We had a self-made lawyer at one time in the northern part of the State
who would rather find a seventy-five cent word and use it in a speech
where it did not belong than to eat a good square meal. He was more fatal
to the King's English than O'Dynamite Rossa. One day he was telling how
methodical one of the county officials was.
“Why,” said he, “I never saw a man do so much and do it so easy. But the
secret of it is plain enough. You see, he has a regular rotunda of
business every day.”
If he meant anything, I suppose he meant a routine of business, but a man
would have to be a mind reader to follow him some days when he had about
six fingers of cough medicine aboard and began to paw around in the dark
and musty garret of his memory for moth-eaten words that didn't mean
anything.
A neighbor of mine went to Washington during the Guiteau trial and has
been telling us about it ever since. He is one of those people who don't
want to be close and stingy about what they know. He likes to go through
life shedding information right and left. He likes to get a crowd around
him and then tell how he was in Washington at the time of the “post
mortise examination.” “Boys, you may talk all your a mind to, but the
greatest thing I saw in Washington,” said he, “was Dr. Mary Walker on the
street every morning riding one of these philosophers.”
[Illustration: HE PAINTED THE FENCE GREEN.]
He painted the top of his fence green, last year, so it would “kind of
combinate with his blinds.”
If he would make his big words “combinate” with what he means a little
better, he would not attract so much attention. But he don't care. He
hates to see a big, fat word loafing around with nothing to do, so he
throws one in occasionally for exercise, I guess.
In the Minnesota legislature, in 1867, they had under discussion a bill to
increase the per diem of members from three dollars to five dollars. A
member of the lower house, who voted for the measure, was hauled over the
coals by one of his constituents and charged with corruption in no
unmeasured terms. To all this the legislator calmly answered that when he
got down to the capital and found out the awful price of board, he
concluded that his “per diadem” ought to be increased, and so he supported
the measure. Then the belligerent constituent said:
“I beg your pardon and acquit you of all charges of corruption, for a
legislator who does not know the difference between a crown of glory and
the price of a day's work is too big a blankety blanked fool to be
convicted of an intentional wrong.”
Petticoats at the Polls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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