96 Hature'8 



own words the closing day of Congress. He 

 says: 



" My bill had indeed passed the House of 

 Representatives and it was on the calendar of 

 the Senate, but the evening of the last day had 

 commenced with more than 100 bills to be con- 

 sidered and passed upon before mine could be 

 reached. Wearied out with the anxiety of 

 suspense, I consulted one of my senatorial 

 friends. He thought the chance of reaching 

 it to be so small that he advised me to consider 

 it as lost. In a state of mind which I must 

 leave you to imagine, I returned to my lodg- 

 ings to make preparations for returning home 

 the next day. My funds were reduced to the 

 fraction of a dollar. In the morning, as I was 

 about to sit down to breakfast, the servant an- 

 nounced that a young lady desired to see me 

 in the parlor. It was the daughter of my ex- 

 cellent friend and college classmate, the com- 

 missioner of patents, Henry L. Ellsworth. 

 She had called, she said, by her father's per- 

 mission, and in the exuberance of her own joy, 

 to announce to me the passage of my telegraph 

 bill at midnight, but a moment before the 

 Senate adjourned. This was the turning-point 

 of the telegraph invention in America. As 

 an appropriate acknowledgment of the young 

 lady's sympathy and kindness a sympathy 

 which only a woman can feel and express I 

 promised that the first dispatch by the first 



