round the head. Well, you see it couldn't live so long, so I thought I'd try an experiment. I took four-no, three-no, it was four sheep-I want to keep to the truth-and skinned 'em, put their hides right on to the old hoss, tied 'em on tight, and they growed right tight to the critter, all except a leetle spot on the off fore-shoulder, and that I cured up in a little while. It's a fact; and some years I sheared more'n forty pounds of fine wool off from that ar hoss-just as true as I stand here!" And "Old Hat's" face would beam out with such genial selfsatisfaction at his ingenuity, and so brim over with candor, that few were found who dared to throw suspicion on this startling feat of surgical skill. "MONEY is no 'count to me," he would say. "I had so much stuff of one kind and another when I lived East it fairly pestered me. Why, when I came away I burned up a pile bigger than a meetin'-house, because I didn't know what to do with it! I was in something of a hurry, and when I left there was twenty-two cows-or three-twenty-two, if I remember right—in a barn, one side a little ways, that I forgot all about; and the poor things bein' all tied up starved to death, I heard afterward. It was too pesky bad”-“"Old Hat" would add, his mouth overflowing with smiles and tobacco-juice"too bad, but I clean forgot 'em!" OLD Jo Philps is a character known far and wide through this section of country (Connecticut) as a vendor of fish; very much given to his cups, but a man of good education and considerable wit. About five years ago his eldest son, who is also rather inclined to the use of the flowing bowl, wished to go on a whaling voyage; so old Jo furnished him the needful, and the boy started for New Bedford to ship, but while there he got on a spree and spent all his money; he then concluded he would like to return to his home and give up his proposed voyage, so he wrote to his father for the wherewith to return. Old Jo being a little set up at the time of the receipt of the letter, went to the telegraph office and sent the following message: "If you want to come home sell your oil!" THE little son, only four years old, of a gentleman in Chicago had received, as a present from his father, some chickens and a little dog. Soon after coming into possession of his treasures the chickens commenced to lay, and, as a matter of course, he was much interested in gathering up their eggs. One day he found an egg in the dog-house-a circumstance that to him conveyed only one meaning. When his father came home he ran to him and imparted his bright idea in the following words: "Oh, papa, I think that dog's dittin to be a chitten, he's laid an egg!" THERE lives in Lexington, Missouri, a grand old patriot. Major W. B. Smallwood, now nearly ninety years old. Major Smallwood is emphatically a Western man, having moved from Virginia to Ohio about the year 1800, where he continued to live until some ten or twelve years ago, when he came to Missouri, whither most of his boys had emigrated before him. The old patriot of whom I write served his country in the war of 1812; and when treason raised its standard sheet he was not slow to espouse the cause of his country, and sought to inspire all around him with like patriotic sentiments. At the time General Price's army reached Lexington, on the occasion of his last raid into Missouri, Mr. S. was staying at his son's residence, about one mile from Lexington. General Shelby's brigade was already encamped all around the house and in the orchard. The old veteran could not keep still, nor stay in the house, but hobbled about with his cane, denouncing traitors as freely as if he had an army at his back. One evening he was standing at the front gate when a rebel officer rode up and accosted him. "Old gentleman, can you tell me where General Price's head-quarters are?" "No, Sir; but I can tell you where they ought to be." "Well, where do you think they ought to be ?” For an instant the blood of his youthful days returned, and the old soldier replied, shaking his faithful cane in the face of the officer: "In hell, Sir!-in hell!" The A FUNNY story is told of Elder Allen, an aged minister in a part of New England where, at that time, the decorum usually observed in public worship had been but imperfectly developed. Elder had been greatly annoyed, especially during prayer, by the restless demeanor of members of his congregation. The aisles resounded with the footsteps of those who saw fit to go out, and again echoed to the tread of the laggards who, detained by discussions of cattle, crops, and politics outside, had just seen fit to come in. The Elder, though strong in exhortation, was but weak in grammar, and his soul was vexed within him. Pausing in his prayer, and leisurely surveying his flock, he gave vent to the wish that "them that was in would stay in, and them that was out stay out, and put a stop to this etarnal trampoosin!" A STORY is preserved among the legends of a New England town of a pair of worthy old ladiessisters-in-law we believe they were-who were quite inseparable; indeed it was a standing joke in the town that if Aunt Sarah should get to heaven her first inquiry would be, when safe inside the gates, "Is Sister Champlin here?" The old ladies had many tastes in common; among them was a somewhat singular one—a passionate desire to attend all the funerals in the region round about. One morning a report was circulated of the death of old Mr. Sharp, the minister in a neighboring town. The hour for the funeral services had not been mentioned, but judging that they would occur on the second day, Aunt Sarah and Sister Champlin, each arrayed in a new black silk apron, as being eminently appropriate for funereal wear, set forth at sunrise-determined, at all events, to be in time. Aunt Sarah being the proprietress of a "onehorse shay"-a rickety concern drawn by a lazy old mare-had called for Sister Champlin, and by dint of much persuasion of the obstinate beast, the pair by nine o'clock reached the borders of the town where the minister had resided. At this point they met Mr. Sharp's hired man, driving a yoke of cattle. The old ladies drew up, and Sister Champlin, as spokeswoman, inquired what hour had been appointed for Mr. Sharp's funeral. "Why, bless yer soul, Miss Champlin, the minister ain't dead yet!shouldn't be surprised if he held out till fall; he's got the wear in him, the old man has!" Aunt Sarah drew up the reins with an air of resignation, as if to turn round. Suddenly she dropped them. "Sister Champlin! Sister Champlin! dew ask the cretur if he don't know of a funeral we can go tew!" NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. CXCIV.-JULY, 1866.-VOL. XXXIII. DURING the fortnight between the 30th gun to dissipate illusions in which many had of May and 14th of June I find no event recorded worthy of special comment. The news of Kelley's victory at Phillippi and Butler's defeat at Big Bethel were received and commented upon according to the faith and sympathies of the commentators. The day of vehement protest and passionate discussion was past. Since the voting on the 23d of May Unionism in Jefferson was dumb. All interest was centred in the adverse preparations for the coming struggle. One party gloated in silence over exaggerated rumors of the martial power concentrating at Chambersburg and Washington, while the other with wide-mouthed vaunts told of the invincible hosts at Manassas and Harper's Ferry; yet with the advent of actual war quarreling had ceased in a great measure. indulged. Blood had already flowed. This mustering of armies might, after all, turn out to be something more serious than "a log-cabin and hard-cider demonstration," as some had fondly hoped it would be. We are told of certain savage tribes who believe that an eclipse of the moon is caused by the endeavor of a great codfish to swallow that planet; consequently when an eclipse takes place they get up a mammoth charivari to frighten the fish and make him disgorge. Now there was a very prevalent idea among those who were aiding and abetting Secession that all this military demonstration was nothing more than a grand charivari, calculated to frighten the great Yankee codfish into loosening his hold on the National Government which it was supposed he Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. XXXIII.-No. 194.-K These phenomena, which at first excited indignation, grief, and amazement, in the course of time ceased to surprise, and became subjects of merriment. Among ourselves we speculated jocosely as to who would "go under" next; and in the privacy of our own souls en It is useful, perhaps, but not the less humiliating to human pride, to test the depth and power of individual principle and will, to ascertain precisely for how many days and hours one's best-founded opinions and most positive convictions will maintain themselves unsupported against the current of society and the menaces of power. From the observations of these few months I have become convinced that no amount of clear conviction, rectitude of pur was about to swallow. As the grim reality | al and intellectual characteristics, in the prebegan to force itself upon them these dream- vailing frenzy. ers grew thoughtful, silent, and some even manifested a willingness to retrograde from their extreme position; but they had kindled a fire which they could not quench, and had raised a storm which would overwhelm them and their infatuated victims in common ruin. It was curious to observe the psychological phe-tertained the question, whether it was the world nomena of these days. In January, the indig- around us or ourselves that was mad. nation against South Carolina was universal. A call for volunteers to suppress her would have been answered by a general uprising. In February, indignation had calmed down to simple disapproval, and a disposition to leave South Carolina and the rest to the castigation due from the General Government; yet one who would have publicly advocated the Secession of Virginia ran a risk of being stoned in the streets. In March, advocacy of Secession under certain circumstances was tolerated, and Unionism be-pose, or moral heroism can long maintain a gan to be modified with many an "if" and passive defense against the assaults of an active "but." In April, surprised and overwhelmed and fiery enthusiasm. Organization must meet by the sudden action of the Richmond Junto, organization; passion blaze out against passion; backed by extraneous armed force, Unionism the audacious and unscrupulous spirit of revoin Eastern and Middle Virginia (after a short lution must be counteracted by a spirit as bold and unavailing resistance) yielded soul, body, and remorseless as itself. The idea is exand estate in ignominious submission to the pressed with more point and brevity in the popremorseless conqueror. In May, many of those | ular epigram, "One must fight the Devil with who had been most positive and uncompromising in their resistance of Secession were now found among its most zealous partisans. fire." The National Government had thus far lost every thing by its temporizing and conciliatory policy. The conservative and deprecatory Unionism of Jefferson and Lower Virginia gener 66 During the prevalence of epidemic diseases it is observed that on their first appearance the cases are of a milder type and slow in develop-ally was by this time virtually dead. The Sement, but as the contagion spreads and pro- cessionists had justified their boasts, and now gresses its symptoms increase in virulence and owned the souls, bodies, and estates of the late intensity; the premonitions of an attack are Union majority by as absolute a tenure as that shorter, and frequently do not appear at all-by which they held their African bondsmen. the incipiency, development, and fatal conclu- It was a despotism, moral, social, and political, sion all occurring within the space of a few the most absolute that was ever seen or conhours. It was thus with the great political ceived of. As time passed it was interesting epidemic of 1860-61, as observed in the district and amusing to gather up the arguments, mooccupied and covered by Joe Johnston's army. tives, plans, reasons, and hopes upon which By the month of June the circle of more ro- men based and justified their action. The exbust characters that still retained their political pressions of the rank and file rarely reached sanity was small and diminishing daily. They beyond the commonplace and indefinite gabble did not drop off now after long and lingering about "Southern rights,' "Our slave properarguments, painful doubts, rallyings, and re-ty," "Sacred soil," Virginia is gone out," lapses as formerly; but a normal mind would "No right to coerce a State," "Damned abolifall suddenly into incoherence and frenzy. tionists,' " and such other catch-words and Principles based upon the education and hab-phrases as had been furnished by their adroit its of a lifetime, sustained by the clearest views of interest, the pride of consistency, and every sentiment of honor, would perish in a night, like the gourd of Jonah. This change was easily discernible in the countenance and demeanor of its victims. Yesterday your friend looked in your face with a clear and earnest eye, and discussed questions calmly and logic- A more knowing class would inform you that ally. To-day he shunned you, his eye was the United States Government had become utrestless and unsteady, his manner painfully ex- terly corrupt, rotten to the core, and was hastcited, his talk full of incoherencies; in a short ening with fearful rapidity toward anarchy and time you would perceive there was a total ab- agrarianism. The South, to preserve her purisorption of all his previous opinions, idiosyn- ty and vitality, must separate herself from this crasies, social sympathies, and antipathies, mor- | foul body. You might answer that the Gov and subtle leaders. As many of these fellows were neither native Virginians nor even native Americans, and most of them entirely innocent of the crime of slave-owning, it is to be supposed that they had but a dim comprehension of the significance of these phrases; yet they were not the less zealous for that. ernment had worked well enough when pure and able men directed it; and if of late years it had become corrupt and feeble (a truth in which I fully concurred), had it not deteriorated under the management of the very men who now appearcd as the self-constituted founders of a Southern Confederacy? But the experiment of popular government is a failure. It has been tried and found wanting. The extension of popular rights, universal suffrage, elective judiciary, and all similar concessions to the great popular whale must be withdrawn. This could only be done by the secession and separate nationality of the South. We will establish there "a government of broadcloth and brains." This, I believe, was a characteristic epithet invented by Senator Wigfall, and was usually repeated sotto voce, emphasized by a complaisant glance at the speaker's own coat, and a significant touch with the forefinger upon his frontal sinus. It might again be remarked that such declarations, coming from men who had attained power and place by asserting the most extreme Democratic ideas, must convince the country that they were either grossly incompetent as statesmen-having labored so long under a delusion-or that they were hypocrites, utterly unworthy of confidence. They must per force accept one or the other horn of this dilemma. Moreover, how is this governing body of aptorot to be designated? The vast wealth which is to inundate the South six months after a proposed date will enable every man to wear broadcloth ad libitum; but how is the question of brains to be settled?-by accepting a man's own estimate, or by turning him over to a Committee of Congress? A PATENT OF NOBILITY. "Let us put the qualification up to twenty negroes, or a hundred, if you like." "Any arrangement will suit, my friend, so that you and I are of the anointed." A third saw in the Confederacy the realization of an idea such as none but the brain of a Southern statesman could conceive. An assemblage of independent sovereignties, forming a national league, so nicely and delicately adjusted that while each State should have the right to nullify, veto, and despise the decrees of the central power and secede from it at pleasure, at the same time the combination would be powerful enough to overawe Yankeedom, enforce alliances with France and England, annex Cuba and Mexico, reopen the slave-trade, raise cotton, and bully the world. The next fellow you met was cock-a-hoop for a monarchy-elective or hereditary, it didn't matter. Popular rights was a humbug. The insolence and ignorance of the masses had "Pish!" exclaims our impatient interlocu- become insufferable; "oi roλhoi-oi kakol." tor, "all these details will be arranged after- State Sovereignty was also a humbug-a synoward. The plan is, that no man shall be recog-nym of anarchy, best illustrated by the fate of nized as a gentleman or have a voice in the government who does not own a nigger." "One poor nigger!-Bah!-that will be a cheap entrance-fee into your House of Peers, scarcely equal to the old property qualification which these same gentlemen were so eager to abolish ten years ago." 66 the Kilkenny cats. State lines were to be abolished, and absolute centralization established under a king-ay, call him a king, and let him wear a crown. When a government fails for want of power to sustain itself, falls into disintegration from excess of the Democratic idea of local and individual independ ence, to what possible end can a revolution that the great end (whatever it might be) would lead if not to establish principles the opposite be accomplished without a serious war. A of those which have caused it?" strong political party in the North was pledged "There is philosophy in what you say, my to acquiescence in the movement; the commerneighbor, but how is your kingdom to be estab-cial interests of the Free States would render lished?" them averse to war; the modern Samson, "We have the power already in our hands, whose hair was cotton (Sea Island growth, and the men-" long fibre), would control them as he would the rest of the world. In short, England and France could not and would not permit a long "The monarch, the court, and aristocracy are doubtless ready; but where are your subjects? Can you convert the hereditary free-war-they were pledged. man of five generations into serfs by a simple edict ?" The Confederacy then was an accomplished fact. All that remained to be done was to "Yes. They have not so far to go as you complete the arrangement of details, about might suppose." which every body differed radically and irreconcilably; and to portion out the honors and profits of the new concern which every body coveted. Youthful enthusiasts reveled in dreams of unbounded wealth, pomp, luxury, and innumerable negroes; while some of the more judicious were troubled with doubts lest the star of the new nation might be prematurely dimmed, and its vigor corrupted by the very vastness of its assured prosperity. Indeed it was difficult to find one of the so-called thinking classes who had not a theoretic plan for the new government; a plan which, while it secured the expounder's especial interests, was calculated at the same time to raise the prospects Many were still sanguine enough to believe of the Confederacy to an amazing height. To those familiar with the workings of political power in the Southern States, these assertions will hardly appear rash or unfounded. Again, those who had large interests in the slave-breeding States, fearing the depreciation of their peculiar wares, did not admit the African slave-trade into their plans. The cotton planters reveled in visions of free trade with all the world; while it was confidently proclaimed that under a tariff, high enough to prohibit Yankee competition, Virginia and the other Border States would grow up vast manufacturing interests, and Richmond would in a few years rival Birmingham. A CANDIDATE FOR THE PEERAGE. A quondam friend-Stephen Mansfield, of happy memory-once an humble actor in county elections, etc., calling on an acquaintance for the purpose of expressing his sentiments, and incidentally to borrow a dime, declared himself in favor of the new movement. As he had been told that under Secession "every white man would be obliged to own land and niggers," while he had never been able to possess either under the old Government, he thought the change would be an advantage to every body. If this proposition of simple Stephen was in any wise more absurd or impracticable than those emanating from more pretentious sources, I was unable to perceive it. Beneath this froth of excitement and hallucination there was a solid basis of sincere and educated opinion. The dogma of independent State Sovereignty, in its fullest significance, was conscientiously maintained by a large class of gentlemen in the South and elsewhere. The traditional pride of the Virginian rendered his mind a congenial soil for the cultivation of this plant of local growth. Its roots had struck deep and its branches overshadowed the land. From a mere political dogma it had developed into a pervading social, I might almost say religious, sentiment. Many who denied the expediency of Secession accepted its accomplishment, and prepared with heavy hearts to maintain it at all hazards. Many who with prophetic vision foresaw the impending destruction |