Sketches New and Old

an Capitol Ten

most noted Roman artists-and the mere fact that they did the humble patching of so noble a creation will make their names illustrious while the world stands. How strange it seems-this place! The day before I

itoline Venus-and what a sum she is

now s

how divinely be

. Ingenious Smith!-gifted Smith!-noble Smith! Author of all our bliss! Hark! Do you know what that whee

E

efore it and go into the customary ecstasies over it, don't permit this true and secret history of its origin to mar your bliss-and when you read about a gigantic Petrified man being dug up near Sy

the famous swindle of the "Petrified Giant" wa

ACCIDENT

AT A DINNER TO CORNEL

aking the destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizens paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comrades taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist

am a better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest

tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest poc

TFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY-[The speaker is a director of the company named.]-is an institu

companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile-life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, an

guest is none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense,

NAMAN IN

t acting in the capacity of a sign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as their heads wo

ong queue dangling down his back; his short silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest of his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton, tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsy blunt-toed shoes with thick cork soles; and having so scanned him from head to foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire or his melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendless Mongol. I wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and what distant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with his heart, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of

he humanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for the exiled and oppressed. America and Americans are always ready to

ind meself; but it's aisy, barrin' the trou

rk tea merchants who need picturesque sig

D AN AGRICU

n about

ke command of a ship without misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regu

That's him!" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the street and over the way, watching me with interest. The group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, "Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but

entered, and sat down at my invitation. He seemed to have something on his mind. He took off hi

e polished his spectacles with his handk

id I

ited an agricultu

"this is my

had any experience in a

lieve I h

at me with asperity, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must

njures them. It is much better to send

k of that?-for I reall

ear millions and millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by be

other! Turnips don

as intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows

cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such

nd a week's stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and hal

oward me till he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my

. Read it to me-quick!

, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest a

hould not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the w

of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange fa

er approaches, and the

sprang toward me to s

iends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody-because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later, an

y for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you have taken a great load off m

tely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had gone t

king sad and perpl

well they might after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous-entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, y

who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you-yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation, drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I h

en l

ETRIF

dinary petrifactions and other natural marvels. One could scarcely pick up a paper without finding in it one or two glorified discoveries of this kind. The mania was becoming a little ridiculous. I was a brand-new local editor in Virginia City, and I felt called upon to destroy this growing evil; we all have our

lived); how all the savants of the immediate neighborhood had been to examine it (it was notorious that there was not a living creature within fifty miles of there, except a few starving Indians, some crippled grasshoppers, and four or five buzzards out of meat and too feeble to get away); how those savants all pronounced the petrified man to have been in a state of complete petrifaction for over ten generations; and th

s, then dug a grave, and were about to give the petrified man Christian burial, when they found that for ages a limestone sediment had been trickling down the face of the stone against which he was sitting, and this stuff had run under him and cemented him fast to the "bed-rock"; that the jury (they were all silv

rposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make it obscure-and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and then say his right thumb was against the side of his nose; then talk about his other foot, and presently come back and say the fingers of his right hand were spread apart; then talk about the back of his head a little, and return and say the left thumb was hooked into the right little finger; then

at first I was angry, and did not like to think about it; but by and by, when the exchanges began to come in with the Petrified Man copied and guilelessly glorified, I began to feel a soothing secret satisfaction; and as my gentleman's field of travels broadened, and by the exchanges I saw that he steadily and implacably penetrated territory after territory, state after state, and land after land, till he swept the great globe and culmi

they get started), would call on him and ask if he could tell them where they could get hold of a paper with the Petrified Man in it. He could have accommodated a

ODY MA

of increasing the value of their stock, so that they could sell out at a comfortable figure, and then scramble from under the tumbling concern. And while abusing the Daney, those papers did not forget to urge the public to get rid of all their silver stocks and invest in sound and safe San Francisco stocks, such as the Spring Valley Water Company, etc. But right at this unfortunate juncture, behold the Spring Valley cooked a dividend too! And so, under the insidious mask of an invented "bloody massacre," I stole upon the public unawares with my scathing sati

forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," when even the very pickled oysters that came on our tables knew that there was not a "dressed-stone mansion" in all Nevada Territory; also that, so far from there being a "great pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," there wasn't a solitary tree within fifteen miles of either place; and, finally, it was patent and notorious that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were one and the same place, and contained only six houses anyhow, an

t the next table two stalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandruff sprinkled about their clothing which was the sign and evidence that they were in from the Truckee with a load of hay. The one facing me had the morning paper folded to a long, narrow strip, and I knew, without any telling, that that strip represented the column that contained my pleasant financial satire. From the way he was excitedly mumbling, I saw that the heedless son of a hay-mow was skipping with all his might, in order to get to the bloody details as quickly as possible; and so he was missing the guide-boards I had set up to

e took the old 'oman's skelp. C

tly down, and he and his friend departed

articulars sufficient. To drop in with a poor little moral at the fag-end of such a gorgeous massac

erning the "great pine forest," the "dressed-stone mansion," etc. But I found out then, and never have forgotten since, that we never read the dull explanatory surroundings of marvelously exc

ERTAKER

ook him he was a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and simple in his last moments. Friends wante

h out in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it

and wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such a ga

d p'int him for the tomb, and mark him C. O. D., and just let him flicker. He warn't distressed any more than you be-on the contrary, just as ca'm and collected as a hearse-horse; said h

ect it any more than an Injun Insurrection in Arizona affects the Atlantic States. Well, the relations they wanted a big funeral, but corpse said he was down on flummery-didn't want any procession-fill the hearse full of mourners, and get out a stern line and tow him behind. He was the most down on style of any remains I ever struck. A beautiful, simpleminded creature-it was what he was, you can depend on that. He was just set on having things the way he wanted them, and he took a solid comfort in laying his little plans. He had me measure him and take a whole raft of directions; then he had the minister stand up behind a long box with a table-cloth over it, to represent the coffin, and read his funeral sermon, saying 'Angcore, angcore!' at the good places, and ma

him into the hearse and meander along. Relations bound to have it so-don't pay no attention to dying injunctions, minute a corpse's gone; but, if I had my way, if I didn't respect his last wishes and tow him behind the hearse I'll be cuss'd. I consider that whatever a corpse w

son learned-that a healthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to any occupation. The lesson is likel

ING CHA

oever age or nationality, I launch

u read and smoke before sleeping (as is the ancient and honored custom of bachelors), you have t

tion in a friendly spirit; but, glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, t

ed the pillows, they undo your work, and thus defy

n an inconvenient position any

o that the lid will stay up when you open it, they alw

tain spot, where it will be handy

as far under the bed as the wall will permit. It is because this compels you to get down in

, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glass thing, where the box stood before. This is

ing. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-bucket by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come in at midnight or therea

it and move it the first chance they get. It is their nature. And, besides, it gives the

ere is any one particular old scrap that you are more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life out trying to get rid of, you may take all the pains you

arged with purloining the same, they lie about it. Wh

trying to protect your property from thieves; but actually they do it because they want to make you tramp back down-stairs after it when you come home tired,

thus destroying your rest and inflicting agony upon you; b

think of, and they do them just out

e dead to every

the legislature abolishing c

UNFORTUNAT

n about

r, the poor girl is almost heartbroken by the misfortunes she has undergone, and so confused by the conflicting counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from

and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if their career was destined to be characterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned; young Caruthers became infected with smallpox of the most virulent type, and whe

on, walked into a well and fractured one of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was move

could not but be deeply grieved to see her lover passing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last forever under this disastrous process of reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful career, and in her tearful despair she alm

atives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with more than could reasonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that the match should be broken off; b

ime once more, and he

ous experience, and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the field of her affe

ans last year. That man was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers of New Jersey. He was hurrying home with happiness in his heart

g-she still loves what is left of him-but her parents are bitterly opposed to the match, because he has no property and is disabled from wor

rry him and take the chances. It does not seem to me that there is much risk, anyway, Aurelia, because if he sticks to his singular propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are safe, married or single. If married, the wooden legs and such other valuables as he may possess revert to the widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but

R" JE

. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of the occasion may no

lemen and the envy of all the ladies. Mrs. G. W. was tastefully dressed in a 'tout ensemble,' and was greeted with deafening applause wherever she went. Mrs. C. N. was superbly array

all, whose exceeding grace and volume compelled the homag

eautiful false teeth, and the 'bon jour' effect they naturally p

ace collar, fastened with a neat pearl-button solitaire. The fine contrast between the sparkling vivacity of her natu

it from time to time marked her as a cultivated and accomplished woman of the world; its

T BA

always happens so. I sat down, hoping that I might fall heir to the chair belonging to the better of the remaining two barbers, for he had already begun combing his man's hair, while his comrade was not yet quite done rubbing up and oiling his customer's locks. I watched the probabilities with strong interest. When I saw that No. 2 was gaining on No. 1 my interest grew to solicitude. When No. 1 stopped a moment to make change on a bath ticket for a new-comer, and lost ground in the race, my solicitude rose to anxiety. When No. 1 caught up again, and both he and his comrade were pulling the t

framed advertisements of all sorts of quack nostrums for dyeing and coloring the hair. Then I read the greasy names on the private bayrum bottles; read the names and noted the numbers on the private shaving-cups in the pigeonholes; studied the stained and damaged cheap prints on the walls, of battles, early Presidents, and voluptuous recumbent sultanas, and the tire

xplored again and said it was pretty long for the present style-better have a little taken off; it needed it behind especially. I said I had had it cut only a week before. He yearned over it reflectively a moment, and then asked with a disparaging manner, who cut it? I came back at him promptly with a "You did!" I had him there. Then he fell to stirring up his lather and regarding himself in the glass, stopping now and th

bout some damsel whom he had smitten with his charms that he used every means to continue the controversy by pretending to be annoyed at the chaffings of his fellows. This matter begot more surveyings of himself in the glass, and he put down his razor and brushed his hair w

f my face I did not suffer; but when he began to rake, and rip, and tug at my chin, the tears came. He now made a handle of my nose, to assist him shaving the corners of my upper lip, and it was by this bit of

he forbidden ground, and the dreaded pimple-signs of a close shave rose up smarting and answered to the call. Now he soaked his towel in bay rum, and slapped it all over my face nastily; slapped it over as if a human being ever yet washed his face in that way. Then he dried it by slapping with the dry part of the towel, as if a human being ever dried his face in such a fashion; but a barber seldom rubs you like a Christian. Next he poked bay rum into the cut place with his towel, then choked the wound with powdered starch, then soaked it with bay rum again, and would have gone on soaking and powdering it forevermore, no doubt, if

rest, parting it behind, and plastering the eternal inverted arch of hair down on my forehead, and then, while combing my scant eyebrows and defiling them with pomade, strung out an account of the achievements of a six-ounce black-and-tan terr

wo hours later. I am waiting over a day for

RIES" IN

lar and draw the affections of the irreligious toward them. One hears constantly of the most touching instances of this zeal. A week ago a vast concourse of Catholics assembled at Armagh to dedicate a new Cathedral; and when they st

dulged in, and that persons uttering them shall be fined forty shillings and costs. And so, in the police court reports every day, one sees these fines recorded. Last week a girl of twelve years old was fined the usual

party cry-and it is no economical fine for a poor man, either, by the way. They say that a policeman found a drunken man lying on the g

that y

ell w

h who? To he

nish it yourself-it's

n, restrained by the economical

THE RECENT RESIGNATIO

N, Decemb

ce and retain my self-respect. If I were to detail all the outrages that were heaped upon me during the six days that I was connected with the government in an official capacity, the narrative would fill a volume. They appointed me clerk of that Committee on Conchology and then allowed me no amanuensis to play billiards with. I would have borne that, lonesome as it was, if I had met wit

to me in that light. If there is no fighting for him to do, let him come home. There is no use in a man having a whole fleet for a pleasure excursion. It is too expensive. Mind, I do no

kind. But I didn't mind. I said it was cheap, and full of republican simplicity, and perfec

estion, coming, as it did, from a member of that same government, I would inform him that I was clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology. Then there was a fine storm! He finished by ordering me to leave th

the Indians on the Plains. I said he fought too scattering. He ought to get the Indians more together-get them together in some convenient place, where he could have provisions enough for both parties, and then have a general massacre. I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not

t position I held, and I said I was clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology. I was then order

ernment get along the best way it could. But duty called, and

ill you

me off my guard.

business here, sir, state it-a

that was a clear case. I urged him not to ruin his reputation by getting out a thing like that. If he ever hoped to succeed in literature he must throw more variety into his writings. He must beware of dry detail. I said that the main popularity of the almanac was derived from its poetry and conundrums, and that a few conundrums distributed around through his Treasury report would help the sale of it more than all the internal revenue he could put into it. I said these things in the kindest spirit,

harmful conclusions, but it surely seemed to me that the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others of my confrères had conspired from the very beginning to drive me from the Administration. I never attended but one Cabinet meeting while I was connected with the government. T

ir, who

nate Committee on Conchology." Then he looked at me from head to foot, a

recommend me to put poetry and conundrums

at came to me yesterday with a scheme to educate a port

time and again during the week. He is distressed about Admiral Farragut's using a whole fleet for a pleasure exc

debar me from all voice in the counsels of the nation. No notice whatever was sent to me to-day. It was only by the merest chance that I lea

ident sa

, and not fritter away valuable time in unbecoming

doorkeepers of the Capitol, strange as it may seem. Therefore, much as we could desire your more than human wisdom in our deliberations, we cannot lawfully avail ourselves of it. The counsels of the natio

ow no peace. I had hardly reached my den in the Capitol, and disposed my feet on the table like a r

e you been

nybody's affair but my own, I

d like to know what business

He grew insolent then, and ended by saying he had wanted me for three days past to copy a report on bomb-shells,

going to work for six dollars a day? If that is the idea, let me recommend the Senate Committee on Conchology to hire

, snubbed at last by the chairman of a committee I was endeavoring to adorn, I yielded to persecution, cast far

tate some service, a

tes of America

the Senate Committ

on with Secre

n with Secreta

with Secretary o

nsultation

and from Jerus

ibraltar,

s, at 20c.

Clerk of Se

six days, at

l $2

ough they never go back when they get here once. Why m

tary of the Treasury, pursuing me to the last, drew his pen through all the other items, and simply marked in th

ng. It is exhausting to the intellect. Yet he only gets eighteen hundred dollars a year. With a brain like his, that young man could amass thousands and thousands of dollars in some other pursuit, if he chose to do it. But no-his heart is with his country, and he will serve her as long as she has got a scrapbook left. And I know clerks that don't know how to write very well, but such knowledge as they possess they nobly lay at the feet of their country, and toil on and suffer for twenty-five hundred dollars a year. What they write has to be written over again by other clerks sometimes; but when a man has done his best for his country, should his country complain? Then there are clerks that have no clerkships, and are waiting, and waiting, and waiting for a vacancy-waiting patiently for a chanc

REPEAT

etreat. The coincidence between my own experience and that here set down by the late Mr. Benton is so rema

mbled. I cannot tell who is losing in games that are being played. She admonished me, too, against liquor-drinking, and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whatever usefulness I may have attained through life, I att

grandmother's asking me not to use tobacco, good old soul! She said, "You're at it again, are you, you whelp? Now don't ever let me catch you chewing tobacco befor

ut up those wicked cards this minute!-two pair and a j

t a "cold deck" in my pocket. I cannot even tell who is goin

bstinence. That I have adhered to it and enjoyed the beneficent effects of it through all time

AS A C

ou see by his countenance that you are on the wrong track, ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of a whaler. I became personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and ninety-six missionaries. The captains and minister

et me in the suburb

ence. Preach in the stone

t. I'm not

captain. I trust you had a

you take me for?

ousehold troops, no doubt? Minister of the Interior, likely? Secretary

connected in any way

the mischief are you? and how the mischief did you

ge-an unassuming stranger-l

ul to be true, alas! I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest countenance-those oblique, ingenuous eyes-that massive head, incapable of-of

reature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I shed a few tears on him

VIEW WITH A

n about

was in, and so he ordered three of those abominations. Hingston was present. I said I would rather not drink a whisky cocktail. I said it would go right to my head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless tangle in ten minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But Artemus gently insisted, and I drank th

then assumed a look of superhuman earnestness, a

ich contains the silver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along the ground, and sticks up like a curb stone. Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred-say you go down on it with a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call 'incline' maybe you go down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't go down but two hundred-anyway, you go down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when the casings

d to

sky cocktail has done the business for me

n I sai

ind, would you-would you sa

ry unfamiliar with the subject, and perhap

e. But I will-no, I do understand for that matter; but I would get the hang of it

what I was af

ve than ever, and emphasized each particular

e ledge, and others along the length of it, where the sulphurets-I believe they call them sulphurets, though why they should, considering that, so far as I can see, the main dependence of a miner does not so lie, as some suppose, but in which it cannot be successfully maintained, wherein the same should not continue, while

you perfectly well, but you see that treacherous whisky cocktail has got into my head,

the fault was my own, no doubt-thou

as the sun to anybody but an abject idiot; but it's

hat. I'll begin it a

use I tell you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe

p tally of each point enumerated; and I, leaning forward with painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.] "You know the vein, the ledge, the thing that contains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between all other forces, whether of present

ain't any use to try-I can't understand anything. The p

ad solemnity and was laughing also. Then I saw that I had been sold-that I had been made a victim of a swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that didn't mean anything under the s

LISM IN

n about

hour, perhaps, and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining. When he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately began to ask questions about various public men, and about Congressional affairs; and I saw very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was per

that for me, I'll neve

ed upon a happy memory, I thought. Then his face settled int

-a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its events tra

adventure, speaking sometimes with animation, sometimes

NGER'S N

l told. There were no ladies and no children. We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant acquaintanceships were soon formed. The journey ba

the level desert, driving the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves of a stormy sea. The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by the diminished speed of the train, that the engine was plowing through it with steadily increasing difficulty. Indeed, it almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of gr

obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards-anything, everything t

elpless. We entered the car wearied with labor, and very sorrowful. We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed our situation. We had no provisions whatever-in this lay our chief distress. We could not freeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender. This was our only comfort. The discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening de

en the rising and falling of the blast; the lamps grew dim; and the majority of the castaways settled them

ne after another, and each in turn pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and glanced out of the windows upon the cheerless prospect. It was cheer less, indeed!-not a livin

aying little, thinking much. Anothe

watching for succor that could not come. A night of restless slumber, fil

oked out at every eye. There was in it a sign of awful import-the foreshadowing of a something that

ing up in every heart was ready to leap from every lip at last! Nature had been taxed to the utmost-she must yield. RICHARD H. GASTON of Minnesota, tall, cadaverous, and pale, rose u

e time is at hand! We must determine which o

ose and said: 'Gentlemen-I nominate

ana said: 'I nominate Mr.

: 'I nominate Mr. Samue

decline in favor of Mr. John A. V

o objection, the gentleman'

e was rejected. The resignations of Messrs. Sawyer and B

the nominations now close, and that the

and unbecoming. I must beg to move that they be dropped at once, and that we elect a chairman of the meet

thout food. Every moment we lose in idle discussion increases our distress. I am satisfied with the nominations that have been made-every gentlem

ver one day under the rules, thus bringing about the ver

ng you; I have not sought the distinction that ha

(interrupting): 'I move

, and under it Mr. Gaston was chosen chairman, Mr. Blake, secretary, Messrs. Holcomb, Dyer, and Baldwin

vel the meeting reassembled, and the committee reported in favor of Messrs. George Ferguson of Kentu

e least reflection upon the high character and standing of the gentleman from Louisiana-far from it. I respect and esteem him as much as any gentleman here present possibly can; but none of us can be blind to the fact that he has lost more flesh during the week that we have lai

llow the integrity of the committee to be questioned save by the regular course

a frontier life have rendered Mr. Davis tough; but, gentlemen, is this a time to cavil at toughness? Is this a time to be fastidious concerning trifles? Is this a time to dispute about matt

us with shadows? if he would mock our suffering with an Oregonian specter? I ask him if he can look upon the anxious faces around him, if he can gaze into our sad eyes, if he can listen to the beating of our expectant hearts, and still thrust this famine-stricken fraud upon

hen began. Five ballots were held without a choice. On the sixth, Mr. Harris was elected, all voting for him but himself. It was t

up the remaining candidates, and go into a

ize. The President gave the casting vote for the latter, Mr. Messick. This decision created considerable dissatisfaction among the friends of Mr. Ferguson, the

ussion of their grievance for a long time, and then, when they would have taken it up aga

at I know was the cheeriest hour of my eventful life. The winds howled, and blew the snow wildly about our prison house, but they were powerless to distress us any more. I liked Harris. He might have been better done, perhaps, but I am free to say that no man ever agreed with me better than Harris, or afforded me so large a degree of satisfaction. Messick was very well, thou

an to tell

was a fraud, there is no question about it-old, scraggy, tough, nobody can picture the reality. I finally said, gentlemen, you can do as you like, but I will wait for another election. And Grimes of Illinois said, 'Gentlemen, I will wait also. When you elect a man that has something to recommend him, I shall be glad to join you again.' It soon became evident that there was general dissatisfaction with Davis of Oregon, and so, to preserve the good will that had prevailed so pleasantly since we had had Harris, an election was called, and the resul

ssed relief did

oice, and there never was a better, I am willing to testify; but John Murphy came ho

ict

s my stopping-place, sir; I must bid you goodby. Any time that you can make it convenient to tarry a day or two with me, I shall be glad to have you.

l his gentleness of manner and his soft voice, I shuddered whenever he turned his hungry eye upon me; and when I heard that I

statement so stamped with the earnestness of truth as his; but its dreadful details overpowered me, and

e months afterward. He is all right now, only he is a monomaniac, and when he gets on that old subject he never stops till he has eat up that whole car-load of people he talks about. He would have finished the crowd by this time, only he had to get out here. He has got their

en listening to the harmless vagaries of a madman instea

F JULIUS CAES

n about

blished; taken from the Roman "Daily Evening Fas

ess, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar was killed-reporting on an evening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this most magn

has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate the following able account of

re of a city where human life is held so cheaply and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens-a man whose nam

y constables were elected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even been able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown was offered to that g

, hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according to the program. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, we l

At this moment Artexnidorus stepped up and passed the time of day, and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also said something about an "humble suit" which he wanted read. Artexnidorus begged that attention might be paid to his first, because it was of personal consequence to Caesar. The latter replied that what concerned himself should be read last,

obby Boy of the Third Ward"), a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when Cassius asked "What enterprise?" he only closed his left eye temporarily and said with simulated indifference, "Fare

g on around him. Billy Trebonius got into conversation with the people's friend and Caesar's-Mark Antony-and under some pretense or other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Caesar. Then Metellus Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, first B

e the Senate was in an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion toward the shelter of the committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting "Po-lice! Po-lice!" in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all great Caesar stood with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his

as found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of the

ed it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were making speeches over it and raising such a row among the p

DOW'S

The boys all liked him, and when a wound by and by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy work for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made

suffering so again. Well, at last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, telegraphed to Mrs. Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent home, when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a shallow hol

e dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I wa

aid there was not a

PTURAL P

n about

oral-religious show-a sort of scriptural panorama-and he hired a wooden-headed old s

ght the piece you happened to be playing was a little rough on the proprieties, so to speak-didn't seem to jibe with the general gait of the picture

dn't noticed, but it might be; he ha

cture was reeled out he was to fit it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audience to get the idea of the

trong interest in Bible matters, and the balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers-they always come ou

once or twice to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtain commenced to grind out the panorama. The showman bala

or, suffering youth-so worn and weary with his long march; note also the ecstasy beaming from the uplifted countenance of the aged father, and the joy that sparkles in the eyes of the excite

dy, and when the second spe

all get b

y comes ma

n couldn't say a word; he looked at the pianist sharp, but he was

the showman drummed up his

and His disciples upon the Sea of Galilee. How grand, how awe-inspiring are the reflections which the subject invokes! What sublimity of faith

ing, 'Oh, how lovely, how beautiful!' a

on the o

on the ro

or two old deacons got up and went out. The showman grated his teeth, and cursed the piano man to

gger at it, anyway, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty

d tenderness of expression has he thrown into it that I have known peculiarly sensitive persons to be even affected to tears by looking at it. Observe the half-confused, half-inquiring look upon the countena

opinion in the case the innocen

up, Willi

along w

t up in a huff to go, and everybody

d grabbed the orchestra a

nd get your money, and cut your stick-vamose the ranch! Ladies and gentlemen, circ

NG A

en abo

he sole object of this article. If it prove the means of restoring to health one solitary sufferer among my race, of lighting up once more the fire of hope and joy in his faded eyes, of bringing back to his

e suggestions I am about to make, out of fear that I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself t

t and taking your boots down off the mantelpiece, that there are those who think about you and care for you, is easily obtained. And I cared nothing for the loss of my happiness, because, not being a poet, it could not be possible that melancholy would abide with me long. But to lose a good constitution and a better trunk were se

iend advised me to get up and take a cold shower-bath. I did that also. Within the hour, another friend assured me that it was policy to "feed

ned his restaurant that morning; he waited near me in respectful silence until I had finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if

of salt-water, taken warm, would come as near curing a cold as anything in the world. I hardly thought I had

inst following such portions of it as proved inefficient with me, and acting upon this conviction, I warn them against warm salt-water. It may be a good enough remedy, but I think it is

y custom in the early stages of my cold, until I came across a lady who had just arrived from over the plains, and who said she had lived in a part of the country where doctors were scarce, a

align influence my brain conceived miracles of meanness, but my hands were too feeble to execute them; at that time, had it not been that my strength had surrendered to a succession of assaults from infallible remedies for my cold, I am satisfied that I would have tried to rob the graveyard. Like most ot

below my natural tone; I could only compass my regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state

and molasses; I took that also. Then gin and onions; I added the onions, and took all three.

in the Pioneer coach, and my friend took all his baggage with him, consisting of two excellent silk handkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of his grandmother. We sailed and hunted and

, notwithstanding I had no idea what sort of arrangement it was. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty. My breast and back w

rt with sudden violence, and gasp for breath just as men do in the death-agony. It froz

g drowned. He floundered around, though, and finally rose up out of the water considerably strangled and furiously angry, and started ashore at once, spouting w

asons best known to herself, don't see you when she looks at you, and don't kn

ve that would have cured me effectually, if it had not been for young Wilson. When I went to bed, I put my mustard plaster-which was a very gorgeous on

st medicines that were ever concocted. They would have cured me, but I had to go back to Virginia City, where, notwithstand

me to drink a quart of whisky every twenty-four hours, and a friend up-town recommended precisely t

f consumptive patients the variegated course of treatment I have lately gon

PLEASURE

of the "Comet Scare"

nd general interest, we feel fully justified in inserting it in our reading-columns. We are co

RTIS

eased the comet for a term of years; and I desire also to solicit the pu

ate-rooms in the tail of the comet (with hot and cold water, gas, looking-glass, parachute, umbrella, etc., in each), and shall construct more if we meet with a sufficiently generous encouragement. We shall have billiard-rooms,

RE OF T

t, but it is deemed best that passengers provide them, and so guard against all contingencies. No dogs will be allowed on board. This rule has been made in deference to the existing state of feeling regarding these animals, and will be strictly adhe

STAL S

0 and even 30,000,000 miles apart will be able to send a message and receive a reply inside of eleven days. Night messages will be half-rate. The whole of t

e have provided a proper number of mortars, siege-guns, and boarding-pikes. History shows that small, isolated commun

BITANTS

wantonly offend any star; but at the same time we shall promptly resent any injury that may be done us, or any insolence offered us, by parties or governments residing in any star in the firmament. Although averse to the shedding of blood, we shall still hold this course rigidly and fearlessly, not only

RCE OF MIS

aglow, are yet morally in darkness. Sunday-schools will be establish

District of Columbia and with the former city government of New York, who may desire to inspect the rings, will be allowed time an

DOG

able for wear in the sun should be provided. Our program has been so arranged that we shall seldom go more than 100,000,000 of miles at a time without stopping at some star. This will necessarily make the stoppages frequent and preser

and personally inspecting the remotest sparks that even the most powerful te

ENDOUS

f telescopic vision, till by comparison the little sparkling vault we used to gaze at on Earth shall seem like a remembered phosphorescent flash of spangles which some tropical voyager's prow stirred into life for a single ins

-CLAS

ir and is now on her first voyage. She is confessedly the fastest on the line. She makes 20,000,000 miles a day, with her present facilities; but, with a picked American crew and good weather, we are confident we can get 40,000,000 out of her. Still, we shall never push her to a dangerous speed, and w

SHACKLE

ng ago to have been destroyed or turned into hail-barges, but with these we ha

on. The entire voyage will be completed, and the passengers landed in New York again, on the 14th of December, 1991. This is, at least, forty years quicker than any other comet can do it in. Nearly all the back-pay members contemplate making the round trip with us in case their constituents

B.-Passengers by paying double fare will be entitled to a share in all the new stars, suns, moons, comets, m

BULLETI

d that we are going straight to-some hot places-and are open to terms. To other parties our enterprise

HER PART

e I do not take charge of the comet until she is under way. It is necessary, at

K T

G FOR

n about

wspapers that if ever they had known what it was to bear a good name, that time had gone by. It was plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a

spapers-look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and th

sleep a single moment that night.

ooking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across thi

r witnesses in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch, their only sta

heard of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I was crazed and help

e observed, is suggestively silen

paper never referred to me in any other w

he Gazette,

all valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his "trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to give him a fri

tely malicious than that? For I

ustomarily spoke of me as,

ould lift a desired blanket which he had some idea migh

foundation in fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to to achieve political success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an

urged in the front way, breaking furniture and windows in their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they could carry when they went. And

al above quoted from always referred to m

le that attracted my att

orth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into

name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three long years had

bbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain" in the next issue of that journal without a pang-notwithstan

getting to be an important part of m

n you kiked of your pre

. P

th

ns to anybody but me. You better trot out a few dots,

DY

d continue them till the reade

me of wholesale bribery, and the leading Democratic p

names: "Twain the Filthy Corruptionis

me that the editors and leaders of my party said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any longer.

s day he stands forever convicted. Look upon your candidate, Independents! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body-Snatcher! Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens! your Filthy Corruptionist! your Loaths

, because it obstructed the view from my house. This threw me into a sort of panic. Then came the charge of poisoning my uncle to get his property, with an imperative demand that the grave should be opened. This drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was accused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to prepare the food for t

of a Gubernatorial campaign in the state of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from t

, M.T., B.S., D.T

ERIOUS

rd of his branch of business before, but I was very glad to see him all the same. Would he sit down? He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, and yet I felt that people who have arri

appear ignorant, but I had hoped he

im "How was trade?"

f we liked his house as well as any

confine ourselves to it-said he never saw anybody who would go o

g that natural expression of villainy whic

eared to melt down and run together, conversationally speakin

ind out all about his business in spite of his obscure answers-and I was determined I would have it out of him without his suspecting what I was at. I meant to trap him with a deep, deep ruse. I would tell him all about my own business, and he would nat

what I made lecturing thi

About two thousand dollars, maybe? But no; no, sir, I know y

last spring and this winter were fourteen thousand sev

zing. I will make a note of it. A

Warwhoop for four months-about-about-well, what should

nother ocean of affluence. Eight thousand! I'll make a note of it. Why man

k me in the eye. During the last four months and a half, saying nothing of sales before that, but just simply during the four months and a half, we've sold ninety-fi

wo hundred. Total, say-well, upon my word, the grand total is about tw

way. Two hundred and fourteen thousand, cash, is

s advertisement; and that I would find out all about his business in it; and that he would be happy to have my custom-would, in fact, be proud to have the custom of a man of such prodigious income; and that he used to think there were several wealthy men in the city, but when they came to trade with him he disc

simple-hearted stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a few

sement. I studied it attentively for four m

int! Let Marie turn

hired an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse that stranger, a

uestions, I may remark, gotten up with such marvelous ingenuity that the oldest man in the world couldn't understand what the most of them were driving at-questions, too, that were calculated to make a man report about fo

past year, from any trade, business

information as to whether I had committed any burglary or highway robbery, or by any arson or other secret source of

tranger had seduced me into declaring an income of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. By law, one thousand dollars of this was exempt from income tax-the only relief

this place, that

thing that ever was. He did it simply by deftly manipulating the bill of "DEDUCTIONS." He set down my "State, national, and municipal taxes" at so much; my "losses by shipwreck; fire, etc.," at so much; my "losses on sales of real estate"-on "live stock sold"-on "payments for rent of homestead"-on "repairs, improvements, interest"-on "previously taxed salary as an

. What you want to do is to go and swear this document

t of his vest pocket and vanished with it, and I would wager anything that if my strang

work up the 'deductions' after th

nder the head of 'Deductions' I should be beggared every year to suppor

otlessness-and so I bowed to his example. I went down to the revenue office, and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood up and swore to lie afte

d, and courted men in America do every year. And so I don't care. I am not ashamed. I shall simply, for t