Thus even the prosaic material of which the patent-office reports are constructed could be made to yield entertainment and instruction, and afford a basis of succulent and suggestive fact for a superstructure of pathetic and blood-curdling fiction. The advantages of adopting such a method in constructing these documents would be especially marked in the case of Congressmen. The member who now sends a patent-office report to one of his constituents is regarded by that man as a kind of moral ruin who ought to be put in some place where it would be impossible for him to destroy the happiness and poison the peace of unoffending families. But when a competent novelist prepares those reports, when he throws over them the glamour of his fancy, when he adorns them with his graceful rhetoric, and gives a certain intense human interest to all the hay-rakes and gum rings and suction pumps which now fill the leaden pages, these reports will be sought after; their tone will be changed; children will cry for them; Sunday-schools will offer them as rewards, and the intelligent American voter whose mind craves healthy literature will elect to Congress the man who will promise to send him the greatest number of copies. * * * * * Here is the story of a tragical event of which I was a witness, and which has created a profound impression upon the people of this community. [Illustration] An aunt of Bessie Magruder's lives at Salem; and as she had never seen Bob, she invited him and his betrothed to visit her one day last week, coupling the invitation with a request that we and the elder Magruders would come at the same time and take dinner with her. When the boat from up the river arrived at New Castle, the entire party of us went aboard. As the steamer shot across the water to Delaware City, Bob and Bessie wandered away by themselves, while the rest of us passed the time pleasantly in conversation. At Delaware City we came out of the cabin to watch the people as they passed over the gangway. To our surprise and vexation, Lieutenant Smiley appeared among them. As he pressed forward in the throng some one jostled him roughly, when he uttered a fierce oath and aimed a blow at the offender. It missed the mark, and he plunged forward heavily. He would have fallen had not one of the boat's crew caught him in his arms. We saw then that he was intoxicated.