as made under especially trying
circumstances.

A celebrated orator billed to speak on campaign issues had failed to put
in an appearance; and Blaine, being present, was forced by some of his
Augusta friends to ascend the platform. Nervous and entirely unprepared,
he began, however, by telling a story. He likened his situation to that of
a farmer, who had a horse for which he asked five hundred dollars. A
horse-trader offered him seventy-five dollars for the animal.

"It's a devil of a drop," said the farmer; "but I'll take it."

This anecdote caused much laughter, and at once put him in close touch
with his audience.

From that time the "Man from Maine" began to be heard of. His political
advance was rapid. The fact that he was not born a New Englander was not a
detriment to him, for, as one of his contemporaries said, "There was a
sort of Western dash about him that took with us Down-Easters." In 1862 he
was elected to Congress, and began his long and distinguished career of
public service at Washington.

BUILT HUDSON TUNNEL.

Resourceful Engineer Also Completed the
Bore Under the East River from
Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Charles M. Jacobs, the builder of the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel under
the Hudson River, is an Englishman, fifty-six years of age. His father
wished him to go to Cambridge University, but the youth preferred to go to
work, and he did so when sixteen years old.

He entered the office of a ship-building and engineering firm in Hull,
England, and there he became thoroughly grounded in mechanical work and
drafting. He was an earnest worker, and he established a precedent in the
office by getting work to do that was usually assigned to the head men. It
was not customary then to place such reliance on young men.

"Jacobs can do it," his employers were accustomed to say when surprise was
expressed at his being placed in command of big operations. "He knows what
is to be done, and he knows how to handle his men."

When he was twenty-one he went to India as the firm's representative in
some big engineering work, and he did so well that he was sent to China,
Australia, and the European continent. He helped build several tunnels in
London, and in 1889 Austin Corbin, then president of the Philadelphia and
Reading Railroad, brought him to this country to superintend several
important changes that were to be made in the road.

Jacobs liked this country so well and was so favorably impressed by