Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1876 — Cabinet Etiquette. [ARTICLE]

Cabinet Etiquette.

A witty lady, once a member of the Cabinet circle, told it to me on herself. One of the great trials of that circle is the imperative rule custom has imposed on the families of the President’s counsellors to make the first call, at the beginning of each session of Congress, on the ladies of the household of every Senator. The lady in question, who was both young and beautiful, had spent hours over the “ Congressional Directory” making up her visiting list by the aid of the cabalistic signs attached to each Senator’s name which indicate who has a wife with him, who a daughter, and who “other ladies .’ ’ What wonder that her bright eyes wearied of the task, and she saw stars, paragraph marks, and perpendicular parallels where none existed ? Nor is it surprising that after searching all over the city, in the determination to get through her list for the day if she died in the act, she found herself alone at dusk in a dingy parlor in a remote quarter of the town with a venerable widowed Senator unused to city and Congressional ways, much flattered at the honor of a lovely woman’s visit, but greatly puzzled to know “to what he was indebted,” etc. Explanations followed as a matter of course, in which the lady’s native wit and dimity saved her further embarrassment, ana she departed knowing that her amusing blunder had resulted only in adding another to her list of friends.—Cor. Washington Nation. There is one thing in which Nevada is greatly ahead of her sister Territories and States. She hag 80,000 square miles of desert.