Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — An Office-Seeker. [ARTICLE]

An Office-Seeker.

The Washington Star publishes the following, which is not so much overdrawn as it seems: One of the figures now seen daily in Washington, either at the state deKrtmentorat the white house, or th, is small in stature and dark in complexivn. The owner of the figure is an Armenian by birth. In addition to being dark, he is bald headed, ierky, and very excitable. He came here four years ago. He came to get a place. Though only forty years of age, he has ten small children, the same number that, according to the old New England primer, followed John Rogers, the martyr, to the grave. His claims for an office lay in the fact that he had done some campaign work in Missouri in 1879, and in the ten small children. He trotted those children out on every occasion. He had pictures of each of them in his pocket, and also a group picture. He would show his photograph gallery to you, and tell when this one had* the measles, and the other the croup. He told President Hayes about these bairns. Secretary Evarts was as familiar with them as if they had been his own. .

The patriarch of these 10 wanted to go abroad. It was a year before he saw daylight. He was then sent to a small commercial agency on the continent. It took him just one week longer than two passages across the ocean to go back. In that week he had got into trouble. He gave up the Job, but wanted another. The 10 children were trotted out again and their history and helplessness again rehearsed to President Hayes and Secretary Evarts. Secretary Evarts said he never had so much trouble with his own large family of 11. But the Armenian hung on. Hanging was his strong hold. He conquered again. They sent him down on the isthmus. He was back again in five months. It took him two weeks passage each way. The other three months he was sick with the Chagres fever. He came back yellow as a pumpkin and swearing streaks of blue. He now had a tale of woe in addition to the ten small children. He used it.

Again he was provided for. He was sent by Mr. Evarts as consul for the Fiji islands. He didn’t take the ten interesting little ones with him among the cannibals for precautionary reasons. Himself he regarded as safe from any possibility of being served up as a state dinner. He was right. He went to Fiji. Nothing was heard from him until about three weeks ago. He didn’t like it at Fiji, and has come back to see what better he can get. He is as •yellow as when he came from the isthmus and Chagres fever. He has the photographs with him. He is now trotting out ten small children to the view of President Garfield and Secretary Blaine in his effort to be transferred to a better-paying and more civilized post in the diplomatic service.