John Chinaman no loafee lound the sleets;
He workee hald fo' makee livin':
He washee collals, shirtee, cuffee, sheets;
He do no beggin' or no t'iefin.

What fo'
Melican man

No wantee

John Chinaman
Ally mo'?

John Chinaman he havee no votee :

Is that leason why he no wantee here?
He no go lound 'lection day, and shoutee,
Fightee evelybody, smokee cigal, or dlink beer.

What fo'
Melican man
No wantee

John Chinaman

Ally mo'?

M. F. D.

THE SWEET SINGER OF MICHIGAN.

(A PRESS CRITIQUE.)

THIS is the bold caption upon a grain of sand blown from the Great Sahara of Letters, that falls timidly into our hands for review. Or possibly its trembling is caused by the cold weather, for it has only a paper cover. It is a large title and a small book, a rose on a chickweed stalk; and below the caption appears the face of the author,- a woman!sufficient to extract sympathy, "root and all," from even the stone man of the West that P. T. B. wants to bring East with him. Below the picture is an introductory note. It says:

"DEAR FRIENDS, This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those which speak of being killed, died, or drowned, are truthful songs; others are more truth than poetry. They are all composed by the author.

JULIA A. Moore.”

Such a letter is not often found. So short! so comprehensive! The songs will be truthful; more especially those which speak of being killed, being died, or being drowned, are distinguished for veracity. Here is a mystery: dye was never yet charged with honesty; it lives upon its lie. Yet the songs which speak of being died are the truth Italicized. The rest- those not particularly truthful — are more truth than poetry. An anomaly! a truth which is not a truth is more truth than poetry which is poetry. Hence it is neither poetry nor truth, while being strictly truthful poetry. There is an underground, or elevated train of thought there, incomprehensible. Ben Jonson never intended such complexity when he gave birth to this sentence: it was at a dinner-party, where each was to originate a couplet. Ben Jonson's partner said to the host, "I, Joel Ister, Kissed your sister;" and Ben the bungler, struck by the applause, said at once, “I, Ben Jonson, Kissed your wife.' “Ah, Ben!” replied the host, "that is not poetry." "I grant you," returned the invincible, "it is more truth than poetry." That is a simple statement easy to believe; but Julia's poetry is unique, as unique as is the sworn fact that the author is also the composer. In the opening nondescript she speaks of her childhood days with unblushing modesty.

"My childhood days were happy,

And it fills my heart with woe

To muse o'er the days that have passed by,
And the scenes of long ago.
In the days of my early childhood
Kent County was quite wild;
Especially the towns I lived in
When I was a little child.
I had two little sisters,

And a brother that made three;
And dear mother being sickly,
Their care it fell on me.'

Query: How came that little brother to make three little sisters? Was it one of the peculiarities of that especially wild country he lived in?

"My home was in a wilderness,

With tall forest trees abound.
It was four miles from a village
Or any other town."

"And now, kind friends, what I have wrote,

I hope you will pass o'er,

And not criticise me as some have done
Hitherto here before."

In which complexly beautiful combination something is yet lacking. Perhaps it is the precautionary formula, "Immediately, quick before soon, if not previously afterwards."

"Ah, my mother, how I love her!

Though her hair is growing grey."

But enough! Such pungent, childlike affection, in spite of the "signs of righteousness" and the "crown of glory," is worthy a sweet singer.

Her parents were too poor to give her clothes. She bravely

says,

to.

"It may be better so, for I do not think fine clothes
Make a person any better than they are."

Leaving one to doubt whether clothes or person is referred

"Let hearts and hands united be
To beat the wide creation."

Alas, poor creation! What a mangled, bloody mass those united hands and hearts must have left after their beating! In a doleful song of John Robinson, to be sung to the tune of "The Drunkard,” she states:

"His father and mother being dead,
Left him an orphan boy,”.

another peculiarity in Kent County. John left his brother's house, and went to San Francisco for his health; but ran short of money, and wrote for some more to come home and die with. The money not coming forthwith, he started without it.

"For he was sick, and very bad,

Poor boy! he thought, no doubt,
If he came home in a smoking-car
His money would hold out.
He started to come home alone,
He came one-third the way;
One evening in the car alone,
His spirit fled away."

Two doleful mistakes: the boy should have known that smoking-cars are expensive places; nor should he have left his spirit alone in one of them. Any well-organized spirit would "go off mad" under such treatment.

Five brave Page boys, in calendarical order, from the eldest downward, went to war. The youngest was Enos.

"In the Eighth Michigan Cavalry
This boy he did enlist:

His life was almost despaired of,
On account of numerous fits."

This is to be sung to the tune of "The Fierce Discharge." A temperance song to the tune of "Perhaps," begins,

"Some enterprising people

In our cities and towns
Have gone to organizing clubs
Of men that's fallen down."

This would appear to be a feat similar to that of one Moses, of olden time, before the high throne of Egypt; only that he organized his club of a serpent that had fallen down. A shocking case is beautifully wrought into nondescript concerning Hiram Helsel. a suggestive name:

"He was a very small boy of his age,

For when he was five years old

--

Was shocked by lightning while out at play:
It caused him not to grow."

A boy in Kent County should not be allowed to play during a thunder-storm if he is going to be shocked in that way.

"His parents parted when he was small,
And both were married again,"

The Michigan law on divorce notwithstanding to the con trary.

"How sad it was for them to meet,
And view his last remain,

He was living with his father then,
As many a friend can tell;
'Tis said of his father's second wife,
That she did not treat him well.
Now he is gone, oh, let him rest!
His soul has found a haven,

For grief and woe ne'er enter there,
In that place called heaven."

On the whole, it may be the wisest plan to "oh, let him rest!" for such a shocking restlessness with the nomenclature of the blest abode of the small Hiram is enough to drive any one from an idea of disturbing his "last remain." In a poem on William Upson, to the air of "The Major's Only Son," she opens fire with :

"Come all good people far and near,

Oh! come and see what you can hear."

This is either an ingenious dupe, or the "Sweet Singer" has discovered an optical telephone calculated to send Professor Graham's little box higher than a kite. William went to war, and died.

"It would have relieved his mother's heart

To have seen her son from this world depart."

A body was brought home, but the joy of identification refused the bereft mother.

"She does not know it was her son,

For the coffin could not be opened,"