Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-10-10

way ahead On the pathway of progress.
Her expectations were naturally high
and she had not been so happy since she
last met the Hon. Roger Q. Mills as
when she struck the rock-ribbed granite
hills of Washington county.
But the goddess was doomed to bitter
disappointment, and at last accounts she
looked as if she had found the Wonooski
a veritabe onion river and its waters
composed wholly of the juice of that
esculent. The true nature of the situa-
tion was not revealed all at once, but
from the start there were puzzling
things. She had read the closing SEN
tence of Candidate Pages speech to the
convention which nominated him: "Vote
only for men who are thoroughly honest
and level-headed, men to whom no one
will dare to come with a job" and she
took it for granted that the admonition
had been needed. The first shock of
surprise came over the choice of speaker.
when the candidate of the farmers, if
they had one, was defeated by the can
didate of the corporations, which are al
ways provided with candidates. She
was rather amused, though, with the
tactics of the Democrats. They made "A
great ado about firing the sweet-temper
ed Atkins out of their caucus, but they
nevertheless did Just what he would have
commanded them to do had he had the
say; they stood in with the corporations
and elected their candidate for speaker.
The next strange thing observed was in
the makeup of the Senate committees.
The goddess could not then unders tand.
aud she doesn't yet, why the genial SEN
ator from the north end of this county,
whose hostility to the railroads has not
been of a pronounced type, should be
placed at the head of the railroad COM
mittee. That and the speakership busi-
ness led her to suspect that everything
was not quite right, and that the repre-
sentatives of the farmers might have
sold their birthrights for a mess of pot
tage or passes, or else that they weren't
N
further developments with much interest,
hoping against hope that the serpent,
instead of coming to grief, would not
swallow them bodily. While waiting
she has studied the papers with care,
and they have bothered her, too. She
could not make out, nor could any one
satisfactorily explain. why the Hon. j.
ID. Hatch. the Hon. G.. W. Writer'S and
several Others should be so frequent Wis
itors at the capital, nor why Prof. Cooke,
head of the agricultural tail of the State
university, should waste his precious
hours there when the university pays
him for his time. She expects more
light on these points later on. The move
to dispense with the furnishing of news.
papers to members of the House at the
expense of the State seemed to her a
move in the right direction, but her sOr-
rows grew more heavy on Wednesday
when this was voted down. But she
consoled herself with the thought that
some of the members would not know
too much even after reading the papers
for which the State paid.
1t was not till the House committees
were announced on Wednesday that the
goddess entered fully into the spirit OF
the occasion and fell to weeping for re-
! lief. When she saw placed at the head
of the ways and means committee-tho
committee which is to frame a substitute
for the corporation tax law-Mr. Smith
of st. Adams, son of President Smith OF
the Central Vermont, and himself a vice
president of the road, she gave up ant
; angrily declared that the "reform'
outcry was the greatest humbug of tn,
century, or else the $50 farmers in thu
House had been outwitted and blinded tt
their own interests. She is almost hope
less, but will stay at the capital a while
I ,I,,e