'You don't believe it, I suppose, father?' said the son.
'Why, John, I don't doubt that you have read of the excavation, but I doubt very much if it was truly Pompey's statue; for, after the lapse of so many centuries, the authentication of the statue must be very doubtful.'
'Well, Mr. President,' replied his son, very archly, 'I will tell you of one thing, of which there will be little doubt.'
'What's that?' asked the President.
'Why, some years from this, when some well-digger, or house-builder, or other person, is excavating in the neighborhood of Nashville Tennessee, Louisville Kentucky, or some other place that might be named, he may light upon a stuffed Paddy some six feet high, the earth half burned, with a rope around its neck: 'Ah, what's this?' some one may inquire. 'Why,' replies another, 'it is the effigy of that John Tyler, who vetoed the Bank Bill!'
'Ah,' said the President, laughing heartily, 'you have me there, John.'
I may here remark of Mr. John Tyler, Jr., who is the private secretary of the President, that he is a very handsome man, with courtly manners; that his partialities are to the study of the sciences, rather than to politics; and that he has written a pamphlet upon electricity, which is said to exhibit much knowledge and originality.
Those who have not witnessed the terror which prevails among the clerks, on a change of parties in power at Washington, or even of a change of the head of a department, who, it is rumored, intends to make removals, can have no idea of it. Some poor clerk, who supports a large family upon one thousand or twelve hundred dollars, may have inadvertently let slip an imprudent expression, which some ready spy retails and makes public, with a thousand exaggerations, and, lo! the report takes wind that he is to be removed. Then comes the distress of his agonized wife and children, while the poor woman hurries to the President, or to the head of the department to which her husband belongs, to intercede for him, and save herself and family from ruin.
When General Harrison came into power, multitudes of such fears prevailed, and with fearful truth for their foundation. The good old General himself had no wish to proscribe, but proscription was the word with too many of his friends. I may mention a circumstance which came under my own knowledge.
The head of a certain department, shortly before General Harrison's death, turned out a clerk of his, who was accused of having busied himself in politics—a poor man, who had a wife and six children. She is a beautiful woman, but twenty-six years of age. Her agony was such as to render her almost insane. The removal left her and her children houseless and homeless, with the husband and father in debt. Fiction has wrung many a heart to tears with a fancied picture not to compare in sorrow to the truth of this. Shortly after this removal, General Harrison died, and was laid in state in the hall of the White House, whither flocked multitudes to gaze upon his lifeless remains, and reflect upon the instability of earthly power, and the vanity of all human greatness. I met the lady of the removed official with, another lady, and but one escort, on their way to look their first and last upon the departed President; and I joined her. General Harrison I had known well, and I spoke of his goodness of heart, and manliness of character, as we proceeded, with an earnest truthfulness, which seemed to impress the wife of the official, by whose side I walked.