taken--as the advertisement read--
"with the Daguerreotype, or Pencil of Nature." The "likenesses,
by diffused light, could be taken by them in any kind of weather
during the daytime, and sitters were not subjected to the slightest
inconvenience or unpleasant sensation." The new discovery gradually
supplanted the painting of miniatures on ivory in water-colors,
and the cutting of silhouettes from white paper, which were shown
on a black ground. Another novel invention was the electric, or,
as it was then called, the magnetic telegraph. Mr. Morse had a
model on exhibition at the Capitol, and the beaux and belles used
to hold brief conversations over the mysterious wire. At last the
House considered a bill appropriating twenty-five thousand dollars,
to be expended in a series of experiments with the new invention.

In the brief debate on the bill, Mr. Cave Johnson undertook to
ridicule the discovery by proposing that one-half of the proposed
appropriation be devoted to experiments with mesmerism, while Mr.
Houghton thought that Millerism (a religious craze then prevalent)
should be included in the benefits of the appropriation. To those
who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a chimera, a visionary
dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of merriment than
seriously entertained. Men of character, men of erudition, men
who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to
forecast the future of the telegraph. Other motions disparaging
to the invention were made, such as propositions to appropriate
part of the sum to a telegraph to the moon. The majority of Congress
did not concur in this attempt to defeat the measure by ridicule,
and the bill was passed by the close vote of eighty-nine to eighty-
three. A change of three votes, however, would have consigned the
invention to oblivion. Another year witnessed the triumphant
success of the test of its practicability. The invention vindicated
its character as a substantial reality; it was no longer a chimera,
a visionary scheme to extort money from the public coffers. Mr.
Morse was no more subjected to the suspicion of lunacy, nor ridiculed
in the Halls of Congress, but he had to give large shares of its
profits to Amos Kendall and F. O. J. Smith before he could make
his discovery of practical value.

The New York _Tribune_ was first published during the Tyler
Administration by Horace Greeley, who had very successfully edited
the _Log Cabin_, a polit