mittee to stand upon. We therefore reported "An Act for the resurrection of the Vermont Floodwood, and to create certain salaried officers therein named." This act in its first section provided:

"That it shall be the duty of every male citizen above the age of sixteen years forthwith to provide himself with a red feather or plume, at least three feet long, together with such other ornaments as the taste or ability of the individual may suggest, with some offensive weapon, not dangerous to be handled, a priming wire and brush, for the purpose of doing duty in the flood wood of this State. Provided that in lieu of these ornaments and equipments any person may provide himself with any musical instrument whereon he may be able to play.

"SECTION 2.-It shall be the duty of every such male citizen to repair, armed, equipped, and ornamented as provided in the first section, at the break of day on Tuesday and Thursday of each week, to the yard of the dwelling-house of the town clerk of the town where he resides, for flood wood purposes and general training, and to spend said days until sundown in such services.

"SECTION 3.-There shall be at least two officers to every private in the Vermont floodwood, provided that any person with curled hair and black whiskers shall be ex-whiskerando an officer of as high a grade as lieutenant-general.

"SECTION 4.-It shall be the duty of the adjutant and inspector-general immediately to set out from his place of abode, armed and equipped as the law directs, preceded by drummajor, drummer, fifer, and corporal, armed with some weapon of war, and proceed into each school district to consult with the boys as to the best method of encouraging a spirit of martial ardor, and to make permanent arrangements with the school master or mistress, as the case may be, as to the best way to get up a spirit of military enthusiasm and induce the pupils of each school to attend all June and other trainings in such towns.

"SECTION 5.-There shall be immediately appointed one hundred and fifty assistant adjutant-generals-men noted for personal beauty, to be chosen by a female committee of three

of mature age, to be named by the governor; which officers shall assist the present adjutant-general in the discharge of his arduous duties and hold up the general interests of the floodwood. These officers, if already married, or if they shall marry within sixty days after their appointment, shall hold office for life with an annual salary of $1,500 each per annum.

This act was laid on the table and published in the Third House Journal. It brought the disgraceful condition of the militia to the attention of the State and excited a universal demand for its reformation. A well-framed act to that end was promptly introduced into the Senate. Those who had opposed similar acts on the score of expense were set upon by the newspapers and lashed into silence. The new act simply provided that the State should furnish arms to uniformed companies, and pay the men a per diem for a few days' drill in each year. The consequence was that uniformed companies were organized in the larger towns and their ranks kept full. So that when at last Sumter fell and the summons came, it was answered by the formation of the First Vermont Regiment, ready at Rutland to be mustered into the service on the 8th of May, 1861.

It may be thought that I am giving too much space to a subject so unimportant as the Third House. But its influence upon legislation was powerful and permament. Once the lower Houses were rash enough to complain of the librarian for permitting such "pestilent fellows" to show up their follies in the State Library. This complaint made great fun for us. We forthwith published our solemn protest against the interference of their spies with our dignified sessions, and gave notice that if they provoked us farther we would appeal to the people

to abolish the lower Houses altogether, so that “the places that once knew them should know them no more forever," and they "shall cease to have a local habitation and a name;" and the dark chambers where they met and played "fantastic tricks before high Heaven, under the delusion that they were clothed with a little brief authority," "shall be given over to desolation, and only the hooting of the owl be heard within their walls;" "and the satyr shall dance there, and the great owl and the pelican, and the gier-eagle shall nest and the cormorant shall brood there, when those members have been driven forth into exile and outer darkness by the voices of an indignant people."

After this they let us alone, and we continued to make their action as ridiculous as possible. Almost every project we touched we destroyed. They had planned an excursion to Rouse's Point, where a railroad bridge across the lake was advocated and opposed on the most absurd grounds. We at once arranged to "excurse to Pocatapaug Flats, where it was feared that a proposed bridge would raise the water ten miles above, four feet higher than at the bridge, whereby the navigation of Lake Pemigewasset in New Hampshire would be obstructed," and the legislature took no more excursions. They passed a stringent act against the use of strong liquors except for "mechanical, medicinal, and chemical purposes." Our Committee on Useless Information produced sundry vouchers for the year 1788, containing "rhum, cyder, and flip" for the legislature, approved by Governor Thomas Chittenden, and we compromised the opposition by enacting that the term "mechanical" in the act should include the raising of barns and like cases, "medicinal" should cover

cases of thirst and the like, and "chemical" cases where the fluid was employed as an aid to digestion. Two railroads on competing lines leading to Boston had almost reached Lake Champlain at Burlington. One of them by a combination with another leading northward would reach the lake at Rouse's Point. The other sought for a parallel charter to reach the same point. A fierce contest resulted-one endeavoring to defeat the application for a bridge so that its competitor could not cross; the other to defeat the charter so that its competitor could not reach the lake. The arguments of both parties were equally absurd and altogether ignored the public interest. It was this contest which called for the Committee on HocusPocus, Log-Rolling, Wire-Working, etc. This committee was made up of the presidents of the two competing roads and the one leading from Burlington north. That committee made a solemn and comprehensive report on the abstruse subject of log-rolling, which caused the very proper grant of both charters as the public interest demanded.

CHAPTER VIII.

A GRATEFUL CLIENT.

IT was before the invention of the telegraph, when Vermont had no railroads and the Green Mountains were supposed to present an insurmountable barrier to their construction. One afternoon, when the teller of the oldest, soundest, and most conservative bank in Burlington was about to seal up his daily package of current bills for transmission to the common redeemer of country banks, the Suffolk Bank in Boston, there entered the bank a youth, apparently inexperienced and very unsophisticated, who with a bashful air asked if he could leave a little money in the bank for a few days. He was travelling, he said, to see the country. His father advised him, when he intended to stay in any place for a few days, always to leave his money in a bank. Burlington was a beautiful town. He would stay here a few days and would like to do what his father recommended. teller, who thought the young man should be encouraged in well-doing, said he would take his money on deposit.

The

The youth then proceeded to extract a number of pins from the breast-pocket of his coat, from which he drew a sealed envelope, which he opened, exposing a pocket-book of ancient construction, in which lay fifteen new and crisp bank-notes each for $100, apparently issued by the "Shoe and Leather Bank of