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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.

PAINFUL ACCIDENT, DISTRESSING SICKNESS AND DEATH.

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 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

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GENERAL GRANT'S SICKNESS. (A SKETCH FROM LIFE).

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TION FOUNDATIONS.

teries of cancerous affections baffle the inquiry of the most expert medical skill. But one thing is certain, General Grant never rallied from that shock. Perhaps he would have been overtaken and slain by the same cruel enemy had he suffered no shock of that kind. It can only be said that from that moment he did not see a day of health. The pain and anguish of his financial troubles which came some months later, no doubt had much to do with the development of the seeds of disease; how much, will never be known and is a much mooted question among physicians.

The disease first showed itself in the form of a slight soreness of the mouth and throat, supposed to be cankerous, rather than cancerous. The family physician seemed to think lightly of it. If he really felt that it was alarming he kept the secret well, and the public first learned of the trouble in a way to excite the least possible apprehension. The fact that Senator Hill of Georgia, had died not long before, after a long and distressing sickness, caused by cancer in the mouth, tended somewhat to stimulate the public fear that the malady had found another victim. But the reports were so positive in the assurance that nothing serious need be apprehended, that the intelligence produced hardly a ripple upon the sea of popular thought and sentiment.

It was in the last months of the year 1884, that the people first learned that something, whether serious or not, none knew, was ailing his mouth and throat. All through the winter the daily press continued frequent mention of his symptoms, and it was evident that he was getting worse rather than better, but it was not until late in February that the case became so bad that, in spite of every effort at concealment, his true condition became

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