Mr. Buckstone rose in his place and
gave notice of a bill "To Found and Incorporate the Knobs Industrial
University," and then sat down without saying anything further. The busy
gentlemen in the reporters' gallery jotted a line in their note-books,
ran to the telegraphic desk in a room which communicated with their own
writing-parlor, and then hurried back to their places in the gallery; and
by the time they had resumed their seats, the line which they had
delivered to the operator had been read in telegraphic offices in towns
and cities hundreds of miles away. It was distinguished by frankness of
language as well as by brevity:
"The child is born. Buckstone gives notice of the thieving Knobs
University job. It is said the noses have been counted and enough votes
have been bought to pass it."
For some time the correspondents had been posting their several journals
upon the alleged disreputable nature of the bill, and furnishing daily
reports of the Washington gossip concerning it. So the next morning,
nearly every newspaper of character in the land assailed the measure and
hurled broadsides of invective at Mr. Buckstone. The Washington papers
were more respectful, as usual--and conciliatory, also, as usual. They
generally supported measures, when it was possible; but when they could
not they "deprecated" violent expressions of opinion in other
journalistic quarters.
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