A few months
ago a private commission, whose expenses were defrayed out of the Secret
Service Fund, was sent to California to explore the region thereabouts
for any hitherto undiscovered connection of the GRANT genealogical tree.
For a long time the search was in vain, but finally the commission
unearthed a chap in the mining district, who hadn't heard of LEE'S
surrender yet, but whose sister had married a nephew of Mrs. GRANT'S
brother-in-law. The poor fellow was promptly captured, combed and
curried, and shipped East via Pacific Railroad, with a label across his
back inscribed,
"Care of HIS EXCELLENCY, U. S. GRANT,
C.O.D."
_Washington, D.C._
On his arrival the express charges were duly paid, and he was billeted
at the White House, while orders were sent to the heads of the different
departments to report what vacancies existed. Brief replies were
returned from each, to the effect that another straw laid on the camel's
back would break it, and, moved by a constitutional antipathy to
breaking camel's backs, the President desisted from his efforts in those
quarters. In this dilemma, the usual recourse was had to the New York
Custom House, and Mr. GRINNELL was sounded as to what he could do for
the last of the GRANTS. This is what he wrote:
"Not even standing-room left. I have more branches of your genealogical
tree now than would serve to thatch the Capitol.
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