Senator Bate's Cigars

William B. Bate, twice elected senator from Tennessee, never lights ,a cigar. He has always one in his fingers or between his lips, but no match is put to it. He is a familiar figure iu the upper chamber - his abundant snow white hair, a carefully tended mustache of the same color, his stooped form and lined face, with massive underhung jaw, making him marked in an assembly of strong personalities. His advocacy of the "dry smoke," as it is called, and his habit of using 25 cent weeds as chewing tobáceo, have continued more than a quarter of a century. A story is attached. He is the last man in the world ■whom one would suspect of superstition, but his avoidance of matches is due to that part of our natures and to nothing else. He entered the war as a private when his state seceded from the unión, and rose through the successive grades of lieutenant, captain, lieutenant colonel, colonel, brigadier and major general. He had a taste of military life in the Hexican war and embraced the first opportunity to re-enter it. One day toward the close of the long and bitter struggle, when the two stars of the major general were on his shoulder, his corps, which was a part of the army of the Tennessee, was engaged in a battle in the mountain. At that time he was an invetérate smoker. Always cool in action, his cigar case was as much a part of his makeup as his horse and saddle. Along toward noon, when the fire from the Federáis under assault was particularly heavy and vicious, he moved up to an exposed position in order to give countenance to hls men. His brother went with him. Senator (then General) Bate reached f or his breast pocket and took out a cigar. He bit off the end with customary nicety, scratched a match on the back of bis saddle and settled down in his stirrnps to enjoy himself. There was a shock in the air, the nameless indefinablestir produced by the close passage of a shell or round shot, and the match within two inches of the end oi the weed went out. Shrugging his shoulders and preparing to get another light, he glanced about him. His brother, who had been sitting on his horse a little to the lef t and in the rear was a corpse. The ball had struck him in the chest. The horse stood unmoved. The man who was alive looked at the unlighted match between bis fingers. He twirled it slowly a moment and then rode to the rear for an ambulance. The cigar he held in his hand for an hour or two and slowly chewed into bits. Prom that day to this he has never known what it is to smoke. Some sense of danger providentially avertedhas been with him. It is possible that he has come to look upon the lighting of a cigar as a desecration of his brother's memory. Anyhow he does not light it. Day after day in the senate chamber or in the corridors of the capítol he may be seen with a cigar in his hand that is frequently carried to his lips, but is unlit. When it is worn down to a mere end. he takes