There didn't seem to be any desire on the part of the meeting to amend the motion or lay it on the table. Although it was arbitrary and imperative, and although an opportunity was given for a free expression of opinion, there didn't seem to be any desire to take advantage of it. A committee of three was appointed to carry out the suggestions of the chair, and in about half an hour, the house logs and kopecks having been placed on deposit at the places designated, the meeting broke up, subject to the call of the chairman. It was not a very long session, but it was very harmonious--very harmonious and very orderly. There was no calling for the previous question or rising to a point of order. The pale-faced men who composed the convention did not look to the casual observers as though they had come there to raise points for debate over parliamentary practice. They kept their eye on the speaker's desk and didn't interrupt each other or struggle to see who would get the floor. It is wonderful this inherent strength of weakness, as I might say, which enables a woman amid a throng of reckless men to command their respect and obedience sometimes where main strength and awkwardness would not avail. THE NATIVE INBORN SHIFTLESSNESS OF THE PRAIRIE DOGS. |I had read in my Fourth Reader about prairie dogs, and I thought, according to Washington Irving, that they knew more than a Congressman. He says a great deal about the sagacity and general mental acumen of the prairie dog, but I don't just exactly somehow seem to see where it comes in. If it be an indication of shrewdness and forethought to establish a village nine hundred miles from a railroad, wood, water and grub, and live on alkali and moss agates and wander down the vista of time without a square meal, then the prairie dog is beyond the barest possibility of doubt, keen and shrewd to a wonderful degree. But if instinct or animal sagacity be reckoned according to the number and amount of creature comforts afforded within a given space, I have a cow in my mind that will double discount all the chuckle-headed, cactus eating prairie dogs west of the Missouri. I do not wish to say anything relative to Mr. Irving's opinion of the prairie dog which would not be perfectly respectful, for I learn with great sorrow that Mr. Irving is dead, but I do think that there is hardly an animal in the entire arcana of nature that will not beat the prairie dog two to one as a provider for his family or himself. I have an old hen at my home here who certainly approximates very closely to my ideal of an irreclaimable fool that has grown childish with old age, and outside of the Democratic party perhaps she is entitled to distinction. But even she has lucid intervals, and she hasn't yet fallen to where she would willingly take up a home under the desert land act like a prairie dog. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.