Arizona Republican

We are pleased to observe the dissipation of a dark and ominous cloud which gathered over the COMITY RESTORED. legislature in its closing days and to announce that that comity which should always exist among law-givers and their janitors has been re-established.

Among the exciting incidents of last week was a printed communication in the Gazette from Charles Phillips, the house janitor.

In which Mr. Barkley, the member from Pima, was described as an incipient statesman who might never culminate, a budding statesman who might never bloom and mature, and a rudimentary statesman who might never develop into a well defined organ of the body politic.

Mr. Phillips' uncertainty and dread regarding the future public career and usefulness of the gentleman from Pima was based in a great measure upon the use by Mr. Barkley on the previous day of the word "nigger" in the course of an address adverse to the cause of equal suffrage.

Mr. Phillips' comments were regarded by the house as an assault upon the whole legislative body, and his immediate employment in some other capacity than that of janitor in extraordinary to the house was demanded.

Mr. Phillips continued to perform his functions and carry the keys; to sweep the floors, dust and arrange the desks and blow out the gas after night sessions, as he had been doing for six weeks.

His presence every morning after his excommunication was a surprise to the legislators, but they got used to him before night and were surprised again on the following morning because he had not yet been fired.

As a daily surprise Mr. Phillips became such a part of the legislative life that the members actually began to be afraid that he would not turn up some morning and there would be nothing to break the dull monotony of law making.

As a matutinal surprise, thus Mr. Phillips became a more important figure than he had been as janitor.

This new relation between the janitor and the house, strong as it had grown, and indispensable as Mr. Phillips had become in the capacity of a surprise, was always in danger of being severed and the house kept growing more and more nervous.

On Mr. Phillips' side, too, there was not that tranquility he had enjoyed before engaging in critical journalism.

So there was general relief yesterday morning when a communication from Mr. Phillips was read by the clerk and unanimously accepted.

It was in the nature of a retraction of his editorial which, he said, had been written in heat, misapprehension and red ink.

He had since seen Mr. Barkley, who had assured him that the word "nigger" was used by him in only its Pickwickian sense, or better still, in its generic or campmeeting sense, and had no personal relation whatever to Mr. Phillips.

In these circumstances Mr. Phillips felt that he could properly withdraw his objection to Mr. Barkley as a statesman, and the house proceeded to the next order of business.