The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-08-28
Nerve of n Setting Hea.

Fire broke out the other day in q
shed. The firemen saved a life and pre-
vented the fire from spreading A set
ting hen occupied IL nest in n corner
Of the shed and Notwithstanding the
fact that she wassdrenched with chem
zeal matter, she refused to move. The
fire was all about her, and finally one
of the men picked her up and carried
her, nest and all, into the alley. The hen
showed her d~isapproval of the famil-
iarity on the part of the fireman by
cacklinR loudly.-Indianapolis Sentinel.
SPEAKER AND WHITE HOUSE.
Facts That Upset One I'm
written Law of American Politics.
Various unwritten laws of American
politics seem to have lost their force of
late. There ia that one to the effect
that no president after leaving the
white house could expect ever to be
reelected to return to tia rule broken
in the case of Cleveland. Another is n
law that no United States senator could
become president@a law broken in the
case of James A. Garfield. Still another
of these laws has recently been brought
again into notice by the critics and adj
mirers of Speaker Thomas b. Reed,
and there is travelling about in some
newspapers an item to the effect hat
"every man who has sought the speak
ership Of the house since the founda-
tion of the government has done SO
with a view to the presidential nominal
ton of his party. 1t has always been
enough to defeat his election except in
one lone, solitary instance-that of
James X. Polk"
Such a statement Is, of course, absurd.
The last democratic speaker of the
house Of representatives, for instance,
Charles F. Crisp, who presided over the
house in the Fffty-second and Fifty
third congresses, was not q native of h
United States, having been born at Shelf
field, England, and ne was therefore not
eligible to the presidency, and could not
hive sought the speakership for two
terms "with-a view to the presidential
nomination of his party" Nor was
he b only foreign-born speaker of b
house of representatives. Again, it is
speaker of the house of representatives
has ever been a bar Il other honors in
the field of American politics. Schuyler
Colfax was the speaker OF three houses,
in the Thirty-eighth. Thirty-ninth and
the Fortieth congresses. He aspired to
be vice president of the United States,
an Office to which he was nominated and
elected in 1868. He was never a can
didate for the presidency and never
aspired, SO far as public records show,
to the presidential nomination. Ma
thaniel p. Banks, who was speaker of
the house in the Thirty-fourth congress-,
aspired afterward to be governor of his
native state Of Massachusetts, and his
service as speaker did not prove an OBJ
stacle to this, for he became governor
OF Massachusetts, in 1868, being the sue
cessor of John A. Andrews. John G..
Carlisle, who was the speaker in three
congresses, was never seriously regard
ed as q candidate for the presidency, and
the obstacle to his ambition was not past
service as speaker of the house of rep
resentatives, but the fact that he came
from Kentucky, a state south of the
Ohio river line, and was, therefore, re-
garded as unavailable on geographical
grounds, Galusha 4. Grow, who was
speaker in the Thirty-seventh congress-,
never, as far as anyone knows or
has heard, a candidate for the presiden-
tial nomination. He Is a member of the
present congress and a prominent fg-
ure in it. John Bell was speaker in the
TAw~enty-third congress, elected in 1884,
and his defeat for the presidency 20
years later could have had little connec
tion with his service in the house of
representatives, and his successor,
James X. Polk, as speaker, who presided
over the house In the Twenty-fourth
and Twenty-ifth congresses. was elect
ed president In 1844.-N. Y. Sun.