"A bill providing that in these four heirs should rest for seven years the exclusive right of making and vending the improvements in the construction of the cast-iron plow; and that twenty-five cents on each plow might be exacted from all who manufactured it, passed the Senate unanimously. But Washington already swarmed with plow manufacturers. The city of Pittsburgh alone sent five to look after their interests. Money was freely used, and the members of the House Committee who were to report on the bill were assured that during the 28 years of the patent, Wood's family had reaped immense wealth, and wished to keep up a monopoly. The two quiet ladies, fresh from the retirement of a Quaker home, where they had learned little of the world, were even accused of attempting to secure its extention through bribery. It was the wolf charging the lamb with roiling the water. So ignorant were they of such means, that, though the Chairman of the Committee plainly told the younger lady in a few words of private conversation that a very few thousand dollars would give her a favorable verdict, she did not understand the suggestion till after an unfavorable report was presented, and the bill killed in the House. "When they were about to leave Washington, some friendly members of Congress advised them to deposit the valuable documents which had been used in their suit, including the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Jethro Wood, in the archives of the House, where they could only be withdrawn on the motion of some member. They did so, and left them for some years uncalled for. When at last they applied for them they could not be found. Nor from that time to the present has any trace of them been discovered by any of the family. Thus perished the last vestige of proof relating to this ill-fated invention." This is a fair and candid statement, one fully sustained by unimpeachable documentary evidence. Especially by the somewhat voluminous pamphlet entitled "Documents relating to the improvements of Jethro Wood in the Construction of the Plough." A careful examination of the testimony therein embodied, and of the Congressional Reports on the subject, warrant the foregoing statements.