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Show ! T8nient white lie. Hh tro.ubl that some of the prao-efc prao-efc ln U. art of lying becomealto-SradePt. becomealto-SradePt. Their tongues are that Z tlt inS"iry so productive that lymg becomes ahabit. Prom lying 't Md utter falsehoods ? i tvtrUth Woxlld them a Peat deal better. I have iu mind one conspicuous example of this in the house P-nt!ntativBS- A very We man, you might Bay one of the leaders of the bouse, and at any rate the leader of his delegation, has this lying habit in ehronio and dangerous form. He is a member of an important committee, and ms colleagne, therein say he is amiable ana able, industrious and usefnl-a thoroughly thor-oughly admirable tuan-if he wouldn't lie so much. Newspaper men who Know him never depend upon anything ue i tells them without investigation. He tells lies about the most trivial things, where there is no earthly excuse for it. He hM been beaten once or twice for congress by the men iu his district to whom he has lied about offices. It is iu this way that the chronic and reckless har in public life is sure to come to grief. Ho makes promisos which he has no intention in-tention of keeping, he invents excuses which are in time discovered, he leads five or six men to think they are going to have a certain office, and somehow they sooner or later become acquainted with this over issue of collateral and turn against him. The man I have in mind could probably be senator from his state, speaker of the national house of representatives, or even president, if it were not for his weakness in this direction. direc-tion. Another conspicuous statesman, a senator and an aspirant for the presidency, presi-dency, is similarly afflicted. He is not so much given to unnecessary lying as he is to making promises which he does not mean to keep. It is said his state is plastered over with unredeemed pledges, and peopled with men who'are just waiting wait-ing for an opportunity to take revenga for broken promises. There are many such men in public life. Your average congressman is very fond of play. In this, as in every other big school, we have workers and shirkers. shirk-ers. Industry and laziness are characteristics charac-teristics here seen in striking contrast. There are men too lazy even to dictate letters to their constituents, much less to write them with their own hands. The laziest congressman I know of wants au electric railway built from the senate to the house, so that when he goes over to the senate restaurant for his oysters and beer he need not walk. Some of these able statesmen are never to be found in their seats. I have in mind one who will do as a type for a large class. He appears in his seat about five minutes each day, and then only to get his mail. This done, he disappears and is no more to be found in the Capitol. Constituents and friends send in cards by the score, knock at the doors of his committee rooms, watch the restaurants and the corridors, and are lucky if they find him once in a week. Where h spends his time is one of the mysteries of congress which not a few people have in a quiet way endeavored to solve. One theory is that he is engaged upon some great literary work in a secluded and secret nook of the congressional library. li-brary. Others do not think him literary enough for that. A number of men are always iu their seats, and make it a point of pride to be constantly at their posts. The most conspicuous example of this sort of industry is Mr. Ezra B. Taylor, of Ohio, the successor of Garfield in the house. Mr. Taylor boasts that he has not missed a roll call in ten years, and without doubt he is the only man that ever served in congress who can wear that feathor in his cap. There are four Taylors Tay-lors in the house, two from Ohio, one from Illinois and one from Tennessee, and it happens that they are all men who believe in attending to business. The result is that on nearly every roll call the clerk sings out, "Taylor of Illinois," "Taylor of Tennessee," "Ezra B. Taylor" Tay-lor" and, finally, "Joseph D. Taylor," and as all are Republicans the four names are followed by four lusty "yeas" or "nays," according as the majority side of the house is voting. A few members of congress refuse to publiBh their city addresses in the congressional con-gressional directory. Obviously they do not want to be bothered by the bores which infest the capital city and which joemtobefoud of bothering members of congress. For the same reason a number num-ber of statesmen rent houses in the out-,kirts out-,kirts of the city, where after nightfall .hey are not likely to be disturbed. Some years ago a member of the house from tfew York state lost his election by fail-.ug fail-.ug to print his address in the directory. A prominent and influential citizen of lis district came, to town late one after-uoon after-uoon on pressing and important business, busi-ness, and sought his representative. No one knew where the congressman lived. His address was not in the directory of congress, nor in the city directory. The telegraph officials refused, under instructions instruc-tions from the gentleman himself, they said, to give any information. The natural result was a very indignant prominent and influential citizen. Next day he finished up his business without the help of the leisure loving statesman, and then went back home and began setting up the pins for this worthy's defeat de-feat at the ensuing election. Story telling is a distinctively congressional congres-sional weakness. It is one of the fads of statesmen. Of four hundred and odd men in the present congress, I verily believe be-lieve three hundred and fifty imagine themselves born story tellers. The worst ., it is that only five or six of them are. Glum old chaps who never had the faintest faint-est conception of humor lay in a stock of itories, generally stain ones, and tell them over and over whenever opportunity oppor-tunity offers. Their colleague know them from bitter experience and are able to avoid them, but the poor stranger u likely to be sadly bored. Walter Wf.llmak. I ABOUT THE MEMBERS .; Walter Welknan, The Times' Correspondent, Correspond-ent, Wielda a Keen Dissecting Dis-secting Knife. TEE LAWMAKERS HIS SUBJECTS. Legislators Who Scatter In Their Talk, Lie and Erroneously Think They Are Story Tellers., WASHINGTON. July 7.-Whenthe 7.-Whenthe business of the house of representatives is dull and uninteresting as it often is, ive who sit up in the gallery to watch for things worth writing about must turn our attention from legislation legis-lation to legislators.. For this there is a good precedent, furnished bv the legislators themselves. No other topic interests the average member of congress as much as himself. The dangers of the country which he prates so much of in his speeches, the odious acts of the opposition party which he is so fond of denouncing, are quickly quick-ly lost sight of when the conversation becomes person.il. Statesmen love to talk of themselves, especially to newspaper news-paper ears. They like to he written about in a complimentary manner if possible, pos-sible, but in some way Rt any rate. Smart statesmen endeavor to make friends of newspaper men, but when they can't make friends the axiom is that they had better make enemies. Abuse sometimes does a man more good than praise. Your average congressman is a very conceited person. His bills and his reports and his speeches are the greatest things in the annals of congress. "What, you have not watched my efforts to do to and so? You don't know what I am doing? Young man, go read the history of your country." Some congressmen imagine the people of the provinces are thirsting for information concerning their health. One man, who has been sick, walked down to my office every day for a week during his convalescence to inform me, so that I might inform my readers, that he was gradually recovering. Another thing which is most noticeable notice-able about these public men, particularly those who have bexjn a long time in the harness, is their tendency to scatter in private conversation. ' Men who can get up in the house or senate and deliver impromptu im-promptu speeches of force and good construction, con-struction, wabble all about a subject in the ordinary casual conversation. They wander from one subject to another, and riever wait to have anything settled or agreed upon. Probably this ia the result of their training on the floor, where nothing ever is settled by arg-. .ment. A man gets a few minutes and makes a sally at a topic and then drops it Nothing is "talked out." Five minutes later all hands turn to and talk over a new proposition, just as the layman is becoming interested in the first. Thus, in private conversation the statesman has a tendency to shift aud ' tack, and cover a great deal of water. It keeps one busy to stay with him For " instance, there is Ben Butterworth, the brilliant member from Ohio. He is one of the best talkers in congress or out of it, but if you can keep him on one subject sub-ject for five minutes you are more fortunate fortu-nate than most of the men who know him. In a walk from the senate chamber cham-ber to the house of representatives I have heard the witty Butterworth discourse dis-course on such topics as the tariff bill, reciprocity with Canada, universal peace between nations, the new navy, the Farmers' Alliance movement, original packages and pension legislation. Her-' is a man worth following as the winds of his fancy waft him from subject to subject, for he rarely opens his mouth without saying something. But think of a stupid fellow, like the average congressman, con-gressman, wobbling about in this manner man-ner and asking yon to go with him and try to be interested in all he is saying! Joe Cannon, of Illinois, who is himself him-self a sort of original package, is another an-other men who scatters his fire in private conversation. Cannon in his quaint way likes to run the gamut of topics which are in the public mind. There appears to be a sort of procession of thoughts going through his brain, and he is never content till the whole troop has been brought up for review. In his work as chairman of the committee on appropriations appro-priations he has constantly before him the whole United States, and it seems that his mind is equally geographical and comprehensive. Still, if you get the chance to accompany Mr. Cannon on one of his intellectual rambles you will . not regret it. Here and there it will not be easy to keep pace with him, for 0'i certain parts of the road he travels like a limited train, but he has a faculty of illumining his pathway so that even the dullest man may learn a little as he runs. No one would suspect such a brainy and well organized intellectual giant as Speaker Reed of scattering. But, if the truth must be told and I don't see why it shouldn't he scatters like an old shotgun; shot-gun; or, to use abetter illustration, he is like an amateur sportsman with a new breech loader he sallies out and in his eagerness and fondness for shooting takes a crack at everything he sees. When Reed draws his long gun it is a good time to take to the woods. Another thing which I have nofaced about congressmen is that many of them are liars. This does not sound pleasant, but it is true. I make the assertion with a full realization of its import, and, as the members themselves sometimes say in warm debate, with willingness to assume as-sume responsibility therefor, that a large per cent, of the members of congress habitually tell falsehoods. Of course there are many honorable exceptions, and every reader has the right to include feis friends in the latter category. But the liars are not much to be Warned. Lying is almost a necessity of public lite. Members of congress are so beset by bores and borrowers and beggars tnat unless a man wants to make a bear or himself and get a reputation for meanness mean-ness he must learn and practice the art of lying. I am convinced there are cases in which lying is a positive virtue, being be-ing merely a genteel and unoffending way of saying nay. 7? ber of congress, dear reader, and found it impossible to step outside the chamber cham-ber without being approached by from one to a daen persons begging favors of you begging offices, signatures to petitions, peti-tions, public documents, half dollars, theatre ticket, railroad fare, chews of tobacco, letters of introdncton you, too, would learn how to gloss the refusal |