ALL WELL.—106.

And remember, though houseIn the plural is houses,The plural of mouseShould bemice, and notmouses.—Philadelphia Gazette.All of which goes to proveThat grammar a farce is;For where is the pluralOf rum and molasses?—New York Gazette.The plural—Gazette—Of rum don't us trouble;Take one glass too muchAnd you're sure to see double.—Brooklyn Daily Advertiser.A pair of blue eyes—Just to vary the strain—Says the plural of kissIs—"Do it again!"—Howard County Sentinel.Our English vernacularIs rife in abuse:"Unloose" is the same thingAs if you saidloose!—Montreal Pilot.To these observationsWe also might addMuch to prove that all grammar'sDeplorably bad;But for Lennie and MurrayWe have too much respect,To say e'en a wordHaving evil effect.—Anon.ALL WELL.—106.A young lady of extraordinary capacity, addressed the following letter to her cousin:—"We is all well, and mother's got the his Terrix; brother Tom is got the Hupin Kaugh, and sister Ann has got a babee, and hope these few lines will find you the same. Rite sune. Your apfhectionate kuzzen."WHAT HE ALWAYS DID AT HOME.—107.There is a story told of an Irishman who, landing in our harbour, was met and welcomed by a countryman who had been longer here. "Welcome, Pat," said the latter, "I'm glad to see ye; ye've come just in time, for to-morrow's election day." Pat and his friend took some refreshment together, and presently the newly arrived began to make some inquiries about voting. "Ye'll vote for who ye plaize," said his friend, "sure it's a free counthry." "Well, thin, begorra," rejoined Pat, "I go agin the Government, that's what I always did at home."HAVING THE COFFIN HANDY.—108.A man near Cleveland, Ohio, applied for exemption from the draft because an old mother needed his cherishing care. To show how much feeling this affectionate son has for his old mother, the neighbours say he has had her coffin in the house for over two years. He came to town with a load of wood one day, and being unable to sell it, he contrived to trade it off with an undertaker for a coffin. His mother being old, might die suddenly, and then, as Mrs. Toddles says, "how handy it would be to have in the house." Being of a frugal as well as an ingenious turn of mind, he put the coffin in the cellar to keep turnips, against such time as the old lady might drop off.PATERNAL ADVICE.—109."Ven you arrive at the dignity of sawin' wood, Lafayette, if you is elvevated to that perfesshun, mind and always saw de biggest fust; cause vy? you'll only have te leetle vuns to saw ven you gets tired out. Ven you eats pie, as I spose you may if you lives to be a man, eat de crust fust—tain't a good thing to top off with, if it's tough and thick as sole leather. Ven you piles up wood, alvays put de pig vuns on to te bottom—always, Lafayette, cause it's mighty hard vork to lift dem to de top ob te pile. Dese are te results ob observation, Lafayette, and may be depended on, and it's for your good I say it." "Vy, father," said young hopeful, "vot a 'normous 'xperience you must a had!"THE FIRST MARRIAGE.—110.We like short courtships, and in this Adam acted like a sensible man. He fell asleep a bachelor, and awoke to find himself a married man. He appeared to have popped the question almost immediately after meeting Mademoiselle Eve, and she without any flirtation or shyness, gave him a kiss and herself. Of this first event in the world, we have however, our thoughts, and sometimes in a poetical mood have wished that we were the man that did it. But the deed is done. The chance was Adam's and he improved it. We like the notion of getting married in a garden; it is a good taste. We like a private wedding—Adam's was private. No envious beaux were there; no croaking old maids; no chattering aunts and grumbling grandmothers. The birds of heaven were the minstrels, and the glad sky flung its light upon the scene. One thing about the wedding brings queer thoughts to us spite of scriptural truth. Adam and his wife were rather young to be married—some two or three days old, according to the sagest speculations of theologians; mere babies—larger, but no older; without experience, without a house, without a pot or kettle—nothing but love and Eden.NOVEL COMMENTARY BY A PARSON.—111.A minister at a camp meeting was delivering a discourse on pride, and, in cautioning the ladies against it, he said: "And you, dear sisters, may perhaps feel proud that ourLord paid you the distinguished honour of appearing first to one of you after the resurrection; but you have no reason for it, as it was undoubtedly done that the glad tidings might spread sooner."LOBSTER SALAD.—112.In a lecture at Portland, Maine, the lecturer, wishing to explain to a little girl the manner in which a lobster casts his shell when he has outgrown it, said: "What do you do when you have outgrown your clothes? You cast them aside, do you not?" "Oh, no!" replied the little one, "we let out the tucks!" The lecturer confessed she had the advantage of him there.COULDN'T HELP IT, IN FACT.—113.A grand jury down South ignored a bill against a negro for stealing chickens, and before discharging him from custody, the judge bade him stand reprimanded, and he concluded thus:—"You may go now, John, but let me warn you never to appear here again." John, with delight beaming in his eyes, and a broad grin, displaying a beautiful row of ivory, replied: "I wouldn't been here dis time, Judge, only de constable fotch me."AFTER JOINING CHURCH.—114.Uncle Sam had a neighbour who was in the habit of working on Sunday, but after a while he joined the church. One day he met the minister to whose church he belonged. "Well, Uncle Sam," said he, "do you see any difference in Mr. P. since he joined the church?" "Oh, yes," said Uncle Sam, "a great difference. Before, when he went out to mend his fences on Sunday, he carried his axe on his shoulder, but now he carries it under his over-coat."REMARKABLE DREAM.—115.A bashful youth was paying his addresses to a gay lass of the country, who had long despaired of bringing things to a crisis. Youth called one day when she was alone at home. After settling the merits of the weather, Miss said, looking slyly into his face, "I dreamed of you last night,""Did you? Why, now." "Yes, I dreamed you kissed me!" "Why, now, what did you dream your mother said?" "Oh, I dreamed she wasn't at home." A light dawned on Youth's intellect, and directly something was heard to crack.THE NEST EGG.—116.Some friends of ours in Ohio have a little boy about six years old, and a little girl about four. They had been cautioned in their morning strife after hens' eggs not to take away the nest egg; but one morning the little girl reached the nest first, seized an egg, and started for the house. Her disappointed brother followed, crying, "Mother, mother! Suzy, she's been and got the egg the old hen measures by!"WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW? BY J. G. SAXE.—117.I know a girl with teeth of pearlAnd shoulders white as snow;She lives—ah! well,I must not tell—Wouldn't you like to know?Her sunny hair is wondrous fair,And wavy in its flow.Who made it lessOne little tress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her eyes are blue (celestial hue)And dazzling in their glow.On whom they beamWith melting gleam—Wouldn't you like to know?Her lips are red and finely wed,Like roses ere they blow.What lover sipsThose dewy lips—Wouldn't you like to know?Her fingers are like lilies fair,When lilies fairest grow.Whose hand they pressWith fond caress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her foot is small, and has a fallLike snow-flakes on the snow.And where it goesBeneath the rose—Wouldn't you like to know?She has a name, the sweetest nameThat language can bestow.'Twould break the spellIf I should tell—Wouldn't you like to know?WOMAN-OLOGY.—118.We (Home Journal) wish to be learned in the subtle science of the softer sex. We aspire to know, at least, what it is that makes woman so adorable as magnetism pronounces her to be, and we have seen nothing so tributary to this science as an article in "Once a Month," entitled "The Good that hath been said of Woman." From the pleasant little periodical we speak of (edited by a younger brother of our own), we quote thus largely:—"One day the Fairy Blue descended upon earth with the courteous intention of distributing to all her daughters, inhabitants of different lands, the treasures and favours she brought with her. Her dwarf, Amaranth, sounded his horn, and immediately a young girl of each nation presented herself at the foot of the throne of Fairy Blue. This happened a long time before the revolution of July, 1830. The good Fairy Blue said to all her friends: 'I desire that none of you shall have to complain of the gift I am about to make you. It is not in my power to give each of you the same thing; but such want of uniformity in my largesses, should that deprive them of all merit?' As time is precious to the fairies, they say but little. Fairy Blue here finished her speech, and commenced the distribution of her gifts. She gave to the young girl who represented the Castiles, hair so black and so long that she could make a mantilla of it. To the Italian girl she gave eyes, sparkling and brilliant as an eruption of Vesuvius at midnight. To the Turkish, anembonpointround as the moon, and soft as eider-down. To the English, an aurora-borealis, to tint her cheeks, her lips, her shoulders. To the German, such teeth as she had herself, and what is not worth less than pretty teeth, but whichhas its price, a feeling heart, and one profoundly disposed to love. To the Russian girl she gave the distinction of a queen. Then, passing to detail, she placed gaiety upon the lips of a Neapolitan girl, wit in the head of an Irish, good sense in the heart of a Flemish; and when she had no more to give, she prepared to take her flight. 'And I?' said the Parisian girl, retaining her by her blue tunic. 'I had forgotten you.' 'Entirely forgotten, Madam?' 'You were too near me, and I did not perceive you. But what can I do now? The bag of gifts is exhausted.'"OLE HARRY AND OLE NICK.—119.When Nicholas Biddle, familiarly called Nick Biddle, was connected with the United States Bank, there was an old negro named Harry, who used to be loafing about the premises. One day, in a social mood, Biddle said to the darkey, "Well, what is your name, my old friend?" "Harry, sir—ole Harry," said the other, touching his seedy hat. "Old Harry," said Biddle; "why, that is the name they give to the devil, is it not?" "Yes, sir," said the coloured gentleman; "sometimes ole Harry and sometimes ole Nick."WESTERN OBITUARY NOTICE.—120.Mister Edatur,—Jem bangs, we are sorry to stait, has desized. He departed this Life last mundy. Jem was generally considered a gud feller. He died at the age of 23 years old. He went 4th without any struggle; and sich is Life. Tu Day we are as pepper grass, mighty smart, to-Murrer we are cut down like a cowcumber of the ground. Jem kept a nice stoar, which his wife now waits on. His virchews was numerous to behold. Many is the things we bot at his grocerry, and we are happy to stait to the admirin world that he never cheeted, especially in the wate of markrel, which was nice and sweet, and his surviving wife is the same wa. We never knew him to put sand in his sugar, tho he had a big sand bar in front of his hous; nor water in his Lickuris, tho the Ohio River runs past his dore. Pece to his remaines. He leves a wife, 8 children, a cow, 4 horses, a grocerry stoar, and quadrupets, to mourn his loss; but, in the spalendid language of the poit, his loss is there eternal gane.PUTTING FORWARD HIS CREED.—121.The gentleman who edits theKentucky Rifle, having been taken to task by a lady correspondent as to what constituted his particular faith, thus puts forward his creed:—"We believe that Mrs. Zebedee was a nice woman and that Mr. Zebedee was the father of his own children. We believe that guano and lime mixed together will make splendid hartshorn. It is our opinion that a donkey's kick and editing a newspaper are two of the hardest things in creation. We believe that getting 'tight' loosens the morals, but we shall always contend that it is cheaper in the long run to try the experiment with good whisky than with a mean article. We believe that a man who can be kept awake six nights in the week with jumping toothache, and be 'roused' by a squalling baby just as he has fallen into a doze on the seventh night, without getting mad or wondering why babies and toothache were invented, is a greater philosopher than Newton, and a greater hero than Leonidas and all his Spartans put together. We believe that a man is not likely to be sick so often if he pays his physician by the year as if he pays him by the visit. We believe that every well-regulated family ought always to have one baby in it, just for the fun of the thing. We believe that the man who invented tallow candles must have been too poor to afford pine-knots. It is our opinion that if a number of gentlemen are sitting together talking sensibly upon some subject, and a lady enters, they will immediately commence talking foolishly and keep it up until she makes her exit. We believe they do so by way of complimentary condescension to female weakness."NOT SO.—122.Many proverbs admit of contradiction, as witness the following:—"The more the merrier." Not so—one hand is enough in a purse. "Nothing but what has an end." Not so—a ring has none, for it is round. "Money is a great comfort." Not when it brings a thief to the gallows. "The world is a long journey." Not so—the sun goes over it in a day. "It is a great way to the bottom of the sea." Not so—it is but a stone's cast. "A friend is best found in adversity." Not so—for then there is none to befound. "The pride of the rich makes the labour of the poor." Not so—the labour of the poor makes the pride of the rich.THE OHIO DEMOCRACY.—123.TheCincinnati Commercial, in a report of a Vallandigham meeting at Carthage, Ohio, sets down what it calls "the barometrical register" of the meeting as follows:—"Nine a.m.—Invitations to drink are freely offered and accepted. Ten a.m.—Sober, but drinking. Eleven a.m.—Noisy and demonstrative; liquor becoming effective. Twelve a.m.—Generally 'tight;' pugnacity rising. One p.m.—Rather drunk; fights freely offered. Two p.m.—Quite drunk; black eyes in abundance—holders not very firm. Three p.m.—Very drunk; hacks and furniture-cars in demand. Four p.m.—D—cidedly drunk; too far gone to fight."A NICE GIRL.—124.There is nothing half so sweet in life—half so beautiful, or delightful, or so loveable—as a "nice girl." Not a pretty, or a dashing, or an elegant girl, but anicegirl. One of those lovely, lively, good-tempered, good-hearted, sweet-faced, amiable, neat, happy, domestic creatures met within the sphere of home, diffusing around the domestic hearth the influence of her goodness like the essence of sweet flowers. A nice girl is not the languishing beauty, dawdling on a sofa, and discussing the last novel or opera; or the giraffe-like creature sweeping majestically through a drawing-room. The nice girl may not even dance or play well, and knows nothing about "using her eyes," or coquetting with a fan. She is not given to sensation novels—she is too busy. At the opera, she is not in front showing her bare shoulders, but sits quietly and unobtrusively—at the back of the box most likely. In fact, it is not often in such scenes we discover her. Home is her place. Who rises betimes, and superintends the morning meal? Who makes the toast and the tea, and buttons the boys' shirts, and waters the flowers, and feeds the chickens, and brightens up the parlour and sitting-room? Is it the languisher, or the giraffe, or theélégante? Not a bit of it—it's the nice girl. Her unmade toilet is made in the shortest possible time; yet how charmingly it is done, and how elegant her neat dress and plain colour! Whatkisses she distributes among the family! No presenting a cheek or a brow, like a "fine girl," but an audible smack, which says plainly, "I love you ever so much." If I ever coveted anything, it is one of the nice girl's kisses. Breakfast over, down in the kitchen to see about dinner; always cheerful and light-hearted. She never ceases to be active and useful until the day is done, when she will polka with the boys, and sing old songs, and play old tunes to her father for hours together. She is a perfect treasure, is the "nice girl," when illness comes; it is she that attends with unwearying patience to the sick chamber. There is no risk, no fatigue that she will not undergo, no sacrifice that she will not make. She is all love, all devotion. I have often thought it would be happiness to be ill, to be watched by such loving eyes and tended by such fair hands. One of the most strongly marked characteristics of a "nice girl" is tidiness and simplicity of dress. She is ever associated in my mind with a high frock, plain collar, and the neatest of neck-ribbons, bound with the most modest little brooch in the world. I never knew a "nice girl" who displayed a profusion of rings and bracelets, or who wore low dresses or a splendid bonnet. I say again, there is nothing in the world half so beautiful, half so intrinsically good, as a "nice girl." She is the sweetest flower in the path of life. There are others far more stately, far more gorgeous, but these we merely admire as we go by. It is where the daisy grows that we lie down to rest.A REASON FOR DEAR CREAM.—125.TheBoston Postsays that the reason why cream is so dear is, that milk has risen so high the cream can't reach the top.ADVICE TO PARENTS.—126.Rear up your lads like nails, and then they'll not only go through the world, but you may clench 'em on to the other side.EXTRAORDINARY CROW.—127.A native of Kentucky imitates the crowing of a cock so remarkably well, that the sun, upon several occasions, has risen two hours earlier by mistake.LOGS WANTED.—128.The printer of theWestern Gazettelately published the following notice:—"Dry stove wood wanted immediately at this office, in exchange for papers. N.B. Don't bring logs that theDevilcan't split."LOOK ON THIS PICTURE AND ON THIS.—129.Matrimony.—Hot buckwheat cake—comfortable slippers—smoking coffee—buttons—redeemed stockings—boot-jacks—happiness.Bachelorhood.—Sheet-iron quilts—blue noses—frosty rooms—ice in the pitcher—unregenerated linen—heelless stockings—coffee sweetened with icicles—gutta-percha biscuits—flabby steaks—dull razors—corns—coughs and colics—rhubarb—aloes—misery.ABSENCE OF MIND.—130.A Mr. Jaber J. Jenkinson, of Arkansas, whose sight is such as to render glasses necessary, put his spectacles on his ear instead of his eyes, one day last week, and actually walked three miles sideways in a heavy rain before he discovered his mistake.DOMESTIC ECONOMY.—131.TheBoston Heraldhas the following infallible recipe:—"To make pie: Play at blind man's buff in a printing-office. To have music at dinner: Tell your wife she is not so handsome as the lady who lives over the way. To save butter: Make it so salt that nobody can eat it."TALL RELATIONS.—132.The wit deservedly won his bet who, in a company when every one was bragging of his tall relations, wagered that he himself had a brother twelve feet high. He had, he said, "two half-brothers, each measuring six feet."WE WONDER, TOO.—133.A little boy once said to his aunt, "Aunty, I should think that Satan must be an awful trouble to God." "Hemust be troubled enough, indeed, I should think," she answered. "I don't see how he came to turn out so, when therewas no devil to put him up to it."INFLAMMABLE AND DANGEROUS.—134.Judge Beeler put a notice over his factory-gate at Lowell: "No cigars or Irishmen admitted within these walls; for," says he, "the one will set a flame agoin' among my cotton, and t'other among my gals. I won't have no such inflammable and dangerous things about me on no account."A RARE PRINTER.—135.A western paper contains the following advertisement:—"Wants a situation, a practical printer, who is competent to take charge of any department in a printing and publishing house. Would accept a professorship in any of the academies. Has no objection to teach ornamental painting and penmanship, geometry, trigonometry, and many other sciences. Is particularly suited to act as pastor to a small Evangelical church, or as a local preacher. He would have no objection to form a small but select class of interesting young ladies, to instruct in the highest branches. To a dentist or chiropodist he would be invaluable, as he can do almost anything. Would board with a family, if decidedly pious."SOMETHING LIKE A GOOD SHOT.—136.Two passengers coming down the Mississippi in a steamboat were amusing themselves with shooting birds on the shore from the deck. Some sporting conversation ensued; one remarked that he would turn his back to no man in killing racoons—that he had repeatedly shot fifty a day. "What o' that?" said a Kentuckian; "I make nothing of killing a hundred 'coon a day, or'nary luck." "Do you know Captain Scott, of our State?" asked a Tennessean bystander; "he, now, is something like a shot. A hundred 'coon! why he never points at one without hitting him. He never misses, and the 'coons know it. T'other day he levelled at an old 'un, in a high tree; the varmint looked at him a minute, and then bawled out, 'Hallo, Cap'n Scott, is that you?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'Well, pray don't shoot, I'll come down to you—I'll give in—I'm dead beat.'"ABSENCE OF MIND.—137.A highly respectable inhabitant in the city of New York lately died under very remarkable circumstances. He was subject to fits of extreme absence of mind from childhood; and one night, upon retiring to rest, having carefully tucked his pantaloons under the bed-clothes, he threw himself over the back of a chair, and expired from the severe cold he experienced during the night. The editor of theNew York Herald, who relates this extraordinary fact, assures his readers, as a guarantee of its truth, that he received his information from the individual in question.A REMARKABLE MAN.—138.There is a man in the West who is described as being so remarkably tall that he requires a ladder to shave himself! The same individual never troubles his servant to sit up for him when he is out late at night, for he can, with the most perfect ease, put his arm down the chimney and unbolt the street-door.SPECTACLES AND BIBLE READING.—139.The will of Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, has just been proved. It contains the following clause:—"I give to the president and managers of the New Jersey Bible Society 200 dollars, to be laid out in the purchase of spectacles, to be given by them to the poor old people; it being in vain to give a Bible to those who cannot obtain the means of reading it."TO THE POINT.—140.An officer who was inspecting his company one morning spied one private whose shirt was sadly begrimed. "Patrick O'Flynn!" called out the captain. "Here, yer honour!" promptly responded Patrick, with his hand to his cap. "How long do you wear a shirt?" thundered the officer. "Twenty-eight inches," was the rejoinder.EXTRAORDINARY MOTTO.—141.TheNew York Heraldhas the following for its motto:—"Take no shin-plasters (all damned rogues who issue them),live temperately, drink moderately, eschew temperance societies, take care of the sixpences, never hurt a saint, go to bed at ten, rise at six, never buy on credit, fear God Almighty, love the beautiful girls, vote against Van Buren, and kick all politicians and parsons to the devil."EXCESSIVE POLITENESS.—142.A Californian poet gives the following lesson on politeness to the youth of the Golden State:—"Indeed, my friends, far better it would seem,Were you to choose the opposite extreme;Like one 'Down East' who an umbrella took,And from the rain gave shelter to a duck;Who to a limping dog once lent his arm,And to a setting hen said, 'Don't rise, ma'am;'Nor e'er to lifeless things respect did lack—Said always to a chair, 'Excuse my back;''Excuse my curiosity,' he said to books;And to the looking-glass, 'Excuse my looks.'""A SHELL IN DE STOVE."—143.TheNew York Herald'sMorris Island correspondent relates as follows an incident of the operations at Charleston:—Quite an uproar was occasioned in the rear of theHerald'stent here yesterday. General Terry, whose head-quarters adjoin those of your correspondent, has a sable cook, who wanted some lead for his fishing-tackle, and undertook to melt some from the outside of a ten-pound Parrot shell, which he discovered lying about the camp. Placing the projectile in a stove, and seating himself where he could catch the molten metal in a shovel as it fell, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing one of the most startling views ever brought to his vision. The shell exploded, and besides blowing the stove and cookhouse to atoms, inflicted serious wounds upon the darkey. My servant, a contraband from Beaufort, gave vent to the universal sentiment, while he was surveying the wreck which the explosion occasioned, and from which we so narrowly escaped, in the following sage remark:—"De dam ole fool, come clar gown yere f'm Bos'n an' put a shell in de stove!" If General Terry's niggers continue to obtain their "sinkers" in this manner, you may expect to hear that theHerald'shead-quarters have been removed.DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.—144.In New York, a quick-witted toper went into a bar-room and called for something to drink. "We don't sell liquor," said the law-evading landlord; "we will give you a glass, and then if you want a cracker (a biscuit) we'll sell it you for three cents." The "good creature" was handed down, and our hero took a stiff horn; when, turning round to depart, the unsuspecting landlord handed him the dish of crackers, with the remark, "You'll buy a cracker?" "Well, no, I guess not; you sell 'em too dear. I can get lots on 'm five or six for a cent anywhere else."EDITORIAL TRIBULATIONS.—145.The editor of theAmerican Mechanichas encountered trials unknown to ordinary men. Just hearken unto his wailings:—"Owing to the fact that our paper-maker disappointed us, the failure of the mails deprived us of our exchanges, a Dutch pedlar stole our scissors, the rats ran off with the paste, and the devils went to the circus, while the editor was at home tending the baby, our paper is unavoidably postponed beyond the period of its publication."SAMBO AND CUFFEE.—146.Varnum S. Mills, of this city, tells a story illustrative of the simplicity of Virginia niggers. He was visiting a friend in the Old Dominion, who owns many slaves, among whom were two, named Sambo and Cuffee, who seemed to be mortal enemies. Sambo was a favourite with the master, who one day said to him: "Sambo, you have always been a good nigger, and when you die you shall have a funeral. My family will all attend, and all the niggers shall be present, and Cuffee shall be a pall-bearer." The darkey looked his master in the face with the simplicity of a soft clam when dug out of the mud at low tide, and indignantly responded: "Massa, if Cuffee comes to de funeril, I won't go to the grabe." It apparently did not occur to Sambo that he should be "conveyed" thither.AN ODE ON GAS.—147.A country town having been recently lighted with gas, the local editor electrifies the community with an ode:"Luminous blaze!I never seen the like in all my born days!Tallow candles ain't no mor'n tarWhen you're about;And spirit lamps is no whar,Bein clean dun out."Sparkling lite!I think I never seen anything half so brite;Everything is amazing clear;The hidjus glumeIs defunct; and every cheerIs apparient in the rume!"Gloryous halo!Your skintelashuns make a surprising display;You don't need no snuffers,But you are just scrude out;When you are squenched by puffers,Ojus fumes aryse."Brillyant flame!The nites was next to darkness when you came;But candles has vanishtBefore you, and lard oil gone to grass;Every greasy nuisance has been banisht—Hurraw for Gass!"CURIOSITIES OF AMERICAN SPEECH.—148.In a book on Americanisms, published last year, a Baltimore young lady is represented as jumping up from her seat, on being asked to dance, and saying, "Yes, sirree: for I have sot, and sot, and sot, till I've nigh tuk root!" I cannot say I have heard anything quite equal to this; but I very well remember that at a party given on board one of the ships at Esquimault, a young lady declined to dance a "fancy" dance upon the plea, "I'd rather not, sir. I guess I'm notfixed upfor waltzing;" an expression the peculiar meaning of which must be left to readers of her own sex to decide. An English young lady who was staying at one of the houses at Mare Island when we were there, happened one evening, when we were visiting her friends, to be confined to her room with a headache. Upon our arrival, the young daughter of our host—a girl of bout twelve—went up to her to try to persuadeher to come down. "Well," she said, "I'mrealsorry you're so poorly. You'd better come, for there are some almighty swells down there!" A lady speaking of the same person, said, "Her hair, sir, took my fancy right away!" Again, several of us were one day talking to a tall, slight young lady about the then new-fashioned crinoline which she was wearing. After a little banter, she said, "I guess, captain, if you were to take my hoops off you might draw me through the eye of a needle!" Perhaps one of the most whimsical of these curiosities of expression, combining freedom of manner with that of speech, was made use of to Captain Richards by a master-caulker. He had been vainly endeavouring to persuade the captain that the ship required caulking; and at last he said in disgust, "You may be liberal as a private citizen, captain, but you're mean to an almighty pump-tack!"—in his official capacity of course. Again, an American gentleman on board of one of our mail-packets was trying to recall to the recollection of the mail-agent a lady who had been fellow-passenger with them on a former occasion. "She sat opposite you at table all the voyage," he said. "Oh, I think I remember her; she ate a great deal, did she not?" "Eat, sir!" was the reply; "she was a perfect gastronomic fillibuster!" One more example and I have done with a subject upon which I might enlarge for pages. The boys at the school at Victoria were being examined in Scripture, and the question was asked, "In what way did Hiram assist Solomon in the building of the temple?" It passed two or three boys, when at last one sharp little fellow triumphantly exclaimed, "Please, sir, hedonatedhim the lumber."VERY LIKELY.—149."From Camden to Bletchly, a distance of forty miles I travelled along with Mrs. Greaves. She was a sweet and interesting woman—so sweet and interesting that, fastidious as I am on the subject, I believe I would have been willing to have kissed her. I had, however, several reasons for not perpetrating this act. First, I am such a good husband I wouldn't even be guilty of the appearance of disloyalty to my sweet wife. Second, I was afraid our fellow-passengers would see me and tell Greaves. Third, I do not think Mrs. G. would let me."CURIOUS EVENT.—150.A diffident Hartford bachelor went to the sea-shore in August to seek refuge from the loneliness of his celibacy, and one dark evening, enjoying the breeze on the piazza of his hotel, happened to take a seat that had just been vacated by the husband of a loving wife, with whom the happy man had been chatting. In a few moments the lady returned, and, mistaking the stranger for her husband, lovingly encircled his neck and gave him an affectionate kiss, with the remark, "Come, darling, is it not about time to retire?" He did not faint, but the shock was very severe.HOT PIES.—151.One freezing February morning a negro hawked mutton pies in a basket around Faneuil Hall Square, roaring out, "Hot mutton pies!" "Hot mutton pies!" A teamster bought and tried to bite one, but found it frozen as solid as the curb-stone. "What do you call them hot for, you black and blue swindler?" yelled the teamster to the shivering pieman. "Wy, wy, a white man guv 'em to me hot dis mornin'. Dey was hot wen I got 'em dis mornin'!" "Well, you fool, it didn't take ten minutes to freeze them in that old basket. Why call them hot now?" "Wy, bless you, dats de name ob 'em—de name ob 'em! If I didn't holler de right name nobody would tetch 'em. You want me to holler froze pies, I suppose! No, sa; you can't fool me dat way!"A MIGHTY THICK FOG.—152.A rather loquacious individual was endeavouring to draw an old man into conversation, but hitherto without much success, the old fellow having sufficient discernment to see that his object was to make a little sport for the passengers at his expense. At length says loquacious individual: "I suppose you consider Down East a right smart place; but I guess it would puzzle them to get up quite so thick a fog as we are having here this morning, wouldn't it?" "Well," said the old man, "I don't know about that. I hired one of your Massachusetts chaps to work for me last summer, and one rather foggy mornin' I sent him down to the meadow to lay a few courses ofshingle on a new barn I was finishin' off. At dinner-time the fellow came up, and, sez he, 'That's an almighty long barn of yourn.' Sez I, 'Not very long.' 'Well,' sez he, 'I've been to work all this forenoon, and haven't got one course laid yet.' 'Well,' sez I, 'you're a lazy fellow, that's all I've got to say.' And so after dinner I went down to see what he'd been about, and I'll be thundered ef he hadn't shingled more than a hundred footright out on to the fog."WHISKERS AND KISSES.—153.The editress of theLancaster Literary Gazettesays she would as soon nestle her nose in a rat's nest of swingle tow as allow a man with whiskers on to kiss her. We (Petersburg Express) don't believe a word of it. The objections which some ladies pretend to have to whiskers all arise from envy. They don't have any. They would if they could; but the fact is, the continual motion of the lower jaw is fatal to their growth. The ladies—God bless them!—adopt our fashion as far as they can. Look at the depredations they have committed on our wardrobes the last few years. They have appropriated our shirt-bosoms, gold studs and all. They have encircled their soft bewitching necks in our standing collars and cravats—driving them to flatties and turn-downs. Their innocent little hearts have been palpitating in the inside of our waistcoats, instead of thumping against the outside, as naturally intended. They have thrust their pretty feet and ankles through our unmentionables, unwhisperables, unthinkaboutables; and they are skipping along the streets in our high-heeled boots. Do you hear, gentlemen?—we say boots!LITTLES.—154.Everything is beautiful when it is little (except souls!)—little pigs, little lambs, little birds, little kittens, little children. Little Martin boxes of houses are generally the most happy and cozy; little villages are nearer to being atoms of a shattered paradise than anything we know of. Little fortunes bring the most content, and little hopes the least disappointment. Little words are the sweetest to hear, and little charities fly furthest and stay the longest on the wing. Little lakes are the stillest, little hearts the fullest,and little farms the best tilled. Little books the most read, and little songs the best loved. And when Nature would make anything especially rare and beautiful, she makes it little—little pearls, little diamonds, little dews. Agar's is a model prayer, but then it is a little prayer, and the burden of the petition is for little. The Sermon on the Mount is little, but the last dedication discourse was two hours. The Roman said, "Veni, vidi, vici"—I came, saw, conquered; but despatches now-a-days are longer than the battles they tell of. Everybody calls that little which they love best upon earth. We once heard a good sort of a man speak of his little wife, and we fancied she must be a perfectbijouof a woman. We saw her; she weighed two hundred and ten; we were surprised. But then it was no joke—the man meant it. He could put his wife in his heart, and have room for other things besides; and what was she but precious, and what could she be but little? We rather doubt the stories of great argosies of gold we sometimes hear of, for Nature deals in littles altogether. Life is made up of littles, death is what remains of them all. Day is made up of little beams, and night is glorious with little stars.Multum in parvo—much in little—is the great beauty of all that we love best, hope for most, and remember longest.SPEAKING HIS DEEP EMOTIONS.—155."My dear Ellen," said Mr. Softfellow to a young lady whose smiles he was seeking, "I have long wished for this sweet opportunity, but I hardly dare trust myself now to speak the deep emotions of my palpitating heart; but I declare to you, my dearest Ellen, that I love you most tenderly; your smiles would shed—would shed——" "Never mind the wood-shed," said Ellen, "go on with that pretty talk."SPIRITUALISM EXTRAORDINARY.—156.An enthusiastic spiritualist, when relating to a sceptic certain spiritual performances to which he could testify, said that on one occasion the spirit of his wife, who had been dead several years, returned to him, and, seating herself on his knee, put her arms around him and kissed him, much to his gratification, as she used to do when living. "You do not mean to say," remarked the sceptic, "thatthe spirit of your wife really embraced you and kissed you?" "No, not exactly that," replied the believer; "but her spirit took possession of the female medium—the future Mrs. B—— that is to be, you know—and through her embraced and kissed me."MILWAUKEE ELOQUENCE.—157.Western eloquence continues to improve. A Wisconsin reporter sends the following sketch. A lawyer in Milwaukee was defending a handsome young woman accused of stealing from a large unoccupied dwelling in the night-time, and thus he spake in conclusion:—"Gentlemen of the jury, I am done. When I gaze with enraptured eyes on the matchless beauty of this peerless virgin, on whose resplendent charms suspicion never dared to breathe; when I behold her radiant in this glorious bloom of lustrous loveliness, which angelic sweetness might envy but could not eclipse—before which the star on the brow of Night grows pale, and the diamonds of Brazil are dim—and then reflect upon the utter madness and folly of supposing that so much beauty would expose itself to the terrors of an empty building in the cold, damp, dead of night, when innocence like hers is hiding itself amidst the snowy pillows of repose; gentlemen of the jury, my feelings are too overpowering for expression, and I throw her into your arms for protection against this foul charge, which the outrageous malice of a disappointed scoundrel has invented, to blast the fair name of this lovely maiden, whose smile shall be the reward of the verdict which I know you will give."HEAVY TOP-DRESSING.—158."It's all very pretty talk," said a recently married old bachelor, who had just finished reading an essay on the "Culture of Women," just as a heavy milliner's bill was presented to him—"it's all very pretty, this cultivation of women; but such a charge as this for bonnets is rather a heavy top-dressing—in my judgment."HAIRS, NOT BRISTLES.—159."I am willing to split hairs with my opponent all day ifhe insists on it," said a very distinguished American lawyer the other day, in a speech at the bar. "Splitthatthen," said the opponent, pulling a coarse specimen from his own head, and extending it. "May it please the court, I didn't saybristles!"ANTEDILUVIAN DIET.—160.A friend thinks the antediluvian life must have been a great contrast to ours, and pictures it thus:—"Only fancy having two dried whales hanging in your larder, and a cold mammoth 'cut and come again' on the sideboard. 'Shall I help you to a bit of Icthoyaturns?' 'Thank you, I should prefer a slice of your Mastadon.' Stewed Plesiosauri! Leviathanà la crapoderie! Imagine a bill, not at twelve months, but at two hundred years; and a fellow who carried off your plate-box getting sent to the treadmill for fourscore summers! Consider an elderly gentleman, with a liver complaint of only one hundred years' standing, wearing out four sets of false teeth, and finally carried off, after a brief illness of three hundred and ten years, in a galloping consumption!"JIMMY O'NEIL AND PRESIDENT JACKSON.—161.When Jackson was President, Jimmy O'Neil, the porter, was a marked character. He had his foibles, which were offensive to the fastidiousness of Colonel Donelson, and caused his dismissal on an average of about once a week. But on appeal to the higher court, the verdict was invariably reversed by the good nature of the old general. Once, however, Jimmy was guilty of some flagrant offence, and was summoned before the highest tribunal at once. The general, after stating the details of the misdeed, observed, "Jimmy, I have borne with you for years, in spite of all complaints; but in this act you have gone beyond my powers of endurance." "And do you believe the story?" asked Jimmy. "Certainly," answered the general: "I have just heard it from two senators." "Faith," retorted Jimmy, "if I believe all that twenty senators say about you it's little I'd think you are fit to be President." "Pshaw! Jimmy," concluded the general; "clear out and go on duty, but be more careful hereafter." Jimmy remained with his kind-hearted patron not only tothe close of his presidential term, but, accompanying him to the Hermitage, was with him to the day of his death.THE ORIGIN OF "SOME PUNKIN."—162.An old lady was engaged in making pumpkin pies; she had got the pumpkin all prepared, when by an untoward accident the table was overturned, and the pumpkin went on to the floor. The table in overturning overset the slop-pail, and the slops went on the floor too. The old lady being of a saving disposition, concluded to save the pumpkin and clean up also; so she takes up one handful, looks at it—"That's punkin"—puts it into the pumpkin-dish; takes up another—"That's slops"—puts it into the slop-pail. So she goes on picking up alternately pumpkin and slops, till finally she gets a handful mixed. She looks at it, and says, "That issome punkin, but mostly slops!" and hence the phrase.ARTEMUS WARD ON THE NEGRO.—163.Feller Sittersuns,—The African may be our brother. Severil hily rispectable gentlemen and some talented females tell us so, and for argyment sake i might be injooced to grant it, tho' I don't beleeve it myself. But the African isn't our sister, and wife, and unkle. He isn't severil of our brothers and fust wife's relashuns. He isn't our grandfather and grate grandfather, and our aunt in the country. Scarcely: And yet numeris persons would have us think. It's troo he runs Congress and severil others grossery's, but he ain't everybody. But we've got the African, or ruther he's got us, and how are we going to do about it? He's a orful noosance. P'raps he isn't to blame for it. P'raps he was created for some wise purpis, like the measles and New England rum, but it's mity hard to see it. At any rate here, and as I stated to Mr. What-is-it, it's a pity he coodent go off somewheres quietly by hisself, where he cood wear red weskits and speckled necties, and gratefy his ambition in varis interestin wayse, without havin a eternal fuss up about him. P'raps I'm bearing down too hard on Cuffy.A QUAKER'S EXCUSE FOR FIRING.—164.A good story is told of a Quaker volunteer, who was ina Virginia skirmish. Coming in pretty close quarters with a Secessionist, he remarked: "Friend, 'tis very unfortunate, but thee standest just where I am going to shoot;" and, blazing away, down came his man.BROTHER OF FOUR MILLION CHILDREN.—165.A Kansas woman, named Million, was lately married, and by her marriage the bride becomes sister to her father and mother and aunt to her brothers and sisters. The groom becomes son of a younger brother, his sister-in-law becomes his mother, and he becomes the brother of four "Million" children. What relation were said parties previous to their marriage?SUSPECTING THE SHELL.—166.When the mine dug under Fort Hill, at Vicksburg, by General Logan, exploded, June 26th, a large number of rebels were killed and wounded. Among others who were blown high above the works was an American citizen of African descent, who fell on his head on the outside of the rebel fort, and to the astonishment of our soldiers was not killed. As some of the men ran towards the darkey, of course carrying their arms, he rose to his feet, and shouted, "For de Lord's sake, sogers, don't shoot dis nigger. I wasn't doin' no fighting; I was only totin' up grub." When asked how high he had been, he replied, "Two or dree mile, I reckon;" and on being asked how he came within our lines said, "Dunno, massa; shell, I spec."A SMART RAILWAY EMPLOYÉ.—167.A railroademployé, whose home is in Avon, came on Saturday night to ask for a pass down to visit his family. "You are in employ of the railroad?" asked the gentleman applied to. "Yes." "You receive your pay regularly?" "Yes." "Well, now suppose you were working for a farmer instead of a railroad, would you expect your employer to hitch up his team every Saturday night, and carry you home?" This seemed a poser, but it wasn't. "No," said the man, promptly, "I wouldn't expect that; but if the farmer had his team hitched up, and was going my way, I should call him a darned meancuss if he would not let me ride." Mr.Employécame out three minutes afterwards with a pass good for twelve months.THE LATE FLOYD.—168.A gifted poet has perpetrated the following epitaph on the late Floyd:—

And remember, though houseIn the plural is houses,The plural of mouseShould bemice, and notmouses.—Philadelphia Gazette.

All of which goes to proveThat grammar a farce is;For where is the pluralOf rum and molasses?—New York Gazette.

The plural—Gazette—Of rum don't us trouble;Take one glass too muchAnd you're sure to see double.—Brooklyn Daily Advertiser.A pair of blue eyes—Just to vary the strain—Says the plural of kissIs—"Do it again!"—Howard County Sentinel.Our English vernacularIs rife in abuse:"Unloose" is the same thingAs if you saidloose!—Montreal Pilot.

The plural—Gazette—Of rum don't us trouble;Take one glass too muchAnd you're sure to see double.—Brooklyn Daily Advertiser.

A pair of blue eyes—Just to vary the strain—Says the plural of kissIs—"Do it again!"—Howard County Sentinel.

Our English vernacularIs rife in abuse:"Unloose" is the same thingAs if you saidloose!—Montreal Pilot.

To these observationsWe also might addMuch to prove that all grammar'sDeplorably bad;But for Lennie and MurrayWe have too much respect,To say e'en a wordHaving evil effect.—Anon.

To these observationsWe also might addMuch to prove that all grammar'sDeplorably bad;But for Lennie and MurrayWe have too much respect,To say e'en a wordHaving evil effect.—Anon.

A young lady of extraordinary capacity, addressed the following letter to her cousin:—"We is all well, and mother's got the his Terrix; brother Tom is got the Hupin Kaugh, and sister Ann has got a babee, and hope these few lines will find you the same. Rite sune. Your apfhectionate kuzzen."

There is a story told of an Irishman who, landing in our harbour, was met and welcomed by a countryman who had been longer here. "Welcome, Pat," said the latter, "I'm glad to see ye; ye've come just in time, for to-morrow's election day." Pat and his friend took some refreshment together, and presently the newly arrived began to make some inquiries about voting. "Ye'll vote for who ye plaize," said his friend, "sure it's a free counthry." "Well, thin, begorra," rejoined Pat, "I go agin the Government, that's what I always did at home."

A man near Cleveland, Ohio, applied for exemption from the draft because an old mother needed his cherishing care. To show how much feeling this affectionate son has for his old mother, the neighbours say he has had her coffin in the house for over two years. He came to town with a load of wood one day, and being unable to sell it, he contrived to trade it off with an undertaker for a coffin. His mother being old, might die suddenly, and then, as Mrs. Toddles says, "how handy it would be to have in the house." Being of a frugal as well as an ingenious turn of mind, he put the coffin in the cellar to keep turnips, against such time as the old lady might drop off.

"Ven you arrive at the dignity of sawin' wood, Lafayette, if you is elvevated to that perfesshun, mind and always saw de biggest fust; cause vy? you'll only have te leetle vuns to saw ven you gets tired out. Ven you eats pie, as I spose you may if you lives to be a man, eat de crust fust—tain't a good thing to top off with, if it's tough and thick as sole leather. Ven you piles up wood, alvays put de pig vuns on to te bottom—always, Lafayette, cause it's mighty hard vork to lift dem to de top ob te pile. Dese are te results ob observation, Lafayette, and may be depended on, and it's for your good I say it." "Vy, father," said young hopeful, "vot a 'normous 'xperience you must a had!"

We like short courtships, and in this Adam acted like a sensible man. He fell asleep a bachelor, and awoke to find himself a married man. He appeared to have popped the question almost immediately after meeting Mademoiselle Eve, and she without any flirtation or shyness, gave him a kiss and herself. Of this first event in the world, we have however, our thoughts, and sometimes in a poetical mood have wished that we were the man that did it. But the deed is done. The chance was Adam's and he improved it. We like the notion of getting married in a garden; it is a good taste. We like a private wedding—Adam's was private. No envious beaux were there; no croaking old maids; no chattering aunts and grumbling grandmothers. The birds of heaven were the minstrels, and the glad sky flung its light upon the scene. One thing about the wedding brings queer thoughts to us spite of scriptural truth. Adam and his wife were rather young to be married—some two or three days old, according to the sagest speculations of theologians; mere babies—larger, but no older; without experience, without a house, without a pot or kettle—nothing but love and Eden.

A minister at a camp meeting was delivering a discourse on pride, and, in cautioning the ladies against it, he said: "And you, dear sisters, may perhaps feel proud that ourLord paid you the distinguished honour of appearing first to one of you after the resurrection; but you have no reason for it, as it was undoubtedly done that the glad tidings might spread sooner."

In a lecture at Portland, Maine, the lecturer, wishing to explain to a little girl the manner in which a lobster casts his shell when he has outgrown it, said: "What do you do when you have outgrown your clothes? You cast them aside, do you not?" "Oh, no!" replied the little one, "we let out the tucks!" The lecturer confessed she had the advantage of him there.

A grand jury down South ignored a bill against a negro for stealing chickens, and before discharging him from custody, the judge bade him stand reprimanded, and he concluded thus:—"You may go now, John, but let me warn you never to appear here again." John, with delight beaming in his eyes, and a broad grin, displaying a beautiful row of ivory, replied: "I wouldn't been here dis time, Judge, only de constable fotch me."

Uncle Sam had a neighbour who was in the habit of working on Sunday, but after a while he joined the church. One day he met the minister to whose church he belonged. "Well, Uncle Sam," said he, "do you see any difference in Mr. P. since he joined the church?" "Oh, yes," said Uncle Sam, "a great difference. Before, when he went out to mend his fences on Sunday, he carried his axe on his shoulder, but now he carries it under his over-coat."

A bashful youth was paying his addresses to a gay lass of the country, who had long despaired of bringing things to a crisis. Youth called one day when she was alone at home. After settling the merits of the weather, Miss said, looking slyly into his face, "I dreamed of you last night,""Did you? Why, now." "Yes, I dreamed you kissed me!" "Why, now, what did you dream your mother said?" "Oh, I dreamed she wasn't at home." A light dawned on Youth's intellect, and directly something was heard to crack.

Some friends of ours in Ohio have a little boy about six years old, and a little girl about four. They had been cautioned in their morning strife after hens' eggs not to take away the nest egg; but one morning the little girl reached the nest first, seized an egg, and started for the house. Her disappointed brother followed, crying, "Mother, mother! Suzy, she's been and got the egg the old hen measures by!"

I know a girl with teeth of pearlAnd shoulders white as snow;She lives—ah! well,I must not tell—Wouldn't you like to know?Her sunny hair is wondrous fair,And wavy in its flow.Who made it lessOne little tress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her eyes are blue (celestial hue)And dazzling in their glow.On whom they beamWith melting gleam—Wouldn't you like to know?Her lips are red and finely wed,Like roses ere they blow.What lover sipsThose dewy lips—Wouldn't you like to know?Her fingers are like lilies fair,When lilies fairest grow.Whose hand they pressWith fond caress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her foot is small, and has a fallLike snow-flakes on the snow.And where it goesBeneath the rose—Wouldn't you like to know?She has a name, the sweetest nameThat language can bestow.'Twould break the spellIf I should tell—Wouldn't you like to know?

I know a girl with teeth of pearlAnd shoulders white as snow;She lives—ah! well,I must not tell—Wouldn't you like to know?Her sunny hair is wondrous fair,And wavy in its flow.Who made it lessOne little tress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her eyes are blue (celestial hue)And dazzling in their glow.On whom they beamWith melting gleam—Wouldn't you like to know?Her lips are red and finely wed,Like roses ere they blow.What lover sipsThose dewy lips—Wouldn't you like to know?Her fingers are like lilies fair,When lilies fairest grow.Whose hand they pressWith fond caress—Wouldn't you like to know?Her foot is small, and has a fallLike snow-flakes on the snow.And where it goesBeneath the rose—Wouldn't you like to know?She has a name, the sweetest nameThat language can bestow.'Twould break the spellIf I should tell—Wouldn't you like to know?

I know a girl with teeth of pearlAnd shoulders white as snow;She lives—ah! well,I must not tell—Wouldn't you like to know?

Her sunny hair is wondrous fair,And wavy in its flow.Who made it lessOne little tress—Wouldn't you like to know?

Her eyes are blue (celestial hue)And dazzling in their glow.On whom they beamWith melting gleam—Wouldn't you like to know?

Her lips are red and finely wed,Like roses ere they blow.What lover sipsThose dewy lips—Wouldn't you like to know?

Her fingers are like lilies fair,When lilies fairest grow.Whose hand they pressWith fond caress—Wouldn't you like to know?

Her foot is small, and has a fallLike snow-flakes on the snow.And where it goesBeneath the rose—Wouldn't you like to know?

She has a name, the sweetest nameThat language can bestow.'Twould break the spellIf I should tell—Wouldn't you like to know?

We (Home Journal) wish to be learned in the subtle science of the softer sex. We aspire to know, at least, what it is that makes woman so adorable as magnetism pronounces her to be, and we have seen nothing so tributary to this science as an article in "Once a Month," entitled "The Good that hath been said of Woman." From the pleasant little periodical we speak of (edited by a younger brother of our own), we quote thus largely:—"One day the Fairy Blue descended upon earth with the courteous intention of distributing to all her daughters, inhabitants of different lands, the treasures and favours she brought with her. Her dwarf, Amaranth, sounded his horn, and immediately a young girl of each nation presented herself at the foot of the throne of Fairy Blue. This happened a long time before the revolution of July, 1830. The good Fairy Blue said to all her friends: 'I desire that none of you shall have to complain of the gift I am about to make you. It is not in my power to give each of you the same thing; but such want of uniformity in my largesses, should that deprive them of all merit?' As time is precious to the fairies, they say but little. Fairy Blue here finished her speech, and commenced the distribution of her gifts. She gave to the young girl who represented the Castiles, hair so black and so long that she could make a mantilla of it. To the Italian girl she gave eyes, sparkling and brilliant as an eruption of Vesuvius at midnight. To the Turkish, anembonpointround as the moon, and soft as eider-down. To the English, an aurora-borealis, to tint her cheeks, her lips, her shoulders. To the German, such teeth as she had herself, and what is not worth less than pretty teeth, but whichhas its price, a feeling heart, and one profoundly disposed to love. To the Russian girl she gave the distinction of a queen. Then, passing to detail, she placed gaiety upon the lips of a Neapolitan girl, wit in the head of an Irish, good sense in the heart of a Flemish; and when she had no more to give, she prepared to take her flight. 'And I?' said the Parisian girl, retaining her by her blue tunic. 'I had forgotten you.' 'Entirely forgotten, Madam?' 'You were too near me, and I did not perceive you. But what can I do now? The bag of gifts is exhausted.'"

When Nicholas Biddle, familiarly called Nick Biddle, was connected with the United States Bank, there was an old negro named Harry, who used to be loafing about the premises. One day, in a social mood, Biddle said to the darkey, "Well, what is your name, my old friend?" "Harry, sir—ole Harry," said the other, touching his seedy hat. "Old Harry," said Biddle; "why, that is the name they give to the devil, is it not?" "Yes, sir," said the coloured gentleman; "sometimes ole Harry and sometimes ole Nick."

Mister Edatur,—Jem bangs, we are sorry to stait, has desized. He departed this Life last mundy. Jem was generally considered a gud feller. He died at the age of 23 years old. He went 4th without any struggle; and sich is Life. Tu Day we are as pepper grass, mighty smart, to-Murrer we are cut down like a cowcumber of the ground. Jem kept a nice stoar, which his wife now waits on. His virchews was numerous to behold. Many is the things we bot at his grocerry, and we are happy to stait to the admirin world that he never cheeted, especially in the wate of markrel, which was nice and sweet, and his surviving wife is the same wa. We never knew him to put sand in his sugar, tho he had a big sand bar in front of his hous; nor water in his Lickuris, tho the Ohio River runs past his dore. Pece to his remaines. He leves a wife, 8 children, a cow, 4 horses, a grocerry stoar, and quadrupets, to mourn his loss; but, in the spalendid language of the poit, his loss is there eternal gane.

The gentleman who edits theKentucky Rifle, having been taken to task by a lady correspondent as to what constituted his particular faith, thus puts forward his creed:—"We believe that Mrs. Zebedee was a nice woman and that Mr. Zebedee was the father of his own children. We believe that guano and lime mixed together will make splendid hartshorn. It is our opinion that a donkey's kick and editing a newspaper are two of the hardest things in creation. We believe that getting 'tight' loosens the morals, but we shall always contend that it is cheaper in the long run to try the experiment with good whisky than with a mean article. We believe that a man who can be kept awake six nights in the week with jumping toothache, and be 'roused' by a squalling baby just as he has fallen into a doze on the seventh night, without getting mad or wondering why babies and toothache were invented, is a greater philosopher than Newton, and a greater hero than Leonidas and all his Spartans put together. We believe that a man is not likely to be sick so often if he pays his physician by the year as if he pays him by the visit. We believe that every well-regulated family ought always to have one baby in it, just for the fun of the thing. We believe that the man who invented tallow candles must have been too poor to afford pine-knots. It is our opinion that if a number of gentlemen are sitting together talking sensibly upon some subject, and a lady enters, they will immediately commence talking foolishly and keep it up until she makes her exit. We believe they do so by way of complimentary condescension to female weakness."

Many proverbs admit of contradiction, as witness the following:—"The more the merrier." Not so—one hand is enough in a purse. "Nothing but what has an end." Not so—a ring has none, for it is round. "Money is a great comfort." Not when it brings a thief to the gallows. "The world is a long journey." Not so—the sun goes over it in a day. "It is a great way to the bottom of the sea." Not so—it is but a stone's cast. "A friend is best found in adversity." Not so—for then there is none to befound. "The pride of the rich makes the labour of the poor." Not so—the labour of the poor makes the pride of the rich.

TheCincinnati Commercial, in a report of a Vallandigham meeting at Carthage, Ohio, sets down what it calls "the barometrical register" of the meeting as follows:—"Nine a.m.—Invitations to drink are freely offered and accepted. Ten a.m.—Sober, but drinking. Eleven a.m.—Noisy and demonstrative; liquor becoming effective. Twelve a.m.—Generally 'tight;' pugnacity rising. One p.m.—Rather drunk; fights freely offered. Two p.m.—Quite drunk; black eyes in abundance—holders not very firm. Three p.m.—Very drunk; hacks and furniture-cars in demand. Four p.m.—D—cidedly drunk; too far gone to fight."

There is nothing half so sweet in life—half so beautiful, or delightful, or so loveable—as a "nice girl." Not a pretty, or a dashing, or an elegant girl, but anicegirl. One of those lovely, lively, good-tempered, good-hearted, sweet-faced, amiable, neat, happy, domestic creatures met within the sphere of home, diffusing around the domestic hearth the influence of her goodness like the essence of sweet flowers. A nice girl is not the languishing beauty, dawdling on a sofa, and discussing the last novel or opera; or the giraffe-like creature sweeping majestically through a drawing-room. The nice girl may not even dance or play well, and knows nothing about "using her eyes," or coquetting with a fan. She is not given to sensation novels—she is too busy. At the opera, she is not in front showing her bare shoulders, but sits quietly and unobtrusively—at the back of the box most likely. In fact, it is not often in such scenes we discover her. Home is her place. Who rises betimes, and superintends the morning meal? Who makes the toast and the tea, and buttons the boys' shirts, and waters the flowers, and feeds the chickens, and brightens up the parlour and sitting-room? Is it the languisher, or the giraffe, or theélégante? Not a bit of it—it's the nice girl. Her unmade toilet is made in the shortest possible time; yet how charmingly it is done, and how elegant her neat dress and plain colour! Whatkisses she distributes among the family! No presenting a cheek or a brow, like a "fine girl," but an audible smack, which says plainly, "I love you ever so much." If I ever coveted anything, it is one of the nice girl's kisses. Breakfast over, down in the kitchen to see about dinner; always cheerful and light-hearted. She never ceases to be active and useful until the day is done, when she will polka with the boys, and sing old songs, and play old tunes to her father for hours together. She is a perfect treasure, is the "nice girl," when illness comes; it is she that attends with unwearying patience to the sick chamber. There is no risk, no fatigue that she will not undergo, no sacrifice that she will not make. She is all love, all devotion. I have often thought it would be happiness to be ill, to be watched by such loving eyes and tended by such fair hands. One of the most strongly marked characteristics of a "nice girl" is tidiness and simplicity of dress. She is ever associated in my mind with a high frock, plain collar, and the neatest of neck-ribbons, bound with the most modest little brooch in the world. I never knew a "nice girl" who displayed a profusion of rings and bracelets, or who wore low dresses or a splendid bonnet. I say again, there is nothing in the world half so beautiful, half so intrinsically good, as a "nice girl." She is the sweetest flower in the path of life. There are others far more stately, far more gorgeous, but these we merely admire as we go by. It is where the daisy grows that we lie down to rest.

TheBoston Postsays that the reason why cream is so dear is, that milk has risen so high the cream can't reach the top.

Rear up your lads like nails, and then they'll not only go through the world, but you may clench 'em on to the other side.

A native of Kentucky imitates the crowing of a cock so remarkably well, that the sun, upon several occasions, has risen two hours earlier by mistake.

The printer of theWestern Gazettelately published the following notice:—"Dry stove wood wanted immediately at this office, in exchange for papers. N.B. Don't bring logs that theDevilcan't split."

Matrimony.—Hot buckwheat cake—comfortable slippers—smoking coffee—buttons—redeemed stockings—boot-jacks—happiness.Bachelorhood.—Sheet-iron quilts—blue noses—frosty rooms—ice in the pitcher—unregenerated linen—heelless stockings—coffee sweetened with icicles—gutta-percha biscuits—flabby steaks—dull razors—corns—coughs and colics—rhubarb—aloes—misery.

A Mr. Jaber J. Jenkinson, of Arkansas, whose sight is such as to render glasses necessary, put his spectacles on his ear instead of his eyes, one day last week, and actually walked three miles sideways in a heavy rain before he discovered his mistake.

TheBoston Heraldhas the following infallible recipe:—"To make pie: Play at blind man's buff in a printing-office. To have music at dinner: Tell your wife she is not so handsome as the lady who lives over the way. To save butter: Make it so salt that nobody can eat it."

The wit deservedly won his bet who, in a company when every one was bragging of his tall relations, wagered that he himself had a brother twelve feet high. He had, he said, "two half-brothers, each measuring six feet."

A little boy once said to his aunt, "Aunty, I should think that Satan must be an awful trouble to God." "Hemust be troubled enough, indeed, I should think," she answered. "I don't see how he came to turn out so, when therewas no devil to put him up to it."

Judge Beeler put a notice over his factory-gate at Lowell: "No cigars or Irishmen admitted within these walls; for," says he, "the one will set a flame agoin' among my cotton, and t'other among my gals. I won't have no such inflammable and dangerous things about me on no account."

A western paper contains the following advertisement:—"Wants a situation, a practical printer, who is competent to take charge of any department in a printing and publishing house. Would accept a professorship in any of the academies. Has no objection to teach ornamental painting and penmanship, geometry, trigonometry, and many other sciences. Is particularly suited to act as pastor to a small Evangelical church, or as a local preacher. He would have no objection to form a small but select class of interesting young ladies, to instruct in the highest branches. To a dentist or chiropodist he would be invaluable, as he can do almost anything. Would board with a family, if decidedly pious."

Two passengers coming down the Mississippi in a steamboat were amusing themselves with shooting birds on the shore from the deck. Some sporting conversation ensued; one remarked that he would turn his back to no man in killing racoons—that he had repeatedly shot fifty a day. "What o' that?" said a Kentuckian; "I make nothing of killing a hundred 'coon a day, or'nary luck." "Do you know Captain Scott, of our State?" asked a Tennessean bystander; "he, now, is something like a shot. A hundred 'coon! why he never points at one without hitting him. He never misses, and the 'coons know it. T'other day he levelled at an old 'un, in a high tree; the varmint looked at him a minute, and then bawled out, 'Hallo, Cap'n Scott, is that you?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'Well, pray don't shoot, I'll come down to you—I'll give in—I'm dead beat.'"

A highly respectable inhabitant in the city of New York lately died under very remarkable circumstances. He was subject to fits of extreme absence of mind from childhood; and one night, upon retiring to rest, having carefully tucked his pantaloons under the bed-clothes, he threw himself over the back of a chair, and expired from the severe cold he experienced during the night. The editor of theNew York Herald, who relates this extraordinary fact, assures his readers, as a guarantee of its truth, that he received his information from the individual in question.

There is a man in the West who is described as being so remarkably tall that he requires a ladder to shave himself! The same individual never troubles his servant to sit up for him when he is out late at night, for he can, with the most perfect ease, put his arm down the chimney and unbolt the street-door.

The will of Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, has just been proved. It contains the following clause:—"I give to the president and managers of the New Jersey Bible Society 200 dollars, to be laid out in the purchase of spectacles, to be given by them to the poor old people; it being in vain to give a Bible to those who cannot obtain the means of reading it."

An officer who was inspecting his company one morning spied one private whose shirt was sadly begrimed. "Patrick O'Flynn!" called out the captain. "Here, yer honour!" promptly responded Patrick, with his hand to his cap. "How long do you wear a shirt?" thundered the officer. "Twenty-eight inches," was the rejoinder.

TheNew York Heraldhas the following for its motto:—"Take no shin-plasters (all damned rogues who issue them),live temperately, drink moderately, eschew temperance societies, take care of the sixpences, never hurt a saint, go to bed at ten, rise at six, never buy on credit, fear God Almighty, love the beautiful girls, vote against Van Buren, and kick all politicians and parsons to the devil."

A Californian poet gives the following lesson on politeness to the youth of the Golden State:—

"Indeed, my friends, far better it would seem,Were you to choose the opposite extreme;Like one 'Down East' who an umbrella took,And from the rain gave shelter to a duck;Who to a limping dog once lent his arm,And to a setting hen said, 'Don't rise, ma'am;'Nor e'er to lifeless things respect did lack—Said always to a chair, 'Excuse my back;''Excuse my curiosity,' he said to books;And to the looking-glass, 'Excuse my looks.'"

"Indeed, my friends, far better it would seem,Were you to choose the opposite extreme;Like one 'Down East' who an umbrella took,And from the rain gave shelter to a duck;Who to a limping dog once lent his arm,And to a setting hen said, 'Don't rise, ma'am;'Nor e'er to lifeless things respect did lack—Said always to a chair, 'Excuse my back;''Excuse my curiosity,' he said to books;And to the looking-glass, 'Excuse my looks.'"

"Indeed, my friends, far better it would seem,Were you to choose the opposite extreme;Like one 'Down East' who an umbrella took,And from the rain gave shelter to a duck;Who to a limping dog once lent his arm,And to a setting hen said, 'Don't rise, ma'am;'Nor e'er to lifeless things respect did lack—Said always to a chair, 'Excuse my back;''Excuse my curiosity,' he said to books;And to the looking-glass, 'Excuse my looks.'"

TheNew York Herald'sMorris Island correspondent relates as follows an incident of the operations at Charleston:—Quite an uproar was occasioned in the rear of theHerald'stent here yesterday. General Terry, whose head-quarters adjoin those of your correspondent, has a sable cook, who wanted some lead for his fishing-tackle, and undertook to melt some from the outside of a ten-pound Parrot shell, which he discovered lying about the camp. Placing the projectile in a stove, and seating himself where he could catch the molten metal in a shovel as it fell, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing one of the most startling views ever brought to his vision. The shell exploded, and besides blowing the stove and cookhouse to atoms, inflicted serious wounds upon the darkey. My servant, a contraband from Beaufort, gave vent to the universal sentiment, while he was surveying the wreck which the explosion occasioned, and from which we so narrowly escaped, in the following sage remark:—"De dam ole fool, come clar gown yere f'm Bos'n an' put a shell in de stove!" If General Terry's niggers continue to obtain their "sinkers" in this manner, you may expect to hear that theHerald'shead-quarters have been removed.

In New York, a quick-witted toper went into a bar-room and called for something to drink. "We don't sell liquor," said the law-evading landlord; "we will give you a glass, and then if you want a cracker (a biscuit) we'll sell it you for three cents." The "good creature" was handed down, and our hero took a stiff horn; when, turning round to depart, the unsuspecting landlord handed him the dish of crackers, with the remark, "You'll buy a cracker?" "Well, no, I guess not; you sell 'em too dear. I can get lots on 'm five or six for a cent anywhere else."

The editor of theAmerican Mechanichas encountered trials unknown to ordinary men. Just hearken unto his wailings:—"Owing to the fact that our paper-maker disappointed us, the failure of the mails deprived us of our exchanges, a Dutch pedlar stole our scissors, the rats ran off with the paste, and the devils went to the circus, while the editor was at home tending the baby, our paper is unavoidably postponed beyond the period of its publication."

Varnum S. Mills, of this city, tells a story illustrative of the simplicity of Virginia niggers. He was visiting a friend in the Old Dominion, who owns many slaves, among whom were two, named Sambo and Cuffee, who seemed to be mortal enemies. Sambo was a favourite with the master, who one day said to him: "Sambo, you have always been a good nigger, and when you die you shall have a funeral. My family will all attend, and all the niggers shall be present, and Cuffee shall be a pall-bearer." The darkey looked his master in the face with the simplicity of a soft clam when dug out of the mud at low tide, and indignantly responded: "Massa, if Cuffee comes to de funeril, I won't go to the grabe." It apparently did not occur to Sambo that he should be "conveyed" thither.

A country town having been recently lighted with gas, the local editor electrifies the community with an ode:

"Luminous blaze!I never seen the like in all my born days!Tallow candles ain't no mor'n tarWhen you're about;And spirit lamps is no whar,Bein clean dun out."Sparkling lite!I think I never seen anything half so brite;Everything is amazing clear;The hidjus glumeIs defunct; and every cheerIs apparient in the rume!"Gloryous halo!Your skintelashuns make a surprising display;You don't need no snuffers,But you are just scrude out;When you are squenched by puffers,Ojus fumes aryse."Brillyant flame!The nites was next to darkness when you came;But candles has vanishtBefore you, and lard oil gone to grass;Every greasy nuisance has been banisht—Hurraw for Gass!"

"Luminous blaze!I never seen the like in all my born days!Tallow candles ain't no mor'n tarWhen you're about;And spirit lamps is no whar,Bein clean dun out."Sparkling lite!I think I never seen anything half so brite;Everything is amazing clear;The hidjus glumeIs defunct; and every cheerIs apparient in the rume!"Gloryous halo!Your skintelashuns make a surprising display;You don't need no snuffers,But you are just scrude out;When you are squenched by puffers,Ojus fumes aryse."Brillyant flame!The nites was next to darkness when you came;But candles has vanishtBefore you, and lard oil gone to grass;Every greasy nuisance has been banisht—Hurraw for Gass!"

"Luminous blaze!I never seen the like in all my born days!Tallow candles ain't no mor'n tarWhen you're about;And spirit lamps is no whar,Bein clean dun out.

"Sparkling lite!I think I never seen anything half so brite;Everything is amazing clear;The hidjus glumeIs defunct; and every cheerIs apparient in the rume!

"Gloryous halo!Your skintelashuns make a surprising display;You don't need no snuffers,But you are just scrude out;When you are squenched by puffers,Ojus fumes aryse.

"Brillyant flame!The nites was next to darkness when you came;But candles has vanishtBefore you, and lard oil gone to grass;Every greasy nuisance has been banisht—Hurraw for Gass!"

In a book on Americanisms, published last year, a Baltimore young lady is represented as jumping up from her seat, on being asked to dance, and saying, "Yes, sirree: for I have sot, and sot, and sot, till I've nigh tuk root!" I cannot say I have heard anything quite equal to this; but I very well remember that at a party given on board one of the ships at Esquimault, a young lady declined to dance a "fancy" dance upon the plea, "I'd rather not, sir. I guess I'm notfixed upfor waltzing;" an expression the peculiar meaning of which must be left to readers of her own sex to decide. An English young lady who was staying at one of the houses at Mare Island when we were there, happened one evening, when we were visiting her friends, to be confined to her room with a headache. Upon our arrival, the young daughter of our host—a girl of bout twelve—went up to her to try to persuadeher to come down. "Well," she said, "I'mrealsorry you're so poorly. You'd better come, for there are some almighty swells down there!" A lady speaking of the same person, said, "Her hair, sir, took my fancy right away!" Again, several of us were one day talking to a tall, slight young lady about the then new-fashioned crinoline which she was wearing. After a little banter, she said, "I guess, captain, if you were to take my hoops off you might draw me through the eye of a needle!" Perhaps one of the most whimsical of these curiosities of expression, combining freedom of manner with that of speech, was made use of to Captain Richards by a master-caulker. He had been vainly endeavouring to persuade the captain that the ship required caulking; and at last he said in disgust, "You may be liberal as a private citizen, captain, but you're mean to an almighty pump-tack!"—in his official capacity of course. Again, an American gentleman on board of one of our mail-packets was trying to recall to the recollection of the mail-agent a lady who had been fellow-passenger with them on a former occasion. "She sat opposite you at table all the voyage," he said. "Oh, I think I remember her; she ate a great deal, did she not?" "Eat, sir!" was the reply; "she was a perfect gastronomic fillibuster!" One more example and I have done with a subject upon which I might enlarge for pages. The boys at the school at Victoria were being examined in Scripture, and the question was asked, "In what way did Hiram assist Solomon in the building of the temple?" It passed two or three boys, when at last one sharp little fellow triumphantly exclaimed, "Please, sir, hedonatedhim the lumber."

"From Camden to Bletchly, a distance of forty miles I travelled along with Mrs. Greaves. She was a sweet and interesting woman—so sweet and interesting that, fastidious as I am on the subject, I believe I would have been willing to have kissed her. I had, however, several reasons for not perpetrating this act. First, I am such a good husband I wouldn't even be guilty of the appearance of disloyalty to my sweet wife. Second, I was afraid our fellow-passengers would see me and tell Greaves. Third, I do not think Mrs. G. would let me."

A diffident Hartford bachelor went to the sea-shore in August to seek refuge from the loneliness of his celibacy, and one dark evening, enjoying the breeze on the piazza of his hotel, happened to take a seat that had just been vacated by the husband of a loving wife, with whom the happy man had been chatting. In a few moments the lady returned, and, mistaking the stranger for her husband, lovingly encircled his neck and gave him an affectionate kiss, with the remark, "Come, darling, is it not about time to retire?" He did not faint, but the shock was very severe.

One freezing February morning a negro hawked mutton pies in a basket around Faneuil Hall Square, roaring out, "Hot mutton pies!" "Hot mutton pies!" A teamster bought and tried to bite one, but found it frozen as solid as the curb-stone. "What do you call them hot for, you black and blue swindler?" yelled the teamster to the shivering pieman. "Wy, wy, a white man guv 'em to me hot dis mornin'. Dey was hot wen I got 'em dis mornin'!" "Well, you fool, it didn't take ten minutes to freeze them in that old basket. Why call them hot now?" "Wy, bless you, dats de name ob 'em—de name ob 'em! If I didn't holler de right name nobody would tetch 'em. You want me to holler froze pies, I suppose! No, sa; you can't fool me dat way!"

A rather loquacious individual was endeavouring to draw an old man into conversation, but hitherto without much success, the old fellow having sufficient discernment to see that his object was to make a little sport for the passengers at his expense. At length says loquacious individual: "I suppose you consider Down East a right smart place; but I guess it would puzzle them to get up quite so thick a fog as we are having here this morning, wouldn't it?" "Well," said the old man, "I don't know about that. I hired one of your Massachusetts chaps to work for me last summer, and one rather foggy mornin' I sent him down to the meadow to lay a few courses ofshingle on a new barn I was finishin' off. At dinner-time the fellow came up, and, sez he, 'That's an almighty long barn of yourn.' Sez I, 'Not very long.' 'Well,' sez he, 'I've been to work all this forenoon, and haven't got one course laid yet.' 'Well,' sez I, 'you're a lazy fellow, that's all I've got to say.' And so after dinner I went down to see what he'd been about, and I'll be thundered ef he hadn't shingled more than a hundred footright out on to the fog."

The editress of theLancaster Literary Gazettesays she would as soon nestle her nose in a rat's nest of swingle tow as allow a man with whiskers on to kiss her. We (Petersburg Express) don't believe a word of it. The objections which some ladies pretend to have to whiskers all arise from envy. They don't have any. They would if they could; but the fact is, the continual motion of the lower jaw is fatal to their growth. The ladies—God bless them!—adopt our fashion as far as they can. Look at the depredations they have committed on our wardrobes the last few years. They have appropriated our shirt-bosoms, gold studs and all. They have encircled their soft bewitching necks in our standing collars and cravats—driving them to flatties and turn-downs. Their innocent little hearts have been palpitating in the inside of our waistcoats, instead of thumping against the outside, as naturally intended. They have thrust their pretty feet and ankles through our unmentionables, unwhisperables, unthinkaboutables; and they are skipping along the streets in our high-heeled boots. Do you hear, gentlemen?—we say boots!

Everything is beautiful when it is little (except souls!)—little pigs, little lambs, little birds, little kittens, little children. Little Martin boxes of houses are generally the most happy and cozy; little villages are nearer to being atoms of a shattered paradise than anything we know of. Little fortunes bring the most content, and little hopes the least disappointment. Little words are the sweetest to hear, and little charities fly furthest and stay the longest on the wing. Little lakes are the stillest, little hearts the fullest,and little farms the best tilled. Little books the most read, and little songs the best loved. And when Nature would make anything especially rare and beautiful, she makes it little—little pearls, little diamonds, little dews. Agar's is a model prayer, but then it is a little prayer, and the burden of the petition is for little. The Sermon on the Mount is little, but the last dedication discourse was two hours. The Roman said, "Veni, vidi, vici"—I came, saw, conquered; but despatches now-a-days are longer than the battles they tell of. Everybody calls that little which they love best upon earth. We once heard a good sort of a man speak of his little wife, and we fancied she must be a perfectbijouof a woman. We saw her; she weighed two hundred and ten; we were surprised. But then it was no joke—the man meant it. He could put his wife in his heart, and have room for other things besides; and what was she but precious, and what could she be but little? We rather doubt the stories of great argosies of gold we sometimes hear of, for Nature deals in littles altogether. Life is made up of littles, death is what remains of them all. Day is made up of little beams, and night is glorious with little stars.Multum in parvo—much in little—is the great beauty of all that we love best, hope for most, and remember longest.

"My dear Ellen," said Mr. Softfellow to a young lady whose smiles he was seeking, "I have long wished for this sweet opportunity, but I hardly dare trust myself now to speak the deep emotions of my palpitating heart; but I declare to you, my dearest Ellen, that I love you most tenderly; your smiles would shed—would shed——" "Never mind the wood-shed," said Ellen, "go on with that pretty talk."

An enthusiastic spiritualist, when relating to a sceptic certain spiritual performances to which he could testify, said that on one occasion the spirit of his wife, who had been dead several years, returned to him, and, seating herself on his knee, put her arms around him and kissed him, much to his gratification, as she used to do when living. "You do not mean to say," remarked the sceptic, "thatthe spirit of your wife really embraced you and kissed you?" "No, not exactly that," replied the believer; "but her spirit took possession of the female medium—the future Mrs. B—— that is to be, you know—and through her embraced and kissed me."

Western eloquence continues to improve. A Wisconsin reporter sends the following sketch. A lawyer in Milwaukee was defending a handsome young woman accused of stealing from a large unoccupied dwelling in the night-time, and thus he spake in conclusion:—"Gentlemen of the jury, I am done. When I gaze with enraptured eyes on the matchless beauty of this peerless virgin, on whose resplendent charms suspicion never dared to breathe; when I behold her radiant in this glorious bloom of lustrous loveliness, which angelic sweetness might envy but could not eclipse—before which the star on the brow of Night grows pale, and the diamonds of Brazil are dim—and then reflect upon the utter madness and folly of supposing that so much beauty would expose itself to the terrors of an empty building in the cold, damp, dead of night, when innocence like hers is hiding itself amidst the snowy pillows of repose; gentlemen of the jury, my feelings are too overpowering for expression, and I throw her into your arms for protection against this foul charge, which the outrageous malice of a disappointed scoundrel has invented, to blast the fair name of this lovely maiden, whose smile shall be the reward of the verdict which I know you will give."

"It's all very pretty talk," said a recently married old bachelor, who had just finished reading an essay on the "Culture of Women," just as a heavy milliner's bill was presented to him—"it's all very pretty, this cultivation of women; but such a charge as this for bonnets is rather a heavy top-dressing—in my judgment."

"I am willing to split hairs with my opponent all day ifhe insists on it," said a very distinguished American lawyer the other day, in a speech at the bar. "Splitthatthen," said the opponent, pulling a coarse specimen from his own head, and extending it. "May it please the court, I didn't saybristles!"

A friend thinks the antediluvian life must have been a great contrast to ours, and pictures it thus:—"Only fancy having two dried whales hanging in your larder, and a cold mammoth 'cut and come again' on the sideboard. 'Shall I help you to a bit of Icthoyaturns?' 'Thank you, I should prefer a slice of your Mastadon.' Stewed Plesiosauri! Leviathanà la crapoderie! Imagine a bill, not at twelve months, but at two hundred years; and a fellow who carried off your plate-box getting sent to the treadmill for fourscore summers! Consider an elderly gentleman, with a liver complaint of only one hundred years' standing, wearing out four sets of false teeth, and finally carried off, after a brief illness of three hundred and ten years, in a galloping consumption!"

When Jackson was President, Jimmy O'Neil, the porter, was a marked character. He had his foibles, which were offensive to the fastidiousness of Colonel Donelson, and caused his dismissal on an average of about once a week. But on appeal to the higher court, the verdict was invariably reversed by the good nature of the old general. Once, however, Jimmy was guilty of some flagrant offence, and was summoned before the highest tribunal at once. The general, after stating the details of the misdeed, observed, "Jimmy, I have borne with you for years, in spite of all complaints; but in this act you have gone beyond my powers of endurance." "And do you believe the story?" asked Jimmy. "Certainly," answered the general: "I have just heard it from two senators." "Faith," retorted Jimmy, "if I believe all that twenty senators say about you it's little I'd think you are fit to be President." "Pshaw! Jimmy," concluded the general; "clear out and go on duty, but be more careful hereafter." Jimmy remained with his kind-hearted patron not only tothe close of his presidential term, but, accompanying him to the Hermitage, was with him to the day of his death.

An old lady was engaged in making pumpkin pies; she had got the pumpkin all prepared, when by an untoward accident the table was overturned, and the pumpkin went on to the floor. The table in overturning overset the slop-pail, and the slops went on the floor too. The old lady being of a saving disposition, concluded to save the pumpkin and clean up also; so she takes up one handful, looks at it—"That's punkin"—puts it into the pumpkin-dish; takes up another—"That's slops"—puts it into the slop-pail. So she goes on picking up alternately pumpkin and slops, till finally she gets a handful mixed. She looks at it, and says, "That issome punkin, but mostly slops!" and hence the phrase.

Feller Sittersuns,—The African may be our brother. Severil hily rispectable gentlemen and some talented females tell us so, and for argyment sake i might be injooced to grant it, tho' I don't beleeve it myself. But the African isn't our sister, and wife, and unkle. He isn't severil of our brothers and fust wife's relashuns. He isn't our grandfather and grate grandfather, and our aunt in the country. Scarcely: And yet numeris persons would have us think. It's troo he runs Congress and severil others grossery's, but he ain't everybody. But we've got the African, or ruther he's got us, and how are we going to do about it? He's a orful noosance. P'raps he isn't to blame for it. P'raps he was created for some wise purpis, like the measles and New England rum, but it's mity hard to see it. At any rate here, and as I stated to Mr. What-is-it, it's a pity he coodent go off somewheres quietly by hisself, where he cood wear red weskits and speckled necties, and gratefy his ambition in varis interestin wayse, without havin a eternal fuss up about him. P'raps I'm bearing down too hard on Cuffy.

A good story is told of a Quaker volunteer, who was ina Virginia skirmish. Coming in pretty close quarters with a Secessionist, he remarked: "Friend, 'tis very unfortunate, but thee standest just where I am going to shoot;" and, blazing away, down came his man.

A Kansas woman, named Million, was lately married, and by her marriage the bride becomes sister to her father and mother and aunt to her brothers and sisters. The groom becomes son of a younger brother, his sister-in-law becomes his mother, and he becomes the brother of four "Million" children. What relation were said parties previous to their marriage?

When the mine dug under Fort Hill, at Vicksburg, by General Logan, exploded, June 26th, a large number of rebels were killed and wounded. Among others who were blown high above the works was an American citizen of African descent, who fell on his head on the outside of the rebel fort, and to the astonishment of our soldiers was not killed. As some of the men ran towards the darkey, of course carrying their arms, he rose to his feet, and shouted, "For de Lord's sake, sogers, don't shoot dis nigger. I wasn't doin' no fighting; I was only totin' up grub." When asked how high he had been, he replied, "Two or dree mile, I reckon;" and on being asked how he came within our lines said, "Dunno, massa; shell, I spec."

A railroademployé, whose home is in Avon, came on Saturday night to ask for a pass down to visit his family. "You are in employ of the railroad?" asked the gentleman applied to. "Yes." "You receive your pay regularly?" "Yes." "Well, now suppose you were working for a farmer instead of a railroad, would you expect your employer to hitch up his team every Saturday night, and carry you home?" This seemed a poser, but it wasn't. "No," said the man, promptly, "I wouldn't expect that; but if the farmer had his team hitched up, and was going my way, I should call him a darned meancuss if he would not let me ride." Mr.Employécame out three minutes afterwards with a pass good for twelve months.

A gifted poet has perpetrated the following epitaph on the late Floyd:—

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