arness on their backs."

Mr. Speaker Doby read many committee reports, and at the beginning of
each there was a stir of expectation that it might be the signal for
battle. But at length he fumbled among his papers, cleared away the lump
in his throat, and glanced significantly at Mr. Bascom.

"The Committee on Incorporations, to whom was referred House bill number
302, entitled "An act to incorporate the Pingsquit Railroad," having
considered the same, report the same with the following resolution:
'Resolved, that it is inexpedient to legislate. Brush Bascom, for the
Committee.' Gentlemen, are you ready for the question? As many as are of
opinion that the report of the Committee should be adopted--the gentleman
from Putnam, Mr. Bascom."

Again let us do exact justice, and let us not be led by our feelings to
give a prejudiced account of this struggle. The Honourable Brush Bascom,
skilled from youth in the use of weapons, opened the combat so adroitly
that more than once the followers of his noble opponent winced and
trembled. The bill, Mr. Bascom said, would have been reported that day,
anyway--a statement received with mingled cheers and jeers. Then followed
a brief and somewhat intimate history of the Gaylord Lumber Company, not
at all flattering to that corporation. Mr. Bascom hinted, at an animus:
there was no more need for a railroad in the Pingsquit Valley than there
was for a merry-go-round in the cellar of the state-house. (Loud laughter
from everybody, some irreverent person crying out that a merry-go-round
was better than poker tables.) When Mr. Bascom came to discuss the
gentleman from Leith, and recited the names of the committees for which
Mr. Crewe--in his desire to be of service to the State had applied, there
was more laughter, even amongst Mr. Crewe's friends, and Mr. Speaker Doby
relaxed so far as to smile sadly. Mr. Bascom laid his watch on the
clerk's desk and began to read the list of bills Mr. Crewe had
introduced, and as this reading proceeded some of the light-minded showed
a tendency to become slightly hysterical. Mr. Bascom said that he would
like to see all those bills grow into laws,--with certain slight
changes,--but that he could not conscientiously vote to saddle the people
with another Civil War debt. It was well for the State, he hinted, that
those committees were composed of stanch men who would do their duty in
all weathers, regardless of demagogues who sought to gratify inordinate
a