strong
current through the wire. The leading mule gave a little start of
astonishment, and then it looked around at the boy upon the tow-path
with a mournful smile that seemed to say, "Sonny, I would like to know
how you worked that?" But the mules stood still. Then the captain
turned a stronger current on, and the mule shied a little and looked
hard at the boy, who was sitting by whittling a stick. The captain
sent another shock through the line, and then the mule, convinced
that that boy was somehow responsible for the mysterious occurrence,
reached over, seized the boy's jacket with his teeth, shook him up and
passed him to the hind mule, which kicked him carefully over the bank
into the river.

The mules were about to turn the matter over in their minds when
Captain Binns sent the full force of the current through the wire and
kept it going steadily. Thereupon the animals became panic-stricken.
They began to rear and plunge; they turned around and dashed down the
tow-path toward the boat. Then the line became taut; it jerked the
boat around suddenly with such force that the stern of it broke
through a weak place in the bank, and before the captain could turn
off his battery the mules had dashed around the other side of the
toll-collector's cabin, and then, making a lurch to the left, they
fell over the bank themselves, the line scraping the cabin, the
collector, three children and a colored man over with them. By the
time the line was cut and the sufferers rescued the mules were drowned
and all the water in the canal had gone out through the break. It
cost Captain Binns three hundred dollars for damages; and when he
had settled the account, he concluded to wait for the report of that
committee before making any new experiments.

The report of the committee upon improved locomotion was submitted to
the company during the following summer. It was a long and exceedingly
entertaining document, and the following extracts from it may possess
some interest:

THE REPORT.

"In reference to the plan offered by Henry Bushelson, which proposes
to run the boats by means of his patent propeller, we may remark that
the steam-engine with which the propeller is moved would sink the
boat; and even if it would not, the propeller-blades, being longer
than the depth of the canal, would dig about five hundred cubic
feet of mud out of the bottom at each revolution. As a mud-dredge
Bushelson's patent might be a success, but as a mot