a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod As yet the panic of the steed had given did not make his appearance at breakfast his unskilful rider an apparent advantage-dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The in the chase; but just as he had got half-boys assembled at the school-house, and way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind-for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears: the goblin was hard on his haunches; and, (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the tree now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprung upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brim stone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash-he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church, was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm tunes full of dog's ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New-England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted, by several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to send his children no more to school; observing, that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were END OF THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, | often fancied his voice at a distance, and at the spot where the hat and pump- chanting a melancholy psalm tune among kin had been found. The stories of the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was removed to a different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered; written for the newspapers; and finally, had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The school-house being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has A REJECTED MANUSCRIPT. ONCE upon a time an aspiring author presented to M. Monvel, the famous comic actor, a manuscript tied with red tape, and begged him to give an impartial opinion of the production. The comedian promised to do so, and the young manthe comedian thought him very youngwaited for six months and more before he inquired as to his friend's verdict. At length he put the solemn question, "Was the piece adapted for the stage?" The comedian promised to let him know in a day or two, so three more weeks went by. Then again the author importuned the actor and begged him not to defer his hopes any longer. "Well, then," said the actor, "the fact is your play is decidedly clever, I may say particularly clever, but it is not quite the thing for the stage; the scenes, the acting, the development of the plot, the tag, in fact it requires adapting to the stage before it could be possibly produced. I must decline it; unwillingly, of course, but still-" The young author interrupted him: "Will you be kind enough to point out a fault?" The actor was confused; he toyed with the manuscript, still criticising its defects; the author seized it from him, untied the tape, unrolled the paper, and with a laugh showed him that the whole was blank! The comedian had never untied the packet. A DISTINCTION.-An eminent judge used to say that, in his opinion, the very best thing ever said by a witness to a counsel, was the reply given to Missing, the barrister, at the time leader of his circuit. He was defending a prisoner charged with stealing a donkey. The prosecutor had left the animal tied up to a gate, and when he returned it was gone. Missing was very severe in his examination of the witness. "Do you mean to say witness, the donkey was stolen from that gate?" “I mean to say, sir," giving the judge and then the jury a sly look, "the ass was Missing." BEN BLOCK. BEN BLOCK was a vet'ran of naval renown, For the Board still neglected his merits to crown, As no int'rest he held with my lord. And he'd laugh at the cannon's loud roar; When the death-dealing broadside made worms' meat of men, And the scuppers were streaming with gore. lature. A farmer by occupation, rather than a politician, he has declined again to be a candidate for Congress, although his few speeches in that body marked by broad humor, argumentative force, and great powers of satire, have given him much reputation, in spite of the fact that he has been one of the most modest and unobtrusive members of the House.] [Extract from Mr. McKenzie's speech on the proposed Tariff Commission, in the House of Representatives, April 20th, 1882.] MR. CHAIRMAN, it is possible to appreciate, but it is not possible to express the embarrassment under which I labor on this occasion. At the close of the debate, and after so many exhaustive speeches upon the subject, I do not expect to say anything either new or novel. The ground Nor could a lieutenant's poor stipend pro- has been thoroughly trodden over. voke The reapers of Boaz have so thoroughly gathered and garnered the field that there is nothing left behind them for a modest and unpretentious Ruth like myself to glean. I am, then, only going to indulge perhaps in some of the hackneyed phrases which have been worn threadbare in this discussion. I do not think the facts can be too often stated, I do not think that even the scrolls of the heavens could contain the enormities, the outrages, and absurd iniquities of this tariff system. This tariff discussion has been conducted at such great length that I doubt not the outside world is beginning to conclude that Congressmen "think they are under a sacramental obligation to exhaust every subject with a prolixity which scorns consideration of the preciousness of time and brevity of human life." Yet, notwithstanding the great length to which this discussion has been extended, I shall ask the indulgence of the committee while I state as briefly as possible some of my objections to the bill, and discuss in a general way the subject to which it relates. I pause here and ask any friend of this bill, any friend of protection, any friend of the existing tariff, if in any of the papers on file in this House the name of a single farmer appears as demanding or urging the passage of the bill. We have Without number the petitions of the manufacturing interests of every section signed, I doubt not, by their own employees, whose bread and meat and the shelter over the heads of whose families depend upon the dictum of their em ployers. I have no doubt we have cartloads of such petitions on file here; but I ask gentlemen who are pleading for the passage of the bill to answer if the name of a single producer of the great cereals of America is on file in favor of its passage? Railroads, doubtless, petition for it; banks petition for it; the cotton manufacturers petition for it; the spinners of wool petition for it; manufacturers of Bessemer steel petition for it; the manufacturers of iron petition for it; and I ask you, gentlemen on the other side, who are presumed to be the especial champions of this bill, if in all the annals of the literature of petition on this subject the name of a single American farmer appears? They are satisfied that they have been made for years the victims of this odious system of protection; and every paper on file asking for relief to the muscle that toils in the corn and tobacco fields of this great country asks for relief from the invidious, proscriptive, infamous system that discriminates against their labor and in favor of the capital and the protected industries of the land. There is not much poetry in this sort of statement, gentlemen, but it is God's eternal truth. that committee as they seem by their acts to entertain of themselves, and, God knows, modesty is not the weakness of the average American Congressman. If I were to refer to the Congressional Directory, the finest repository of suppressed vanity that God Almighty ever permitted, I could satisfy you that divine wisdom never permitted a book to emanate from the American press, which contained as much modest assumption. Suppose I were to entertain the House upon the theory that this bill is a confession of weakness, that it is a confession that the Committee on Ways and Means of this House are not equal, intellectually, to the great task of grappling with the subject of the tariff, and I submit to every member upon this floor, in common fairness and justice, if the bill does not show that to be the fact? Suppose, following out that idea, I were to refer to the biographical sketches so kindly furnished to Mr. Ben. Perley Poore by these gentlemen themselves; suppose I were to trace out the intellectual estimates placed upon themselves by these gentlemen-and I presume they wrote the biographies themselves. But I will not do it, because I I now come to the consideration of a have not now time. Still I invite the question which I approach with many attention of the House and the country to misgivings. I do not want to say any- the modest, shrinking, girlish estimate thing unkind; it is not in my nature. I placed upon themselves by these Godhave served here a long time, and I ap-fearing men. peal to gentlemen on both sides of the House if I have not been uniformly courteous and considerate of their feelings. But I am going to discuss a question which has somewhat of personality in it. I trust I shall be able to deal with it with that degree of deftness which will leave no sting behind. I come to contemplate the Committee on Ways and Means, and I pause in order to allow the average Congressional mind to grasp the vastness of this subject. I I had begun to think, Mr. Chairman, that I had manifested a spirit of modesty myself, a sort of shrinking nature upon the floor of the House; but when I came to read these sketches by the members of the Committee on Ways and Means published in the Congressional Directory, I felt that I had been bold, self-assuming, and presumptuous, and was no longer entitled to believe myself a modest man. invite attention to them; no more interesting reading exists in the annals of Now I desire to ask why has not the literature since the Canterbury Tales were Committee on Ways and Means, that written. Look at the ages of these men. mighty body which is the arbiter eleganti- They are no spring chickens. They are arum of this House, and which controls about as thoroughly matured a set of inabsolutely its economic destinies, why has dividuals as I have ever encountered in not this committee revised the tariff? Is this House. I thought I had the whole it possible that they are willing to confess matter before me here, unless some of in the face of Heaven and men that they them have been too modest to insert it in are incapable of grappling with the grand the Record; but I will not take up the questions which are referred to them by time of the committee now by reading this House? I am not disposed, gentle- them; still, if gentlemen choose to look men, to entertain as poor an opinion of they will find here about as interesting reading as they ever came across, and their conclusions are wiser than any they will see that the compiler of this Directory has succeeded in getting their ages, I suppose after the fashion of the census officers, who, when they found an old maid who declined to give her age, declared that they would set her down at eighty years, by which they generally managed to get a response. As the Representative of 180,000 people on this floor, I demand of these gentlemen who support this bill that they inform this House what necessity exists for making the Executive the autocrat of the legislative department? We have had a good deal of experience in this commission business. In the Forty-fourth Congress we created a commission that did not turn out in a very satisfactory sort of way. It succeeded in foisting upon the American people as the President of the United States, a man who had as much moral right to the office as I have to a quarter section of land in the moon; and by the way, it was an administration that will go down in history remarkable for but two things, weak vetoes and cold water at state dinners. I will ask the untamed patriots on the Republican side of the House what is the necessity of placing in the hands of an accidental President the power to create the commission? Why not create it ourselves? Have you no confidence in your fellow-members? I have, on this side of the aisle. Will not your constituents, and I use the pronoun "your" when I refer to the members who will vote for this enormity will not your constituents say to you when you shall have enacted this bill into law by your votes, that you have confessed your weakness, confessed your inability to deal with the great economic questions presented for your consideration? Will they not say you have degraded the legislative department of the government by avoiding the duties which they impose upon you? that could possibly be arrived at by the nearly four hundred representatives sent here by the people to look after their interests? Whence their superiority? They ought to go home and run for Congress. If these people are so much our intellectual and moral superiors, if they are able to deal with these questions, divesting themselves of all partisan prejudices, if they are able to deal with them in a spirit of fairness, justice, and liberality toward every section, then why in the name of all that is wonderful do not the American people recognize their superior abilities and send them here to Congress in place of this Committee on Ways and Means, that solemnly and gravely admits, in the face of God and man that they have not the ability to tackle this question? I feel sorry for that committee; I think of it in the night-watches. It excites the commiseration of a heart naturally tender, when I awake at night and think that the American people are here through their representatives with a Committee on Ways and Means that comes before the House and blubberingly says, "We cannot tackle this thing ourselves, but we have got a gang of fellows outside that are able to do it at $10 per day and found." I want to ask you another question on the subject of Iron (and that is where the iron enters into my soul); on the subject of iron will the consumers or manufacturers be heard or heeded before this august tribunal of nine? On the subject of woolen goods will the ragged and suffering poor that pay the enormous duty on the wool and the manufactured products that constitute their miserable squalid covering have an audience? Will ear be given to the plaints of the lowly, the stricken, the oppressed, and an effort made to relieve their grievances? Or will these doctrinaires be wined and dined by the manufacturing and protected interests, and listen to appeals whereby the thumbDo you intend to adopt it upon the idea screws of taxation and protection can be that these people know immeasurably so applied as to wring an additional penny more about the true theory of revenue from the unwilling hand of penury and and protection than we do? An angel want? Will the shivering, ague-stricken direct from Heaven could not make a revelation in regard to the general literature of protection that would illuminate some members on that side of the House. Are you going to admit the conclusions of these people; are you going to admit that people of our malarial bottoms be listened to in their cry for untaxed medicinal herbs, or will the quinine kings of Philadelphia and New York be heard in their efforts to restore a tax on quinine which, if ever enacted, should be styled |