Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — Old Autocrat. [ARTICLE]

Old Autocrat.

William King, the first Governor of Maine, who waj a resident of hath for over fifty year-, must have been a royal dictator in town affairs. There was "no nonsenre” about him. and no toleration of nonsense. At one time a meeting wa, held to arrange for a celebration of Independence Day, and General King presided. The custon ary res lutiocs were prepared by Judge Ames, who was a man of wide attainment?, and who had seized upon the occesion as an opportunity to air his rhetorical gifts. He had written a long and flowery preamble to his resolutions, which had been greatly admired b his friends; but he had hardly completed reading the first sentence before the meeting when General King exclaimed, in his decisive way: “Never mind the preamble, Judge: never mind the preamble. It’s always about the same thing, you know. Give us the resolutions.” Cne morning, when the stage drpve up to his door and his wife was about t > enter it, the General discovered inside the vehicle a Frenchman and his dog. "Driver,” he thundered,, “take this dog out.” The frightened foreigner leaped from the stage, taking his dog with him. “I have seen the King of England and the King of France," he muttered, “but this King of Bath is the biggest king I ever saw." Although he was friendly to the cause of temperance, he never gave up the use of wine, and always had it on his own table. Yet so abiolute wa? he in his way of thinking,that he had no patience with the “trimmers” who waver between two sides of a question. A certain judge was one day dining with him, and refused wine on the ground that he was a member of a temperance society. Melons were breught in at dessert, and the General prepare! hi? with wine. The guest did the same. A short time after, a physician was dining with the General. and he, too, refused wine. “Won't ysu have a spoon, Doctor?” asked Gene al King bluffly. “Judge Blank was dining with me recently, and he wouldn't drinx my wine, but he ate it with a spoon.”—Youth s Com* panion.