The mournful ceremonials had just been concluded, when the city was alarmed with the apprehension of another fatal accident to the Chief Magistrate himself. As he returned in his carriage of state from the place of interment, (the Congress burying ground, about three miles from the President’s House,) his horses took fright, and ran with fury along the great thoroughfare, filled with people and carriages. There was no arresting their wild career; the reins were broken in the attempt to restrain them, and all that could be done was to give room to their headlong flight. As they approached the turn in the end of the avenue, obstructed by the President’s square, they got scared at something on one side of the street, and shied off in their course to the curb-stone on the other side, which gave the advantage to an intrepid colored man on the side walk to seize them by the short reins and stop them. A little beyond, in the direction they were going, lay masses of the large stone rejected from the new treasury building, near the precipitous bank to the south of the President’s wall. Had not the career of the horses been arrested at the moment that it was, the next would have wrecked the carriage on these rocks, or precipitated it over the bank. The President was happy to escape from his state equipage, over which all guidance and control was lost, and find himself afoot, by the side of his humble deliverer. CHAPTER IV. Mr. Dana’s speech against the military Academy.--Objections-- it is an aristocratic institution.--1st in its selection of candidates--2nd in its monopoly of military commissions.--Its expenses are enormous and wholly disproportioned to any advantages to be derived from it.--Its positive evils, as it operates on the officers and on the private soldiers.--Mr. Dana might have added, that if this republic is in danger from any quarter, its danger lies in this institution. Immediately after the funeral obsequies, Congress took up, on the 6th of March, the bill making appropriations for the Military Academy at West Point. Mr. HALE of New Hampshire, one of the best debaters in the House, moved to strike out the appropriation from the bill. On this occasion, Mr. Dana of New York delivered a powerful speech in favor of the motion. The intrinsic value of this speech entitles it to a place in our book, so that its home truths may be duly considered by all who read books or public documents. The institution itself should be given away to the regents of the University of New York, or to some literary institution, and no longer be connected with the general government. But we proceed to lay before the reader extracts from this elegant speech.