In the vote of March 4, on the Grant bill, the people had their way, and the members of the house scampered into line to give expression to an emphasized popular demand. It was to the forty-eighth congress the last grand rally on the center-on the old flag and the old commander. And it will never be forgotten.

CHAPTER XL.

A PAINFUL ACCIDENT AND DISTRESSING SICKNESS.

Throughout all his military life from Mexico to Appomattox General Grant was almost wholly exempt from every form of sickness, though it will be remembered he suffered for several months from a painful accident at New Orleans received just previous to his Chattanooga-Knoxville Campaign. His arduous duties as chief magistrate of the nation were borne without any visible strain upon his iron constitution. As a sojourner in all climes, and subject to the nameless exposures and irregularities of travel, he was exempt from every ill. It seemed as if nothing could harm his close-knit physique, and that he bore a charmed life.

When on Christmas morning, 1883, it was announced that he had slipped and fallen upon the icy pavements in New York City the evening previous, very little heed was paid to the matter; though it was added that he was lame from the effects of it, the public saw in it only a trivial accident, worthy of any attention at all, only because the injury was sustained by one in whom the public felt a keen and abiding interest. But it proved a most distressing calamity. From it may be dated the long and excruciatingly painful prostration which has called out such a phenomenal volume of condolence.

Not that the cancer which fastened upon his throat can be set down as directly caused by that fall. The mys