In answer to my inquiry as to the most successful speech he ever heard in Congress, he replied it was that of the German, ex-Governor Ritter of Pennsylvania.  The first bill appropriating money for inland fresh waters was under consideration.  The house was divided.  Strict constructionists held this to be unconstitutional; only harbors upon the salt sea were under the Federal Government.  The contest was keen and the result doubtful, when to the astonishment of the House, Governor Ritter slowly arose for the first time.  Silence at once reigned.  What was the old German ex-Governor going to say—­he who had never said anything at all?  Only this: 

“Mr. Speaker, I don’t know much particulars about de constitution, but I know dis; I wouldn’t gif a d——­d cent for a constitution dat didn’t wash in fresh water as well as in salt.”  The House burst into an uproar of uncontrollable laughter, and the bill passed.

So came about this new departure and one of the most beneficent ways of spending government money, and of employing army and navy engineers.  Little of the money spent by the Government yields so great a return.  So expands our flexible constitution to meet the new wants of an expanding population.  Let who will make the constitution if we of to-day are permitted to interpret it.

[Illustration:  Photograph from Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.

JAMES G. BLAINE]

Mr. Blaine’s best story, if one can be selected from so many that were excellent, I think was the following: 

In the days of slavery and the underground railroads, there lived on the banks of the Ohio River near Gallipolis, a noted Democrat named Judge French, who said to some anti-slavery friends that he should like them to bring to his office the first runaway negro that crossed the river, bound northward by the underground.  He couldn’t understand why they wished to run away.  This was done, and the following conversation took place: 

Judge: “So you have run away from Kentucky.  Bad master, I suppose?”

Slave: “Oh, no, Judge; very good, kind massa.”

Judge: “He worked you too hard?”

Slave: “No, sah, never overworked myself all my life.”

Judge, hesitatingly: “He did not give you enough to eat?”

Slave: “Not enough to eat down in Kaintuck?  Oh, Lor’, plenty to eat.”

Judge: “He did not clothe you well?”

Slave: “Good enough clothes for me, Judge.”

Judge: “You hadn’t a comfortable home?”

Slave: “Oh, Lor’, makes me cry to think of my pretty little cabin down dar in old Kaintuck.”

Judge, after a pause: “You had a good, kind master, you were not overworked, plenty to eat, good clothes, fine home.  I don’t see why the devil you wished to run away.”

Slave: “Well, Judge, I lef de situation down dar open.  You kin go rite down and git it.”