The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-10-03

4 1l6iHg Oh
"He's good enough man." said one
little fellow, 'but he's awful on u.s."
"What kind of man is Senator In
galls?" I asked.
''Oh! he never notices u.s. answered
one.
''No," piped wee chap. she amt So
ciable."
Senator Hiscock is not very popular
among the pages. They say he seems
''sort O. tired of every thing and every
body"
Some time ago the pages formed q
senate of their own. For some reason
they excluded Masters Moody, Long and
Harris, whereupon these three organized
themselves into reportorial corps and
broke into so many secret sessions that
the judiciary officer of the body con-
cluded it was time to adjourn sine die;
so he decamped with the twenty five
cents in the treasury and six sheets q
paper belonging to the organization.
The pages senate then collapsed.
These boys get SIS month in salary
and numerous small sums from generous
Senators. They also have trick Of
picking up all the printed speeches Of
certain Senators, and, after having them
nicely bound, sell the volume to the
/ Senators.
docs anybody but the Senators buy
these speeches." I asked.
'Oh! no; only the Senator who has
made the speeches." was the innocent
answer.
One little fellow--Harry Long-told
me he had made $75 in the last year nv
selling speeches to the Senators WHO
made them.
'What would you do if you were a
Senator'S asked one of the small boys.
was rather set back by his answer.
''Td call up the Blair education bill
and have it passed." he said.
Eyes, street." chimed in half doze n
more; ''we all wanted that bill to pass"
l learned afterwards, however, that
they did not care fig for the merits Of
the bill. They had seen Senator Blair's
earnestness in the matter and his re-
peated disappoin tments over its failure,
and they were sincerely sorry for him.
When asked whether they would
rather be pages or Senators, all but one
agreed that generally they would pre-
| fer to be pages, because we pages have
heap more fun than the Senators do "
Little fiaxen-haired, blue-eyed Warner
Moody, however, looked up and spoke
with quaint dignity and thoughtful
deliberatiOn:
81 would rather be a Senator, of
course"
Page etiquette demands that each lad
shall be permitted to wait On his own
| patron natOr-that is, the Senator
who procured his place for him; and it
is inexcusable rudeness for one page to
respond to the call Of another's Senator
unless the other is so engaged that he
can not attend to it.
| The pages are ostensibly republicans,
but they do not mind saying that there
are good many things about the DEM
ocratic side that are attractive to them,
prominent among which is the fact that
most of the motions to adjourn come
from the Democratic side; and since
the boys report for duty at 9 o'clock in
the morning and remain until adjourn
ment, this is no unimportant matter to
| them.
The Democratic side of the chamber,
however, is what the boys call ''the
penitentiary," since whenever one of
them is refractory Captain Bassett rele-
gates him to duty on that side. This
is an old-time custom, and pages soon
learn that it is in the nature of reward
of merit to be permitted to serve on the
majority side of the chamber. There
are seven boys for each side, but those
on the majority side always feel little
more favored.
81 got to larking the other day." said
Master Long, land Captain Bassett sent
me over on the Democratic side"
AS l turned to leave the group one
little fellow followed me, saying:
''Don't forget to put in something
about Noddy Bofin master George
Mann, of Michigan) and Rev. DR.. FL
ward Bailey, of Georgia, the boy who
says 'fo'teen' and deed l did, and tote
for carry; and don't forget Hadji Hassein
Ghooly Khan master Will Aulick, of
Illinois) and TX Bassett, Jr., the grand
son OF Captain Bassett, the boy that ate
the shoe backing when he was told it
was pate de 70 8 gras."
"And say" he added, "you amt
goin' to interview the House pages, are
your
"Why not?"
well, they amt in our class, you
know"
There is as much distinction among
boys between Senate page and a
House page as there is among men be-
tween a Senator and a member of the
lower House. WILLIS B. HAWKINS.