Year: 1878

reason why General Shields did not decline or
resign or withdraw or refuse to permit his
name to be used for the Office OF Doorkeeper
of the House the other day. He was in the In
terror of Massachusetts, lecturing, and through
all the hulabalOO knew nothing about IL all


until he returned to Boston, where he tOuhu
great stacks of kilograms from statesmen OF
all shades of opinion, advising, exhortlng ana
imploring him not to confuse the cOunsels
of the Democratic party and interrupt
ITS great career by running for DOorkeeper.
By the time he reached Boston, however, the
trouble was over and the game was up.
The Democrats i'm Congress had waited up to
the last moment for him to withdraw, and had
once been nearly frightened out OF their wits
by Mr.. Buffers production of a letter which
they feared contained his consent to being a
candidate, but turned out to be an old one on
some historical or other subject and had finally
voted against him and for the other man.
They had done this because, in the first place,
they said he was not able bodied enough to
keep the door as it ought to be kept in such a
crisis as the present; second, because, having
been United States Senator, he might not
be willing to tend door for the House and
third, because his having remained in the
Democratic party all these years was clear
proof that, unlike the Psalmist, he would
rather dwell in the tents of wickedness than
keep door anywhere. The General learned
these facts upon his return from the interior
of Massachusetts. Also, that his party
in Congress had been suddenly reused to
q sense of his great merit while he was in
the interior, and had passed a bill putting
him on an impossible pension-list. so that for
the remainder of his days he would be above
want; above every want, that Is except the
want to see the pension, which would con-
nnue. 1t was a coincidence that just at the
finish Of these great transactions he emerged
from the interior Of Massachusetts suddenly,
as if shot out Of a gun; and with
n curiosity sharpened by so long an absence
from the haunts of men, began reading his
multitudinous telegrams. They must have in
terested him profoundly, for he Immediately
started for Washington to answer them III
person. and explain to the Senators that he
should have replied earlier had he not been
ont of reach of everybody, in the interior OF
Massachusetts.


And now the question arises, the geographi-
cll inquiry where is this interior of Massa-
chusetts; where these Businesses into which
the statesman and lecturer may plunge incon-
tnenty out of hearing of his country's call,
and away from the madding crowd that
howl TO him TO come out and keep door for
Congress. 1t had not been supposed that
such an inaccessible interior existed any
where. least of all in Massachusetts,.
Men hbored under the pleasing delusion
that whenever Mr.. Butler mad a place
for a man, whether it was to carry mall or
sit at the receipt Of customs, or tend door,
he could wire that man at ten minutes notice
anywhere on the face of the globe. But there
i. it seems, a secluded spot known only as
the interior of Massachusetts" one of
those mysterious havens affected by the
trout fisherman; never definitely located
or described except in large loose and gen.
cral way; it may be a dell, or a cavern, or a
rocky summit; a retreat to which neither wires
nor rails nor daily papers come; and hereafter
statesman and lecturer may rest secure from
the intrusion of man. Against the walls of
this asylum politics and politicians beat
IN van here come not the confusion
of the caucus, the contention of parties,
the wild tumult of popular uprising, the
clamOr of great people for high
toned. sincere and conscientious DOOrkeeper.
How long General Shields had renamed buried
in the obscure recesses of what he vaguely
terms "the interior of Massachusetts," we do
not know. He has left it to be inferred that
when the Democratic party began testing
itself for the responsibilities of government by
these experiments in bookkeeping, he fOresaw
that he might shortly be called to that duty, and
putting finger in each ear, fled from the face OF
man into the interior of Massachusetts. There
while the battle ragged all around him, and the
Democratic party in Congress was agitated as
never before. futtering and clucking like al
uneasy hen, distracted by doubt whether hel
one egg is bad or is about to hatch a duck
the General reposed in peace. Into that haven
there bounced no messages from Clymel
and Cox and Randall and the rest
hot with unusual lightnings from the
centre of the Congressional tempest


to that interior came no pulsations from the
outer world nations might call for door
keepers and he not hear. He locked his hps
and passed afar, thrIdding the sOmbre boskag,
of the wood toward the morning star


And then, all being over for the present b,
emerged with a quaint, sad smile and reaC
ms telegrams. Really" he said, 4" this is al
together quite unexpected" and sped t.
Washington. There he has explained that hC
was in the interior of Massachusetts at th,
time and never heard word. Had he beer
on the exterior it would have been diff
ferent. But now that the astonishment o.
the Democratic Congressman, who telegrapheC
him at some cost and with no result, hai
measurably subsidized, there has arisen very
general desire for more definite description
something, in fact, in the nature of guide


book-of the interior of Massachusetts,. For
these statesmen say, if it be so that there
are Businesses in that remarkable Common


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