Page 39

HISTORY OF MADISON.
and after some little further delay the rooms were ac-
tually occupied, but it was an act of hardihood to at-
tempt the transaction of business under such diffi-
culties. Col. Childs, one of the members who was
entrusted with the task of carpeting the rooms and
rendering them habitable, has left a record of the
sad condition of affairs, in which Contractor Morri-
son's hogs were better sheltered than the law makers
for Wisconsin.  If under such circumstances there
were some efforts at log rolling, it may have been
merely to maintain animal heat, by such exercise.
The legislature adjourned for twenty days, to permit
of the hall and chamber being rendered, in some de-
gree, warm and comfortable. There was a difficulty
in procuring hotel accommodation also, although
there were now three houses where guests could be
received. The Madison Hotel had two rooms that
would lodge four persons each; the Madison House
also two rooms that would lodge six altogether, and
the American Hotel had eight rooms, in which twen-
ty-six members could find accommodation.   The
prices charged were high enough to satisfy the most
fastidious, but in every other respect, there was abun-
dant room for complaint. Happily the pioneers were
inclined to make the best of things as they were, al-
though Judge J. G. Knapp asserts that six men were
placed in a room, only sixteen feet square, in the
Madison Hotel, and that the floors all over that pop-
ulous establishment were nightly covered with shake
downs, for transient visitors.
39