Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1890 — After His Speech in the House. [ARTICLE]

After His Speech in the House.

It may look like a very easy thing for a member, having his speech written. to deliver it during the course of an hour in the House, but it is not such an easy thing as it looks. The average speaker gets a good deal of athletic exercise in the course of an hour's speech. There are some members in the House who can stand and read a speech without lifting a hand except to turn the pages, and almost without changing position; and there are others who can talk all day without getting tired; but the average speaker perspires as if he were sawing wood. An off-hand speech of ten minutes does not count, but the man who throws his arms in the air as if whirling Indian clubs, hammers his desk like a blacksmith, and dances all around the place for an honr or more, is taking violent exercise. Experience has taught some of them that it is not safe to make such a speech without taking extra precautions to avoid cooling off too quickly afterward. I know several members who take extraordinary precautions. They do not speak often. They know for weeks beforehand that they are to speak, and after all precautions are made for the speech itself, and the day comes for the effort, they have a servant bring a complete change of linen and underwear and a heavy overcoat to the Capitol, and wait with these things at hand until the speech is ended. Then the speaker, with the perspiration pouring off of him, rushes to the cloak-room, where the servant stands with the coat ready, and throws it over his shoulder as soon as he comes within reach. Next the member, with the collar of his overcoat turned up high, tucks his dry underclothing under his arm and makes for the bath-rooms. Then he enters the waitiog-room where the temperature is high and there can lie * r,o being underground, and waits to cool off a little preparatory to a bath. There is no more work for him iii the House that day. When lie has got M 3 bath he makes for his lodgings as fast as he can, and stays there until thoroughly rested. —Washington letter in Philadelphia Telegraph.