General Garfield disturbs the stifling air by offering a resolution of thanks to Speaker Randall, who receives it with that becoming modesty he knows so well how to assume. In a voice tremulous with emotion, in a few well chosen words, Honorable Sam. Randall announces his labor and his arduous duties done; and for the last time the gavel descended, the curtain fell, whilst the Forty-fifth Congress entered that silent bourn from whence no traveler returns. OLIVIA. A MATRIMONIAL REGISTER. LIST OF ELIGIBLES OF THE SENATE AND CABINET. WASHINGTON, _December 24, 1879_. “They don’t propose! They won’t propose! For fear perhaps I’d say yes! Just let ’em try it, for heaven knows I’m tired of single blessedness!” At the moment of writing the waters of social life are becalmed in Washington. Very little is doing in matrimonial business and mothers with marriageable daughters are advised to hold on to the stock in hand (unless there is danger of spoiling), as an advance is expected as soon as a batch of single Congressmen arrive, and this interesting event will probably happen soon after the holidays. General Ben Butler is already here, and though he has shed his late Congressional skin and is no longer interesting on this account, he still has the chance to be governor of Massachusetts; but aside from this honor, any respectable matrimonial agency would give him a clean bill of sale the moment the right kind of a purchaser can be found. It is said the gallant General has a “blind eye,” but even with this fact in a woman’s favor it will be necessary to approach him as carefully as though he were gunpowder or an “infernal machine,” and be well prepared for the explosion which would be sure to follow. But it must be remembered that all the valuable things of the earth are obtained at great personal sacrifice and often with loss of life. Just as the biggest pearls are fished from the deepest waters, the greatest men are brought to the right point with a corresponding loss of female vitality.