Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1896-01-16
TURNING TIME BACKWARD.
Hew the Day is Lengtbensd In she
United states senate.

OhpLhlu lbhhS DaoooIb, tuo No'
teran assistant door-keeper of the
Senate, who died the other day,
first turned back the finger OF
time on the face of the big clock
in 1874 He has told how it hap.
pened, and his own account of it
is more interesting, perhaps, than
it can be made by elaboration:
"It,was on March A, 1874, that
/ first turned backward the hands
OF the Senate clock. The Senate
then, in what is now the Supreme
Court room, was considering and
voting upon an appropriation bill,
when it became evident that the
bill could not become law be-
fore the hour of noon. Some one
suggested to the President pro
tempore-Senator William P.
Mangum of North Carolina-that
the hands of the clock might be
so manipulated as to leugthen the
official day. | was sent for, and
was ordered by Mr.. Mangum to
put the hands back ten minutes.
The Senate clock then was tall
one, and | remember very dis.
timely climbing up to its face.
The time thus manufactured was
sufficient, and the bill became a
law. Only on rare occasions was
there any meddling with the clock
to within the last twenty years.
Since then the hands have been
turned back at least once in every
Congress
Captain Bassett had learned no
regard the old desks and chairs
of the Senate as historical relics
in his personal care. He knew
the history of each one, when it
was made, who was its first occu-
pant and by whom it had been
used since it was first employed.
He also knew the vandals who
haunt the Capitol, and who would
rend and carry away the desks of
the famous men if they could but
fad them. Captain Bassett would
not impsrt the information he had,
but he had private marks on
desks and chairs registered in a
book closed to everybody. Mr..
Bassett would prefer to see the
chairs of Cass, Calhoun, Clay,
Webster and other great statesmen
burned where they stood than
mutilated by the relic-hunter
The desks are made of the best
mahogany, and after the pattern
first used when the seat of Gov
eminent was esta blished at Wash
ington. Every desk made fol-
the Senate is still in use. Some
of the original chairs also re-
main. .......
During his long term Of service
Captain Bassett has been absen,
when the Senate was in session
only thirty days, and twenty o.
those day: had been lost on &C
count Of illness during the last
five years. To be absent a mo
ment when he should be at his
post was distressing to the veter
an. when sickness keeps mt
indoors" he has said, Gin spite
of all my endsavors to be cheer
full, 1 am simply miserable. YOU
cannot understand how l feel
After sixty three years of service
the idea that the Senate is in ses-
sion and l am not there seems
awful. l can picture to my mine
the vacant chair, and of course
feel confident that nobody ear
perform my duties satisfactorily
Captain Bassett had privat,
nook in the Senate room of tn,
Capitol which few people ever saw
and fewer still had ever heard OF
1t was near the room of the Sen
ate Committee on the Library, ant
would be a very dark little del
but for the gaslight. In tina
room is lot of his historical ant
antique articles, each of which
has a volume of "reminiscences
clustered around it. He had tn
old snuffooxes used by Senator
when the boxes were kept In tn,
inches on each side of the Vice
n Presidents chair; and as the,
were retired and replaced by neV
ones, Captain Bassett kept the oil,
ones and labeled them. He ais
M preserved piece of the can