io6 State Legislation 



portance. For these we have to trust to the member 

 for the district affected, and when one comes up the 

 response to any inquiry about it is usually, "Oh, it's 

 a local bill, affecting So-and-so's district; he is re- 

 sponsible for it." By degrees, some of the members 

 get to use "local" in the sense of unimportant, and a 

 few of the Assemblymen of doubtful honesty gradu- 

 ally come to regard it as meaning a bill of no pecu- 

 niary interest to themselves. There was a smug lit- 

 tle rascal in one of the last Legislatures, who might 

 have come out of one of Lever's novels. He was un- 

 doubtedly a bad case, but had a genuine sense of 

 humor, and ,his "bulls" made him the delight of the 

 house. One day I came in late, just as a bill was 

 being voted on, and meeting my friend, hailed him, 

 "Hello, Pat, what's up? what's this they're voting 

 on ?" to which Pat replied, with contemptuous indif- 

 ference to the subject, but with a sly twinkle in his 

 eye, "Oh, some unimportant measure, sorr ; some lo- 

 cal bill or other a constitutional amendment!" 



The old Dublin Parliament never listened to a 

 better specimen of a bull than was contained in the 

 speech of a very genial and pleasant friend of mine, 

 a really finished orator, who, in the excitement at- 

 tendant upon receiving Governor Cleveland's mes- 

 sage vetoing the five-cent-fare bill, uttered the fol- 

 lowing sentence: "Mr. Speaker, I recognize the hand 

 that crops out in that veto; I have heard it before!" 



One member rather astonished us one day by his 

 use of the word "shibboleth." He had evidently 

 concluded that this was merely a more elegant 



