The House of Representatives, albeit presenting an average of conduct equal to that of any corresponding chamber in the world, is a rough-and-tumble body. It is apt to carry partisan antagonisms to extremes and wrangle over anything that comes up, with accusations and recriminations, and at rare intervals an exchange of blows. Repeatedly I have seen the Sergeant-at-Arms lift his mace and march down one aisle and up another, to compose disturbances which seemed to threaten a sequel of riot, while the Speaker pounded his desk in an effort to overcome the clamor of several members trying to talk at once. By laxity of discipline and force of custom, there is a degree of freedom here, in even a peaceful discussion, unknown to the Senate. Members will bring, to exemplify their statements in a tariff debate, samples of merchandise--a suit of clothes, a basket of fruit, a jar of sweetmeats, perhaps. One day a debater, discussing olive oil, accidentally dropped a bottle of it on the floor, and several of his colleagues lost their footing in crossing the scene of the disaster. Another, who had a pocketful of matches designed for illustrative purposes, suddenly found his clothes ablaze and made a fiery bolt for a water-tank. Still another, inflamed by his own eloquence in trying to show how Congress ought to wring the life out of an odious monopoly, impetuously laid hands upon a small and inoffensive fellow member who happened to sit near and shook him till his teeth rattled, amid roars of delight from every one except the victim.