members, Mr. Hoar dwells upon three— Messrs. Poland, Peters, and Washburn, and connects each with an amusing anecdote or two. The description of Poland is quoted at length: "Judge Luke P. Poland of Ver mont was another very interesting charac ter. He was well known throughout the country. He had a tall and erect and very dignified figure, and a fine head covered with a beautiful growth of gray hair. He was dressed in the old-fashioned style that Mr. Webster used, with blue coat, brass buttons and a buff-colored vest. His coat and buttons were well known all over the country. One day when William Lloyd Garrison was inveighing against some con duct of the Southern whites, and said: 'They say the South is quiet now. Order reigris in Wassau. But where is Poland?' An irreverant newspaper man said: 'He is up in Vermont polishing brass buttons.' "The judge was a very able lawyer, and a man of very great industry. He and Judge Hoar went over together the revision of the United States statutes of 1874, com pleting a labor which had been neglected by Caleb Gushing. Judge Poland had a good deal of fun in him, and had a stock of anec dotes which he liked to tell to any listener. It was said, I do not know how truly, that he could bear any amount of whiskey with out in the slightest degree affecting his in tellect. There is a story that two wellknown senators laid a plot to get the Judge tipsy. They invited him to a room at Willard's and privately instructed the waiter, when they ordered whiskey to put twice as much of the liquid into Poland's glass as into the others. The order was repeated several times. The heads of the two hosts had begun to swim, but Poland was not turned. At last they saw him take the waiter aside and heard him tell him in a loud whisper: 'The next time, make mine a little stronger, if you please.' They con
cluded on the whole that Vermont brain would hold its own with Michigan and Illi nois. "One of the most amusing scenes I ever witnessed was a call of the House in the old days, when there was no quorum. The doors were shut. The Speaker sent officers for the absentees. My colleague, Mr. Dawes, was in the chair. Poland was brought to the bar. Mr. Dawes addressed him with solemnity: 'Mr. Poland, of Ver mont, you have been absent from the ses sion of the House without its leave. What excuse have you to offer?' The Judge paused a moment and then replied in a tone of great gravity and emotion: 'I went with my wife to call on my minister and I stayed a little too long.' The House ac cepted the excuse, and I suppose the re ligious people of the Judge's district would have maintained him in office for a thousand years by virtue of that answer, if they had had their way. A man who had been so long exposed to the wickedness and temp tation of Washington, and had committed only the sin of staying a little too long when he called on his minister might safely be. trusted anywhere." The anecdote of Judge Peters is capital but too long for insertion, but the jest at Klihu P>. Washburn's expense is too good to omit. "He was known," says Mr. Hoar, "as the watch-dog of the Treasury, when he was in the House. Few questionable claims against the Government could es cape his vigilance, or prevail over his for midable opposition. But, one day, a private bill championed by his brother, Cadawallader, passed the House while Elihu kept entirelv silent. Somebody called out to the • Speaker: The watch-dog don't bark when one of the family goes by.'" These are but isolated examples of amus ing anecdote and clever turns with which the Autobiography abounds and bristles.
