The last legislature, having nothing else to do, passed a law providing
for a change in the coat-of-arms of the State. There was no change,
particularly, except to move the plows and shovels around a little,
put on a few more bars of pig lead, put a new fashioned necktie on the
sailor who holds the rope, the emblem of lynch law, tuck the miner's
breeches into his boots a little further, and amputate the tail of the
badger. We do not care for the other changes, as they were only intended
to give the engraver a job, but when an irresponsible legislature
amputates the tail of the badger, the emblem of the democratic party
that crawls into a hole and pulls the hole in after him, it touches us
in our patriotism.
The badger, as nature made him, is a noble bird, and though he resembles
a skunk too much to be very proud of, they had no right to cut off his
tail and stick it up like a sore thumb. As it is now the new comer to
our Garden of Eden will not know whether our emblem is a Scotch terrier
smelling into the archives of the State for a rat, or a defalcation,
or a _sic semper Americanus scunch_. We do not complain that the sailor
with the Pinafore shirt on, on the new coat-of-arms, is made to resemble
Senator Cameron, or that the miner looks like Senator Sawyer. These
things are of minor importance, but the docking of that badger's tail,
and setting it up like a bob-tail horse, is an outrage upon every
citizen of the State, and when the democrats get into power that tail
shall be restored to its normal condition if it takes all the blood
and treasure in the State, and this work of the republican incendiaries
shall be undone. The idea of Wisconsin appearing among the galaxy of
States with a bob-tailed badger is repugnant to all our finer feelings.