h and the
expressions of his two companions-in-arms. Mr. Speaker Doby beat the
stone with his gavel, while Mr. Crewe continued to lean back calmly until
the noise was over.

"Gentlemen," he went on, "I will enter at the proper time into a
situation--known, I believe, to most of you--that brings about a
condition of affairs by which the gentleman's committee, or the gentleman
himself, with his capacious pockets, does not have to account to the
House for every bill assigned to him by the Speaker. I have taken the
trouble to examine a little into the gentleman's past record--he has been
chairman of such committees for years past, and I find no trace that
bills inimical to certain great interests have ever been reported back by
him. The Pingsquit bill involves the vital principle of competition. I
have read it with considerable care and believe it to be, in itself, a
good measure, which deserves a fair hearing. I have had no conversation
whatever with those who are said to be its promoters. If the bill is to
pass, it has little enough time to get to the Senate. By the gentleman
from Putnam's own statement his committee have given it its share of
attention, and I believe this House is entitled to know the verdict, is
entitled to accept or reject a report. I hope the motion will prevail."

He sat down amidst a storm of applause which would have turned the head
of a lesser man. No such personal ovation had been seen in the House for
years. How the Speaker got order; how the Honourable Brush Bascom
declared that Mr. Crewe would be called upon to prove his statements; how
Mr. Botcher regretted that a new member of such promise should go off at
half-cock; how Mr. Ridout hinted that the new member might think he had
an animus; how Mr. Terry of Lee and Mr. Widgeon of Hull denounced, in
plain hill language, the Northeastern Railroads and lauded the man of
prominence who had the grit to oppose them, need not be gone into. Mr.
Crewe at length demanded the previous question, which was carried, and
the motion was carried, too, two hundred and fifty to one hundred and
fifty-two. The House adjourned.

We will spare the blushes of the hero of this occasion, who was
threatened with suffocation by an inundation from the back seats. In
answer to the congratulations and queries, he replied modestly that
nobody else seemed to have had the sand to do it, so he did it himself.
He regarded it as a matter of duty, however unpleasant and unforesee