The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-26
THE HOUSE FROM ABOVE.
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(Continued From Fourth Page) so far from home; Indian chiefs from reservations, cool and comfortable in blankets while their great brothers be- low are sweltering in crash; politicians interested in contest, who slap one another nightly on the back and shout, By heaven, we've got him." to the horror of the attendants. Then there are young clerks who pass in and out with wink to the doorkeeper. A curl- ous type of withered, experienced, un- impressionable youth is evolved from those who start as pages and continue in one committee room or another ses- sion after session. They are the real connoisseurs of congressman; they LOOK upon them pityingly as interiors, ana with the patient consideration of elders for children or the weak minded Dur ing the most exciting and dramatic passage of arms last winter, when taunt and abuse flew back and forth, when the sergeant-at-arms was thrust aside, when the Speaker grew pale, and the imaginative in the galleries saw knives and guns flash from hip pockets, one of these imperturbables stood lean- ing against doorpost, with hands in pockets, looking down upon the ruction with all the indifference of love.
 Aren't they funny?" he unused through the corner of his mouth.
 The average spectator in the private gallery lacks patience; he is too uneasy. He is fearful lest he is going to miss something somewhere else and discon- tented because he can't be in the senate chamber at the same time. Hence, if there is roll call, or the clerk is reading a long bill he hurries away with the discontented comment that nothing is going to happen anyway" Were he more experienced, he would know that there is no appointed time in the House for something to happen. A sensation comes like thief in the night There was Cousins speech, for instance. Nothing could have been more unexpected. From this very fact it acquired much of its dramatic force. Members and audience alike were so surprised that they had little need for the warning: Lest we forget" Young MT. Morris, too, of Minnesota, gave a delightful thrill and shock to a | dull debate on the homestead law one day by calling the chiefs of his party | to task, throwing their words in their 1 teeth, and doing all sorts of other rep l rehensible things for a new member in | maiden speech. That by the way, was magnificent, but it wasn't politices I Then, too, it takes but little to set old | Joe Cannon gyrating down the middle aisle like a dancing dervish. And one might be willing to sit for half day to | gain so picturesque sight. There all | ways was a chance that Green of Me- braska might stir up Grosvenor unto | invective, or Simpson might crack a | joke about Dingleys hat, with the trade mark London inside.
 l The transients, of course, don't know | these things, but there are permanents that do, old standbys, who can be counted on as regularly for each daily session as the barber in the cloak-room, or the stenographers before the desk. There is the woman author, who, in commendable search for Knowledge, is | studying men and manners. Then
 there is the retired army officer, lookig ing for points to talk about at the club, and ex this and ex that, the superannu- ated, who, if they can't be in the swim,
 at least, must sit on the bank and look
 on. Deliberate and dogmatic are their
 opinions, wheezily furnished to whoever
 will listen, and if the country doesn't
 go to the everlasting flinders, it won't
 be for lack of their foreboding.
 Such is the passing show in the gal
 leries, which watches the passing show
 on the floor. Each in it's way is unique
 each in it's way depends upon the oth-
 CT for it's peculiarities. It may be said
 that the House is ever conscious of the
 spectators. Even when it chides, as
 when it threatens to clear the galleries
 for disorder, it does so in a tentative
 halting way that is far from awe-in-
 spring. Many members are accused ot
 talking to the galleries. Many more al
 their desks in the aisles as they join 8
 group, or hurry to the clerks desk witt
 a paper, pose before them. And after
 all this is as it should be, for does not
 Demos rule? Ore not the people the
 master? Of course, a relationship SC ] intimate becomes strained now ant ? l