up alon,
while the other passengers from East OF the Su
wannee were allowed 10 travel in comfort. w,
have since learned that he was not allowed t
leave the tain anywhere until he reached Pen
sacola, and then only to change cars for one tina
would bring him to Tallahassee, the city Of hi
| Gubernatorial aspirations.
1t is but fair to state that the ignorant youns
health officer was not the Mr.. Roberts who Col
Merrill, OF the Times Union staff, gave such ,
raking over in the columns OF that paper. II
fact we travelled with Mr. Roberts, going from
Mariana to DeFuniak Springs, and we fount
him an intelligent, reasonable, gentleman
officer, entirely different from what we ex
dected to find, after reading Col Merris de-
scrip,iOn of him.