you might have killed me; I have a great mind to and he remarked, as one of the soldiers' sweet little cut your head off with the carving-knife!' wives was passing, 'If I was going to the war, and "Oh do, pa!' said the rogue; wouldn't it be any of my friends should come down to the station nice to go to heaven together?'” In the Third Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers it is a rule that no soldier can leave camp without a pass. The chaplain one day was distributing tracts; among others was one headed, "Come, sinners, come!" Soon after the tract was picked up in camp, and under the heading was penciled, "Can't do it! Colonel Ruger won't sign my pass!" to see me off, I would shoot them.' The little wo- JOE ROBINSON enlisted in the 199th Regiment of New York State Volunteers. The men were in camp on the island, and their friends were often visiting them. Joe's brother, John, came to see him, AN "officer of the U. S. Army," stationed at An- and found Joe very home-sick. He begged so hard napolis, Maryland, sends us the following letter, for John to get him a furlough that his brother went with a few words of explanation. The writer of the to the Colonel and told him his sister was dead, and letter is a negro living in Cambridge; "Miss" or he wished leave for his brother to go home for a few rather "Mrs." Smith resides in Annapolis, and is days. Consent was given; and as they were leavthe owner of "Miss Mary" and of "Miss Heny." ing the ground one of the men who heard of Joe's Bolton alludes to the "custum" of calling servants affliction, and wished to say something, asked him after the surnames of their owners. For the rest, how long his sister had been dead? Joe said, the letter explains itself. The writer's idea of mak-" About ten years!" and went on his way rejoicing. ing capital out of his two deceased wives is worthy of note: CAMBRIDGE MD. Nov. the 19th 1861. MY DEAR MAM-I have took apon myself the liberty be ing well and hoping you advise the same being in posses sion of the same Gods good blessing which in this world also to lead to discontent and bad feeling which Providens p. S. pleze reply Miss Smith. MRS. JONES had been ailing for some days; and on New-Year's Day was so poorly that she felt unable to receive company. She told Bridget to say to any persons who called that she was unwell and did not receive company; but if any of her relatives called, to admit them. The bell rung, and Bridget answered it and delivered her message; and again and again through the day. Toward night, after some forty or fifty callers had been disposed of, one more persistent than the rest insisted on coming in, as he belonged to the number of those who were to be admitted; when Mrs. Jones was confounded to hear him say that the servant at the door informed him that Mrs. Jones didn't see any company to-day but her friends! With this very gratifying piece of information her Irishness had dismissed the whole of Mrs. Jones's circle; and she takes this method of informing them that she is at home, and will be happy to have them call again. "Congress has appropriated $250,000 for the relief of the sufferers by the Charleston fire."-Richmond (Vir. ginia) Paper. "THIS brings to mind an incident that once occurred in the African church in our town. There was a pretty heavy debt against the meeting-house, and the minister had preached a sermon on the subject, urging each member to contribute liberally to “WE had been encamped in Indianapolis," writes its liquidation. He closed his discourse by saying one of the brave boys, “about a month before we that he would call out by name each member presleft for the seat of war. Some time after we ar-ent, and hoped they would respond liberally. Now rived in Virginia we heard that quite a large number of letters for the regiment were detained in the postoffice at Indianapolis for the postage. While passing through the camp one day I overheard a couple of soldiers conversing about those letters. One inquired What would be done with them?' The other replied, 'I suppose they will be sent to the dead-letter office, and after we get killed we can get them.' Thanks to the bad aim of the rebels, only three of as brave a regiment as ever went to the field had to call at that othice for their mail matter." "Orn soldier boys," writes a lady in the interior, "were about to set off for the seat of war. At the station a large crowd of friends had gathered, and there was the usual amount of kissing, weeping, embracing, and leave-taking. A loud-voiced man was entertaining a group of ladies with his conversation, on the front seat nearest the pulpit sat old Harkey Lyvers, who made his living by carting-his horse being on the crow-bait order, and provoking 'caws' from the boys whenever he appeared in harness. "And now,' said the preacher, Brudder Harkey, how much 'll you give?' "Ten dollas, Sah!' said Harkey. "One of the sisters, who sat on a back seat, on hearing the answer, called out, 'Look'ee here, Harkey! whar you git de money ?'” THE report of M. Dumas, Member of the French Institute, on the Exposition of French Industry, has been "done into English" for the benefit of a manufacturer of blacking, whose article is highly spoken of. We make an extract: "The service done by Messrs. Jacquand is real. One does perceive it the better when one does consider his ef fects on the less comfortable orders of the population, on those for which there are not little economies and on which it is of a great importance to spread habits of cleanliness, which conduct to the self-consideration and which an nounce at the man who observes them, the sentiment of his dignity. The jury confers on Messrs. Jacquand a medal of bronze." "OUR little Nellie had learned that the right hand was used for action; and in the midst of her play with a friend who had come to see her, she cried out, 'Ma! ma! Eliza has got her right hand on the left side!'" "JOSEY, our little boy, being rather remiss in his Sunday-school lessons, the teacher remarked, 'Why, Josey, you have not a very good memory, have you?' No, ma'am,' said he, hesitating; but I have got a first-rate forgettery!" A SECESSION minister comes into the store kept by a Quaker, and talks loudly against the country, until the Broadbrim tells him he must stop or leave the store. The clerical brawler keeps on, till the Quaker tells him he will put him out of the store if he does not go out. "What!" exclaimed the minister, "I thought you Quakers did not fight?" "The sanctified do not fight, but I have not been sanctified yet; and I will put thee out of the store in a minute!" " was elected to the Presidency, and before he went to Washington, he received a letter from four young scamps, college boys, who thought it smart to write to him and solicit the chief appointments under government for themselves, referring to several distinguished persons for testimony to their fitness. They did not expect a reply, but the fit took the old gentleman, and he wrote to them that the offices they desired were already engaged, but he had found places just suited to their capacities, and they could enter on them immediately as pupils in the Massachusetts Asylum for Idiots! WHILE the present Major-General Polk, in the Southern army, was in his more appropriate calling as Bishop in Louisiana, he was traveling, and had to put up for the night at a tavern near the river. The landlord told him that the beds were all engaged for a number of boatmen who would be in during the night. Wearied with his journey the preacher said he would sleep till they came, and turned in. His nap was short. A rough fellow, feeling along in the dark, laid hands suddenly on the Bishop, and sang out, "I say, stranger, this is my bed, and if you get it you must fight for it." This was not very alarming to the Bishop, who had had a military education, and now waking up to a sense of his situation replied: "Before you strike in the dark feel of my arm here, and now my chest." And the boatman did as he was told, growing more and more nervous as he pursued his examination, The minister fled from before the wicked Quaker. till he became satisfied there was a formidable foe IN good old times, when the goats were allowed to browse in Trinity Church-yard, the rector was preaching of a warm summer day on the sheep and the goats of Scripture. Being longer than usual in his discourse, the sexton fell asleep after hearing the most of the sermon. Just as he went off into a snooze, a billy-goat walked into church and up the broad aisle. The rector, annoyed at the sexton's inattention, spoke out: on hand, and then he excused himself by saying, "I rather think, stranger, you can have this bed." The Bishop always did belong to the Church Militant, and it was only returning to his first love when he sold himself, body and soul, to the Southern rebellion. JUDGE UNDERWOOD, of Georgia, has often been honored with a place in the Drawer. The Judge was holding court in the Cherokee district, when "Sexton, put out that goat!" log-houses were the only dwellings, and things genThe bewildered sexton started up, and just recall-erally were in a state of nature. It was in the fall, ing the subject, cried, "Yes, yes, Sir! Which one, when chestnuts and chincapins were in abundance: Sir ?" the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, spectators, constables, The rector was put out, and very soon the people every body were eating them in court and out. The were. DE Bow, the editor of the Review that bore his name, and which has done so much to deceive the country in respect to Southern productions and policy, is not so distinguished for personal beauty as the Apollo Belvidere. Colonel Thorpe, who has lived twenty years in Louisiana, and has often seen him, tells a story of him that belongs to the Drawer. The annual mask ball at the St. Charles, in New Orleans, had gathered the beauty and chivalry of the Southwest. When supper was announced toward morning, the guests were required to lay aside their masks before going into the supper-room. As De Bow was entering, one of the managers stopped him and said, "You must take off your mask, Sir." "What!" said the reviewer. "Your mask," said the manager, touching the ugly man's forehead, and discovering to his horror that what he took for a disguise was the best face the poor man had. THE quiet humor of Ex-President Buchanan has been frequently illustrated; but here is a sample of it that has not been in type. Just after he Judge wished to maintain something like decency in court, and tired of the ceaseless crack, crack that smote his ears, he at last was provoked to say, "Gentlemen, I am glad to see you all with such wonderful appetites. There is certainly no danger of starvation so long as the chestnuts and chincapins last. I have, however, one request to make of those who compose the juries. I am unable, in the present condition of affairs, to distinguish one body from the other. I must therefore beg the grand jurors to confine themselves to chestnuts, and the petit jurors to chincapins!" "NIGGER wit," says a Rochester correspondent of the Drawer, "is seldom seen to better advantage than it was in our town a few days ago. A darkey named Pete got a five-dollar counterfeit bill, and taking some friends to a lager beer saloon treated them to the extent of forty cents, passed the bill, and got the change. The Dutchman soon found the bill was bad, and overhauling Pete, charged him with passing counterfeit money. Pete expressed great surprise, said he knew where he got the bill, and would take it and get a good one for it. This was agreed to; but day after day passed and Pete climbing the trees by the side of the track. I asked the conductor what they were after." Grapes," he answered. did not bring back the money. The Dutchman | halt: several passengers left the cars and went to overhauled him again, and Pete said the man who gave it to him was now trying to get it back on the man he took it from. The Dutchman was furious, and threatened to have him taken up for passing counterfeit money. 'Guess you couldn't do that,' said Pete; 'can't took up a man for passing counterfeit money, when you hain't got de bill!' "This was a new idea to Mr. Lagerbeer, and Pete comforted him by paying him a dollar and a half of the change, as he said 'goin' halves' with him in the loss on the V." THE "presiding elder" of our district is very longwinded, and last Sunday he went on and on in his sermon till Brother Griffin, who sat in the pulpit behind him, was tired out. As soon as the elder sat down, Brother G. rose and gave out to sing: "Long have I sat beneath the sound And yet how weak my faith is found, The elder groaned, and the people sang with a realizing sense of the fitness of the words. "OBEY orders if you break owners" is a good old rule. Major Dubisson, a plethoric old gentleman in Florida, with plenty of dark-complected servants about him, was greatly afflicted with nightmare. He took one of his best boys, a smart little negro, to sleep in his bedchamber, and charged him strictly if he (his master) should be distressed in his sleep, to seize him by the first place he could find, and not to let go on any account until he waked up and turned over. Sure enough, master began to groan. The little nigger sprang to his head, caught him by his famous red nose, and held on for good. "Let go! I'm awake!" roared the Major. "Massa must turn over first. You told me to hold on till you turned over." The Major was only too willing to turn over and get released from the grip; but the handle of his face showed the marks of the little nigger's fingers for a day or two. FROM Iowa we have the following very amusing Scene: "Two lawyers in this State, bearing the same name, are so unlike in figure and stature that they are called General Dillon and Little Dillon. The General is six feet six in his boots, and as well proportioned as Frank Granger, of your own State, was said to be. Little Dillon is so small that he could not enlist if he would, for he comes below the regimental regulation pattern. The other day in Court they were on opposite sides, and while the General was speaking and making great sport of the arguments of the counsel on the other side, Little Dillon got very much excited, and at last springing up, began to pommel the General in the rear. The tall and stalwart lawyer looked around and down, and asked, very blandly, "Why," said I, “is it possible you stop whenever the passengers wish to get some grapes?" "Oh, certainly!" said he; "this is the accommodation train!" IN Saratoga County, New York, an old farmer— an old huncks he was-got out a warrant, and had four boys taken up for stealing a lot of good-fornothing pine-knots, which they wanted to use for torches when they went by night to spear eels. The boys induced a lawyer named Bothersome to get them off if possible. The case was a plain one, and it was clear that the Justice would send the boys to jail and fine them for the property. The lawyer went on to say: "I want every word of my plea to be written down by your honor. I demur and shall put in a plea of Debonis Aspertatus, with matter that requires a plea of Liberum Tenementum" (by this time the squire's pen dropped); "and I specially demur on the ground that it insufficiently describes the Locus in quo, and demand a judgment of Respondius Ouster with a Remittiter." The old farmer was frightened, and cried out, "I withdraw the case." The Justice was confounded, and dismissed it. "COULD the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin' have heard the following sweeping criticism, sustained by so conclusive an argument, she would probably have saved herself the trouble of writing her 'Key,' and given up the task as hopeless. It was uttered in perfectly good faith, and with an evident feeling that the speaker had made a 'smashing' point. Soon after Uncle Tom' was published I was going down the Mississippi River. The book came up for discussion. Listening to the debate was a man who had informed us that he was once an overseer in Louisiana, but was now living in Southern Illinois. After quietly listening for some time, this Egyptian oracle spoke with the conscious power of knowledge: "I know "Uncle Tom's" a lie, and I allays knowed it; fur I knowed a man that knowed Mister Shelby, of Kentucky, and Mister Shelby told that man that he never had no such nigger as Uncle Tom.'" "BETSEY ANN WRIGHT is a great woman's-rights woman. She can talk down any orthodox minister in the village who thinks that women have all the rights that any body has, and if they want to do any thing more than they are doing now they had better do it, and not be making an everlasting fuss about it. 66 'Betsey was in our house the other day, blazing away at me at a great rate; and as I am one of the Friends, and we never fight, I let her go on, in hopes that she would soon be tired out and would quit. While she was in the height of the argument her "What's going on?' "Fighting, to be sure,' replied Little D., 'fight-little daughter came in, and said, ing, Sir.' "Mother, come home as quick as ever you can! Father has come in, and wants some clean clothes, and says he never can find any thing when he wants it; he says he wishes the women would mind their own business!' "Friend Betsey,' said I, 'it was in my mind to make a few observations in reply to your views, but this message from thy husband expresses all that I could have said. I wish thee well!'" "THE Rev. Mr. W was a preacher in Monticello, in your State, but the society being not of sufficient size to maintain a whole minister, he preached one Sunday in Monticello, one in Rockland, and one in another adjacent town. In going to Rockland he had to go over the turnpike, and he noticed there the frequent inquiring looks of the gatekeeper, who proved to be a Yankee in every sense of the word, but said nothing, until one day, when the keeper was making change, he turned to the minister and said, "I thought, mister, some time when you was going this way, I would ask you what your business is, and what your name is.' "Well,' replied the minister, some time when I am coming this way, and you have leisure, you had better ask me.'" "I SEND you two or three items from St. Louis, rather a sober city just now. They are strictly true, and if you can fix them up so that your readers can tell where the laugh comes in, they may be worthy of a place: "A friend-a river man, whose occupation is gone by reason of the war and blockade-has a small black republican chattel, of about eight, wiry, lithe, and oh! so black! She was sent to the corner grocery. The dealer inquired, 'Is your master doin' any thin' now?' 'Yes, 'm.' 'What's he doin'?' 'Well, he's a workin'. What does he work at ?' 'Well, sometime he helps misses git supper! She thought she was smart, and told of it when she came home." SMALL wits are great talkers, as empty barrels and shallow streams make the most noise. It has been said that the smaller the calibre of the mind, the greater the bore of a perpetually open mouth. I talk a good deal, but I talk well," said one of these men to Cardinal Richelieu. "Half of that is true" said the Cardinal. I can not imagine," said Alderman Homes. why my whiskers should turn gray so much sooner than the hair of my head." "Because you have worked so much more with your jaws than your brains, observed a friend, with more wit than mas sers MoSARYS are scarce in Michigan. A sadder in Detroit kept one for a pet who smally sat on the ster. A countryman came in one day, the propritur being in a back room. The customer seeing a móde that sited him, asked the price. Mankey all noching' Cassonner wil -12 give you twenty dollars for 1' which monkey shoved into the drawer as soon as the man ind i own. The man then took the mide, but monkey mounted the man wore his hair. ended his face, and the frightened customer craved for dear le Proprietor rates in and wants to know what's the fou -F? wit dhe automer, "fe? I bought a wide of your son settin tee, and when I went to it be 'ties me have it!" The wider spoingized for the monkey, but aswed him that be we to relation Vuz. XXIV-5a 142-5 se FROM the moment when we turn our backs on the half-way house, toil over the hill, and descend into the valley of old age, we are astonished to find how space and bulk seem to have diminished. The street which we remember in our youth so broad and imposing has shrunk into a close alley; the river has become a ditch, the square a hen-walk, and the stately mansion which we once looked upon with awe a dwarfed hut which we now feel bound to despise. Our views seem to grow wider as we grow older, our desires less simple, and we wonder how we could ever have been happy while so cabined, cribbed, and confined. We laugh at the humble pleasures of our grandfathers, and are ready to welcome any toy that is startling and new. We throw ourselves into the arms of competing railway companies, because they can give us excitement, novelty, and change. As the rocking-horse is to the infant, as the pony or the flying swing is to the youth, so is the railroad train to the man. He enters it for a few pence, and swifter then the genii bore Aladdin from city to city, he is carried from town to country, or from country to town. Clerk, merchant, servant, sportsman, or sweep can cling to the long tail of the fiery steed, and ride rough-shod over the laws of time and space. What kings have sighed for, what poets have dreamed of, what martyrs may have been burned for predieting the coming of, is now as common as black berries. The magic Bronze Horse is now snorting at every man's door. Ile is a fine animal, if only properly managed, and may be driven by a child; but woe upon you if you let him break the reins. He has battered down stone walls; hurled hundreds over precipices; but he has also joined mother to son, husband to wife, brother to sister, friend to friend. He has cheapened food, and fire, and clothing for rich and poor; he has made many a deathbed happy, and many a wedding-party glad. Let us peep inside one of these trains, and take a few portraits of the travelers as they sit in a row. The magic Bronze Horse has slackened his speed. and the long tail of carriages is dragging along at the rate of ten miles an hour. The young gentleman in the corner grows weary of a few minutes' delay, even though it may save him from a damaging collision, for he has been born in an age of high-pressure speed, and has fed upon express trains almost from his cradle. His gaping has a sympathetic effect upon the female a little farther up on the same side, and they both yawn in unison. The second traveler, nursing his hat with a painful expression of face, has fixed his eyes on an advertising placard stuck on the roof of the carriage. This placard gives a picture of a man suffering from violent tic doloureux, and tells the passengers where they may apply for an infallible remedy. This mode of advertising is dismal but effective, and as the |