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fic; but it did'nt make no difference about that when it came down to what a man's rights was-and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic boneyard and started to stake out town lots in it, he went for 'em, and he cleaned 'em too! I was there, pard, and I seen it myself."

"That was very well, indeed—at least the impulse was— whether the act was entirely defeasible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a higher power?"

More reflection.

"I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once more, and say it slow?"

"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather, had he ever been connected with any organization sequestered from secular concerns and devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?"

"All down but nine-set 'em up on the other alley, pard." "What did I understand you to say?”

"Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your left, I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don't seem to have any luck. Let's have a new deal."

"How? Begin again?"

"That's it."

"Very well. Was he a good man, and-"

“There—I see that; don't put up another chip till I look

Pard, it ain't no name ever-pard, you would

at my hand. A good man says you? for it. He was the best man that have doted on that man. He could lam any galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last election before it got a start; and everybody said that he was the only man that could have done it. He waltzed in with a trumpet in one hand and a spanner in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice befo:3 anybody had a chance to strike a blow. He was always fo peace, and he would have peace—he could not stand disturb ances. Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you could chip in something like that anò

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do him justice. Here once when the Micks got to throwing stones through the Methodist Sunday-school windows, Buck Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon, and took a couple of six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sundayschool. Says he, 'No Irish need apply.' And they did'nt. He was the bulliest man in the mountains, pard; he could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold more tanglefoot whiskey without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties. Put that in, pard; it'll please the boys more than anything you could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother."

"Never shook his mother?"

"That's it-any of the boys will tell you so." "Well, but why should he shake her?"

"That's what I say-but some people does." "Not people of any repute?"

"Well, some that averages pretty so-so."

"In my opinion, a man that would offer personal violence to his mother, ought to-"

"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the string. What I was a-drivin' at was that he never throwed off on his mother-don't you see? No indeedy! He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the time; and when she was down with the small-pox, I'm cuss'd if he did'nt set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying it, but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. You've treated me like a gentleman, and I ain't the man to hurt your feelings intentional. I think you're white. I think you're a square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a last year's corpse! Put it there!"

[Another fraternal handshake—and exit.]

The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags drooping at half-mast, the long plodding procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, carriages of ofGcials and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted mul

titudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and for years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw's funeral.

From "Roughing It."

ONLY SIXTEEN.

"When last seen, he was considerably intoxicated, in the highway."

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Only sixteen so the papers say,
Yet there on the cold, stony ground he lay;
"Tis the same sad story we hear every day-
He came to his death in the public highway.
Full of promise, talent, and pride,

Yet the rum fiend conquered him—so he died.
Did not the angels weep over the scene?
For he died a drunkard-and only sixteen,―
Only sixteen.

Oh! it were sad he must die all alone;
That of all his friends, not even one
Was there to list to his last faint moan,
Or point the suffering soul to the throne
Of grace. If, perchance, God's only Son
Would say, "Whosoever will may come➡"
But we hasten to draw a veil over the scene,
With his God we leave him--only sixteen,—
Only sixteen.

Rumseller, come view the work you have wrought!
Witness the suffering and pain you have brought
To the poor boy's friends. They loved him well,
And yet you dared the vile beverage to sell
That beclouded his brain, his reason dethroned,
And left him to die out there all alone.
What if 'twere your son instead of another?
What if your wife were that poor boy's mother,-
And he only sixteen?

Ye free-holders who signed the petition to grant
The license to sell, do you think you will want
That record to meet in the last great day,
When heaven and earth shall have passed away,

When the elements, melting with fervent heat,
Shall proclaim the triumph of RIGHT Complete?
Will you wish to have his blood on your hands
When before the great throne you each shall stand,―
And he only sixteen?

Christian men! rouse ye to stand for the right,

To action and duty; into the light

Come with your banners, inscribed "Death to rum!" Let your conscience speak. Listen, then, come; Strike killing blows; hew to the line;

Make it a felony even to sign

A petition to license; you would do it I ween,
If that were your son, and he only sixteen,
Only sixteen.

THE YEAR THAT IS TO COME.

FRANCES DAna Gage.

What are we going to do,dear friends,
In the year that is to come,

To baffle that fearful fiend of death
Whose messenger is rum?

Shall we fold our hands and bid him pass,

As he has passed heretofore,

Leaving his deadly-poisoned draught

At every unbarred door?

What are we going to do,dear friends?
Still wait for crime and pain,

Then bind the bruises, and heal the wound,
And soothe the woe again?

Let the fiend still torture the weary wife,

Still poison the coming child,

Still break the suffering mother's heart,

Still drive the sister wild?

Still bring to the grave the gray-haired sire,

Still martyr the brave young sou!,

Till the waters of death, like a burning stream,
O'er the whole great nation roll,

And poverty take the place of wealth,

And sin and crime and shame

Drag down to the very depths of hell

The highest and proudest name?

Is this our mission on earth, dear friends,
In the years that are to come?
If not, let us rouse and do our work
Against this spirit of rum.

There is not a soul so poor and weak,
In all this goodly land,

But against this evil a word may speak,
And lift a warning hand;

And lift a warning hand, dear friends,
With a cry for her home and hearth,
Adding voice to voice, till the sound shall sweep,
Like rum's death-knell, o'er the earth,-

And the weak and wavering shall hear,
And the faint grow brave and strong,

And the true, and good, and great, and wise
Join hands to right this wrong,—

Till a barrier of bold and loving hearts,

So deep and broad, is found,

That no spirit of rum can overleap,
Pass through, or go around.

Then the spirit of rum shall surely die;
For its food is human lives,

And only on hourly sacrifice

The demon lives and thrives.

And can we not do this, dear friends,
In the years that are to come?

Let each one work to save and keep
Her loved ones and her home;

Then the ransomed soul shall send to heaven

A song without alloy,

And "the morning stars together sing,

And God's sons shout for joy."

THE REFORM WILL GO ON.

Intemperance is not a mere local affair, but strikes at the very vitals of the nation. The liquor traffic is the fruitful source of woe, crime, misery, taxation, pauperism, and death.

Bear me witness if I exaggerate when I say that the country is rapidly becoming one vast grog-shop, to which half a million of its youth are yearly introduced, and over whose thresh

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