d important part of the adjustment of the machinery, at
the opening of each Congress, is the selection of seats. As the
Senators serve for six years, and many of them have been reelected
more than once, there are comparatively few changes made at the
opening of any Congress. The old members generally choose to retain
their accustomed seats, and the small number that come in as new
Senators choose among the vacant seats, as convenience or caprice may
dictate.

In the House of Representatives the formality of drawing for seats is
necessary. That this may be conveniently and fairly done, at the
appointed time all the members retire to the antechambers, leaving the
seats all unoccupied. The Clerk draws at random from a receptacle
containing the names of all the members. As the members are called,
one by one, they go in and occupy such seats as they may choose. The
unlucky member whose name last turns up has little room for choice,
and must be content to spend his Congressional days far from the
Speaker, on the remote circumference, or to the right or left extreme.

There are in the Senate-chamber seventy seats, in three tiers of
semi-circular arrangement. If all the old Southern States were
represented by Senators on the floor, the seats would be more than
full. As it was in the Thirty-ninth Congress, there were a number of
vacant desks, all of them situated to the right and left of the
presiding officer.

In a division of political parties nearly equal, the main aisle from
the southern entrance would be the separating line. As it was, the
Republican Senators occupied not only the eastern half of the chamber,
but many of them were seated on the other side, the comparatively few
Democratic Senators sitting still further to the west.

Seated in the gallery, the spectator has a favorable position to
survey the grand historic scene which passes below. His eye is
naturally first attracted to the chair which is constitutionally the
seat of the second dignitary in the land--the Vice-President of the
United States. That office, however, has no incumbent, since he who
took oath a few months before to perform its duties was called to
occupy a higher place, made vacant by a most atrocious crime. The
event, however, cost the Senate little loss of dignity, since the
chair is filled by a President _pro tempore_ of great ability and
excellence--Lafayette S. Foster, Senator from Connecticut.

The eye of the spectator naturally seeks