The Daily Dispatch: February 17, 1862., [Electronic resource]

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Honorable thieves.

--Two or three days after Emerson Etheridge was installed as clerk of the United States House of Representatives, the Hon. David Kilgore, a member of Congress from Indiana, stepped across from his own seat into the clerk's office, and began to complain, in the most violent terms, of the Secretary of War. The chief source of his e against that important official was, that he had refused a lot of bacon just offered him at the low price of ten cents, neat. Thaddeus Stevens — who sat behind a newspaper — allowed his Indiana friend to finish the story of his grievance, when, laying aside his paper, he thus accosted him; ‘"Kilgore, you are the most infernal fool in Congress. You ain't fit to hold a seat in Congress, and if anybody will introduce a resolution to expel you, I will vote for it."’ Kilgore, a little surprised at the sudden assault of his brother Black Republican, wanted to know why he was so violent? ‘"I'll tell you,"’ says Stevens, ‘"you, a man of sense, and a member of Congress, to ask only ten cents of Simon Cameron for bacon? You eternal fool! Why didn't you put your price at thirty cents? Then you'd have got fifteen, and fifteen would have been left for the contracting party! Fough! I'm ashamed of you."’ There was more truth than jest in that joke. It is a key to the whole system practiced at Washington Honorable thieves! Secretaries, Congressmen, Generals, all hand-in-glove, or hands without gloves, among the rich spoils of place and pelf.--Nashville Banner.