ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

he grew pale; slipped from his chair; groaned; was | ter? If this were the place for it, I might drop a dead! The Abbé was shocked; lifted the head of hint here, moreover, about the copy-right affair, his poor friend; felt his pulse; saw that it was which seems now to be swallowed up in Cuba and over; rushed into the outer room, exclaiming, 'Les in Russia. Query: Why not pass it, and so pubartichauts-tous à l'huile !' 'Let all the artichokes belish nothing but what is worth paying for? Cheap served with oil!' things are always dear in the end.

"It is of course not the sort of story to be thoroughly vouched for, but yet it is a good story, and a characteristic story. Another one, in the same fashion, I think can be fully authenticated. I may say indeed that I have myself had the honor of seeing the principal party, and a very pretty woman she is.

"Her name is Laura, and she had a pretty friend who shared her phaeton nearly every day, in the pleasant drives through the Bois de Boulogne. On a certain occasion, not very far back, there was to be an extraordinary performance at the Grand Opera; tickets were in great demand, and stalls were hardly to be found for favor or money. The friend of Laura had, however, by some special manœuvre, secured a billet for a first circle stall. She rode with Laura upon the evening of the grand performance, wearing the pink billet stuck boastingly in her corsage.

"They had accomplished half the circuit of the Bois de Boulogne, when Laura was shocked at the sight of a deadly pallor which overspread the countenance of her friend. She spoke to her, but the friend did not reply. There was no doubting the urgency of the case; the friend had been threatened with a disease of the heart; the blow had come; she was dying. Laura snatched the stall ticket from the corsage of her expiring friend, drove back to her lodgings, and was at the play in the evening! "And this is the philosophic way in which Parisians deal with life and with death.

"The other day-a week is not gone since the event-a pretty girl threw herself into the Seine. There was nothing unusual in seeing a cast-away creature floating on the turbid, spring flow of the Paris river. But the girl in question was very beautiful and young. Her hair flowed in ringlets on the yellow water, and her dress showed that she had lived in the enjoyment of wealth. About her neck was a blue ribbon, and to the ribbon was attached a paper carefully guarded against all harm from the wet, and reading somewhat in this way: You can not find me out. I live far away from the city; I am miserable, and therefore I wish to die. My mother died when I was young-would to God she had lived! My father married again; and though he loved me, my second mother did not; and when she came to have children of her own, I was no more than a servant in the house, where I was before so happy. And now my father is turned against me; what is there left now to live for?

[ocr errors]

"My father, and this other mother he has given me, will find my story in the papers, and they will read this last farewell of mine. He will relent, I know he will, and be sorry he could not say adieu to the child he once loved, or save her from so dreadful fate. But it is too late now. I hope he may be happy. It is all I have to say; and may God have mercy on me!'

"Does not this sort of philosophy grow very naturally out of the reading of Balzac, and Eugene Sue, and Dumas? Let your Editor of the serious part tell us; and tell us further, if the cheap reissue of such literature will not by-and-by bring sentimental suicides to the East River docks, who will think-like this poor girl-they commit great acts of heroism in jumping into deep and dirty wa

"AND while I am in this half-sermon way of talk about French morals and philosophy, pray let me ask you, have you seen M. Veron's last volume of his Bourgeois Life? You know who M. Veron is-late proprietor of the Constitutionnel, and former manager of the French opera-a man who has dined with princes and coquetted with Duchesses; who has handled his hundreds of thousands, and been closeted with political strategists; a man of an easy, gossiping pen, and a very dining-out way of chit-chat a man who had reputation for shrewdness, and who only sold out his paper when he was growing in bad odor with Louis Napoleon, and was determined to devote himself thereafter to gossip and filets. Well, this last volume of his descends to discussion about the habits and natural history of opera-girls, both dancing and singing. I think he inclines, on the score of morals, to the former; for the reason that they do not desert their children when they have them. Indeed, it is quite curious to see how the old gentleman discusses the domestic habits of these forlorn creatures; clothing them in very bright-colored hues (as if he thought of assuming again operatic direction); praising their good parts; speaking kindly of their little weaknesses; regretting cavalierly the informality of their marriages; but never telling us a word of the old age of the wretched creatures whom he treats so coquettishly with his pen. Indeed, it is a subject not apt to be treated on by feuilletonists, or Parisian writers of any stamp. Indeed it would be a queer subject; I fling it out as a bait on your side of the water-the old age of opera-girls and grisettes!

"Do they ever reach age? Or what becomes of them all? Did a man ever see a gray-haired grisette? Will the suicides tell us any thing of it, or the stone tables of the Dead House?

"AMONG other matters of gossip, let me set down this. A pretty woman, young, and only three years a wife, has latterly set a certain quarter of the town agog by deserting her husband; and, after being ferreted out of a suburban convent, she has stoutly declared she will never go back to him, and an action for divorce is brought, at trial of which the quidnuncs may find a world of fat gossip.

"The truth is, the wife is young, and has just now inherited a great fortune from her father. The husband is old and titled. He has fulfilled his part of the marriage-bargain, in giving his title; she wishes to enjoy the title without giving him the money. It is to be sure a very nice case; and sug. gests another one not very unlike, which is nearer to a ripening.

"The fat wife of a pursy broker found herself not long ago a widow, with one daughter, and a vast fortune. The broker had been a sensible man in his way, and never sought for other connections than were fitting and agreeable to his tastes; he had hoped to marry his daughter some day to an honest bourgeois, who would be kind, and take good care of her fortune.

The widow, however (who had the misfortune to inherit a more sonorous family name than belonged to her bourgeois husband), was ambitious. She

formed grand designs for her daughter, and took | self, in confidence, to her former agent.

means to carry them into effect. The girl was pretty; her wealth was known; and there are always a plenty of broken-down old Counts hanging round the dark streets of the Faubourg St. Germain, who are quite willing to bargain their noblesse for the possession of youth, beauty, and money. They ean hardly be thought to lose much by the bargain. Indeed, it is said that such old gentlemen have a very keen scent for American heiresses. I can not say justly whether this be so or not.

"However, the daughter of our broker's widow found an eligible admirer in a certain Count Lwho, though not absolutely reduced, was still in a position that eminently needed the bolstering capacity of the dowry of the pretty daughter of the dead broker.

"The mamma was satisfied with the aristocratic resonance of the Count's name, and with a little coyly managed difficulty gave her consent to his proposals of marriage.

"But the Count L

[ocr errors]

"In short, the affair was accomplished, and Madame the widow of the broker could speak proudly of her daughter, the Countess L a very pretty thing to be sure. was a man of the world and of mode. He took occasion to say to the mother-in-law, in a quiet way, shortly after the ceremony: My dear Madame, we shall be very happy to see you here on occasion in a private way; the Countess will be charmed to take you up occasionally on a drive; but you will perceive, Madame, that when we have society it would be excessively awkward to announce you.' And the Count appealed to the good sense of his mother-in-law, insisting strongly upon the parvenu character of the name she bore. The old lady, indeed, was not insensible to the difficulties which her husband's name threw in her way: she relieved herself by dropping it altogether, and, assuming her own family-name, ventured the prefix of Countess. With this change, she appealed boldly to the generosity of her son-in-law. The son-in-law, never forgetting that a million or two of inheritance was in prospect from the worthy dame, overlooked the informality of the old lady's action, and consented that, as a Countess, she should enjoy free entrée of his salon. "A night of entertainment arrived, and the old lady made her appearance in the antechamber in the richest brocades of the day. It happened that a certain Duchess arrived at precisely the same hour with her. The two doors of the salon were opened, and the Duchess being announced, entered with a magnificent rustle of silk and of feathers. The doors were closed after her; a single one was then opened, and the Countess (the broker's wife) was announced. The poor lady was excessively annoyed by the distinction made between herself and the Duchess in the matter of the doors. She made an angry appeal to her son-in-law, and received this very satisfactory explanation:

"My dear Madame, among your people of the Bourse, money is every thing; but with us, we keep alive certain distinctions of rank; thus, the double doors of the salon are thrown open for Princesses and Duchesses, while Countesses and Baronesses enter by a single one. Pray, my dear Madame, be content with a single door.'

"But the widow of the broker was ambitious; she had three millions: it is a large sum any where, especially so in the Faubourg St. Germain. The old lady had already some experience in the management of marriage schemes. She addressed her

Three

millions and a fat widow were in the market; nothing but a dukedom would secure the prize. The agent was active and zealous, for the percentage on such arrangements is always large.

"An old Duke in the country presently came to his knowledge, who had expended the greater part of his estate in unfortunate bets at Chantilly. Negotiations were opened; the Duke declared that, with three millions, he would accept any woman; he wanted no description; it was quite useless.

"In this way the affair was arranged in the most harmonious manner, the reversion of the widow's estate lying in the husband's family.

"When the Count L- gave his next entertainment (for the matter had been quietly managed), the widow-bride was invited under the old false title of Countess. She gave, however, her true address to the footman of the antechamber; and, with a magnificent entry through the double doors, was announced as the Duchess of Blank, hanging on the arm of the Blank old Duke.

"The Count L- felt a pang; not for any flaw in the forms, but in the thought that the opening of the double doors had cost him three millions of francs!

"I ought to mention, perhaps, that the parties to this story are not American.

"AND now I will clinch this story with another, which, if it be true, will more than take away the satiric edge from the last. I must freely admit, however, that it has not one half of the same air of vraisemblance, and seems altogether too romantic to be true.

"This is the way it begins: A great many of the poor Germans who come from Bavaria and the Rhenish provinces, to find a new home in the far away prairies by Wisconsin, pass through Paris. They arrive by the railway from Strasbourg, and usually traverse the city on foot, to reach the station of the Havre Railway, which is in an opposite quarter of the city. Almost all this distance they traverse upon the most thronged portion of the Boulevard-passing down from the Porte St. Martin as far oftentimes as the Place de la Madaleine. It is an interesting, and yet a melancholy sight, to see the poor outcasts from their own German land, in all the quaint fashions of frock and head-dress, which have outlasted centuries, trooping along in the middle of the gayest scenes of Paris-exiled forever from one home, and wholly uncertain where the future one will be.

"Of course, never before in their lives have they seen such beautiful sights as meet their eye upon the Paris streets; and therefore they linger along the walks, prying eagerly into shop-windows-turning to gaze at a passing equipage-staring in wonderment at the brocaded ladies.

"Not long ago there lingered a group of this kind at the showy shop-front of the Messrs. Goupil and Vibert-looking eagerly in at the pictures of Russian soldiers, of English horses, and Swiss mountains, which always keep a crowd at the door. Among the lookers-on in this German group was a young girl from Alsatia, clad in the picturesque costume of her country, and more intent than any upon the pictures of wide-apart scenes, which hung within the shopman's window. Indeed so intent was she that she did not notice the leave of her companions, but remained rapt in the contemplation of a lit. tle Swiss-valley view, which recalled to her very fondly the land she had left behind her forever.

46

come Countess of-no matter what. But the story is a pretty one; is it not?

"I wish with all my heart it were true.

'Recovering herself presently, she looked around | for her companions: up and down the street she looked vainly. She could not tell which way she had come; her head was turned by the busy crowd around her. She ran fast, hoping to overtake them; but, by a natural enough error, she ran in the wrong direction. On and on she flew, growing nervously excited as she went, until her eye caught sight of a group of people down a side-street, whom she thought she recognized as her own. She ran swift-Or is your curiosity to know what the Prince Jerome ly toward them, only to be thoroughly frightened by her mistake. Her head was completely turned. She appealed loudly to the passers-by. She forgot that not one could comprehend her Alsatian dialect. Some smiled at her; others, thinking her a beggar, offered her money; still others met her wild look with insulting gestures.

"From these she turned and ran madly away. The train her party was to take left at five; the ship was to leave Havre the following day. Utterly fatigued and disheartened, the poor girl presently heard a clock strike five. She could sustain herself no longer, but fell with a groan upon the pavement. A crowd immediately gathered around. A lady who was passing (I would give her name if I knew it) ordered her carriage to be stopped, and interested herself in inquiries about the poor stranger; no person could tell any thing of her.

"WELL-what next? Are you tired of gossip? While speaking of gossip, I feel a little curious to know if the American branch of the Bonapartes, by reason of their citizenship and quietude at home, are out of the reach of print-talk? How seems it to you? has made of them so great as to overbear all your notions of delicacy? It is odd, by-the-by, how curiosity, or interest, or what not, will at times overrun and drown all common notions which we live by, and pin our faith to ordinarily. I was struck by it the other day, in taking up a late (to me) copy of that staid old journal, the Evening Post-immensely conservative and proper, as we all know. Well, what should I see in the Evening Post but a long programme of an approaching marriage (it did not say in high life, but I presume conveyed the idea by ellision), with as many names of bridesmaids and groomsmen as ever appeared in a Saratoga letter of the Herald! I must confess that I rubbed my eyes. It seemed to me droll. That the elegant old conservator of proprieties-the highly respectable Evening Post, should chronicle such a matter, seemed to me most extraordinary. Just the journal (I had thought) to forbear mention of names in speaking even of the approaching marriage of the Emperor of France, or of the young Princess of England; just the one to squat upon its stateliness in the matter of kingdoms, and to soar always in an elegant cloudregion of high conservatism.

"The lady, attracted by her appearance, or directed by the impulses of a naturally sympathetic nature, ordered her to be placed in her carriage, and drove with her to her own home. The best medical advice was obtained, and an interpreter was secured to make known the wishes of the poor girl. But it was too late now to follow her party, if she "I come back now to my moutons. The Amerihad chosen. A fever, moreover, had seized upon can Bonapartes are living, like any and all good the poor child, and kept her fast in the wilds of a American citizens, at a Paris hotel. You will delirium for weeks. Then she raved in her Alsa- agree with me that they show their good sense in tian tongue about the wooded hills and the sweet this, and have done wisely (supposing them unwillbrooks of her green Alsatia-lost to her forever!ing to fling off their other-side citizenship), to deOr, with a change in her wild flights of fancy, cline the Prince's invitation to take quarters at his she seemed to be following down the gay Paris palace. streets her lost companions; they sweeping out of reach, and out of sight before, and she crying out despairingly for them to stop one little mo

ment.

"But the fever passed; health came to the poor girl again; and she told her story intelligibly to the kind lady who had befriended her. The father and the mother were both dead; it was with kind kinspeople that she was going beyond the water to find a home. She might go now, and find them if she would; but the lady who had cared for her through that long and dreary illness, when visions of home floated dreamily over her bed, was now dearer to her than the kinspeople. She wished to stay and serve her and the lady, not slackening her kindnesses, would make no servant of her; but employed for her the best teachers of Paris, and grafted on her graceful Alsatian songs the finish of the metropolitan schools.

"The fair-faced stranger, so bright, so rich in color, so coquette with her own native graces, drew the attention and the remark of all the evening promenaders in the Bois de Boulogne. Her name received such addition as made her pass for the young kinswoman of her kind benefactress, and she treated her always as a child. People knew that a large dowery would belong to the fair Alsatian stranger; and whether it was this or her own graces I can not tell (nobody ever can), she was wooed by a brave suitor, who succeeded in his suit, and in a week to-day (I write on Thursday) she is to be

"They have dined with him, to be sure, from day to day; and a crowd of idle ones in the palace-court have gathered in the evening to have a look at the citizens Bonaparte enjoying their cigars upon the palace terrace.

"It would seem, and does seem to many, that a lithe young scion of the Imperial house (albeit there may lie a cross in the grain from the old Imperial divorce) may yet be very available in view of the present circumstances; for the heir-apparent, the Prince Napoleon, is certainly a most heavy-headed man, and has nothing but his striking likeness to his uncle to make him in any way a man of mark. Would it not be a strange play of fate if the next Emperor of France were to be the son of an American lady, and educated at West Point?

"In that event, I suppose we might look forward to the growth of a Baltimore nobility; and I should not be greatly surprised to find every inhabitant of Maryland (even to our old friend H-, of the East-shore) taking on a title!

"Have you noticed Thackeray's quiet hit at an Honorable Major General Poker, of Cincinnati, residing in Paris? It makes a body wince to confess it, but there is not only one, but a great many Major General Pokers in Paris, from the United Statesnot only of the army, but of the navy-not only of the navy, but of the militia-and not only of the militia, but of the New York target-corps!

"Upon my honor I confess to you, that I have been more awed in the presence of the dashing foot

men attached to American carriages than even in that of the Emperor himself.

"I have nothing more to tell you for this month; so, adieu."

THE

Editor's Drawer.

They were grouped around a magnificent black Newfoundland dog, whose head was bound up with an embroidered cambric handkerchief.

No sooner did the little Frenchman catch a glimpse of the Mayor, than he sprang forward with true Gallic demonstrativeness, and made a desperate attempt to embrace him. But as he measured barely five feet one, while His Honor stood full six feet, with a proportionate breadth of beam, the attempt was rather a failure.

HE Dog-days are over, and our canine friends can now walk the streets unmuzzled, without fear of those amateur and professional dog-killers, "Monsieur le Maire!" he exclaimed, as soon as whose eagerness is stimulated by the reward of his feelings would allow him vocal utterance, "you half a dollar offered for their slaughter. The dog-were so very kind, dat I must come and tell you the law is doubtless necessary for human safety, and so should be enforced; but there are few who could avoid sympathizing with the hero of the following true story:

Not many years ago, while His Honor the Mayor of New York was enjoying his morning's newspaper over the matutinal coffee and roll, he was startled by a sharp and angry ring at the door-bell. Being summoned down-stairs, he found a black-bearded and mustached little Frenchman pacing the hall in a state of great excitement.

[ocr errors]

"Monsieur le Maire !" exclaimed the stranger, jumbling together his French and English in the oddest manner, "I am come to you vid un grand mécontentement. Dis morning, very soon, mon beau chien, my beau-tiful dog Nep-tune was my door before, and one of your people, un coquin noir, a black miscreant, come up vid un gros bâton, what you say, one great club, and"-here the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears-" and strike him sur la tête, upon de head, and kill him so dead as can be. Mes pauvres enfants stand by the window and cry. The Madame she come up to see, and fall into une passion hysterique, and den she not know nothing more at all. I come, but de mis-creant is quite gone, or I would murder him. Je vous demande justice. Show me the coquin, and I will him murder vid dis!" drawing from his bosom a ferocious looking pistol.

His Honor tried to soothe the poor fellow, telling him to call at the Mayor's Office at ten o'clock, and justice should be done him. Monsieur, after another grand explosion of tears, went his way, promising to make his appearance at the appointed hour.

The Mayor had barely reached his Office, when the Gaul appeared, not at all pacified during the interval.

"Je vous demande justice encore," he exclaimed. "The Madame est insensible, et mes pauvres enfants are desolées. I would so soon he did kill mon enfant Jean as my beautiful dog Nep-tune. Show me his name, and he will die!" he added, grinning fiercely through his tears.

coquin noir have not murdered quite mon beau chien Nep-tune, and Monsieur le Médecine say he shall not at all die; and I am come vid the Madame et mes enfants pour vous remercier."

He then went on to explain, in mingled French and English, eked out by abundant gesticulations, that shortly after he had reached his home the previous day, the dog had made his appearance at the door, covered with mire and blood, and almost exhausted. It seems that he had been dumped out of the cart into the water, which had revived him; he had swum ashore, and crawled back to his master's house. Upon examination his wounds proved to be severe rather than dangerous; so that this morning, after having enjoyed a good night's rest, there was little, save a sort of languid convalescent expression in his fine eye, as he returned the caresses of the children, and his comical looking headdress, to denote the rough treatment he had undergone.

"OLD JACOB BARKER!"-how many associations his name calls up among our "older inhabitants!" Among the new generation of Wall Street he is comparatively unknown; but there was a time when Jacob made his mark upon the stock-brokers and money-changers of that monetary locality. He now lives and thrives in the "Crescent City." Jacob is as active and buoyant as most men at thirty-five; he can not be said, however, to enjoy a green old age, for there is nothing "green" about him, unless we discover it in the suppleness he displays, so peculiar to youth. An amusing story is related of him, where a gentleman called at his office and denounced, in the most unmeasured manner, certain persons who had swindled him (the gentleman, not Jacob) in some stock transactions. Barker listened to the whole matter with professional zest, and finding that every thing had been done "right," urged the indignant victim not to go on so, but to forget the thing entirely; "for,' said Jacob, consolingly, "if you thrade in stocks, you must call thealing threwdness, or you will constantly be out of themper!"

After a while, and by dint of much sympathizing, the Mayor, who knew that "a soft answer turneth DENTISTRY is now a science; but there are trav away wrath," succeeded in calming the irate Gaul, eling operators "on the frontiers," who set the and persuaded him to forego his meditated ven- teeth on edge without any scientific knowledge geance against the slayer of his canine friend. He whatever. A certain notable of this questionable took his departure more in sorrow than in anger, kind, who was known among the "masses" as a sobbing: "tooth carpenter," was fortunate in receiving an "Mon beau chien Nep-tune! Mon pauvre Nep-order from an old lady for the manufacture and tune! Mes pauvres enfants!"

Next morning at breakfast His Honor was again summoned from his roll and coffee. On going downstairs he beheld an odd spectacle. There was the little Frenchman overflowing with joy; by his side was the Madame, his rosy wife, radiant with smiles, and in the rear were their four children in clean pinafores and broad-brimmed hats with blue ribbons.

placing of an "entire set." He went to work with commendable zeal, and in due time-much to the momentary satisfaction of his patient-lightened up her smile with the "counterfeit presentment" of pearly rows. In a few days, however, matters changed, for one tooth after another dropped from their golden encasements, and were eschewed from the mouth with almost the plentifulness of cherry

stones. The Dentist was sent for, and charged | ficulty keep above the troubled tide of popular fawith unprofessional skill: he stoutly denied any want of merit in his work, and ascribed the mishap to some constitutional peculiarity of his patient. After much speculation, he asked his victim if she had not, in the course of her long life, taken a great deal of calomel? Upon being answered in the affirmative, he gravely told her that this calomel had so entirely entered into her system as to make it impossible even for false teeth to stay in her head; and, with an expression of injured innocence and real professional sagacity, he bowed himself out of the presence of his astonished patron.

vor? The human system being "fearfully and wonderfully made," to keep it in repair has been the study of the wisest minds through all time; and yet the experiences of the sages have very little weight with the multitude of patients. Specific remedies for the complicated ills of humanity are the absurdest things in the world; yet men quickly make princely fortunes by the sale of medicines that are warranted to thread the mazes of our wonderful "temple," and find out and destroy pain, as a weasel after rats does the dark holes and out-ofthe-way places in a decaying building. The stranger who visits Philadelphia finds the most im"WHILE there is life there is hope," is an old pressive "pile" in its fashionable thoroughfare deadage, and it is sometimes curiously illustrated. voted to the manufacture of plasters and tooth-powPersons given up to die are often saved by the su- ders. The most sumptuous palace of our "Fifth perior energy of a nurse who has hope; but many Avenue" was found in the sale of mock sarsaparilkeep off the king of terrors, for a time at least, by la; the finest store structure in our metropolitan their superior determination. Old Major Dash, who city, the most massive granite pile that rears its won his brevet in the war of 1812, was suddenly dark front in Broadway, and frowns over the uptaken down with the cholera. It was at the time of heaving tide of our population, has been paid for its first appearance on this continent, and our phy-out of the surplus wealth acquired by compoundsicians had very little experience. The Major sanking aloes pills. The man who made the "infallirapidly, and a consultation was called. Several ble" corn plaster limped through life, because he doctors, after "putting their heads together," came was so occupied in serving his customers that he had to the conclusion that the patient was fatally sick, no time to apply his remedy to his own pedestals! past recovery. No one, however, would make the The gentleman, who had "the certain remedy for announcement; when the Major, suspecting the bronchial complaints," "pegged out" with the concause, turned to a young doctor present, and said, sumption. The manufacturer of the celebrated "What is the report?" "That you can't live." "Life Pills" died at the premature age of thirty. "Not a chance?" asked the Major with severity. Yet these remedies are popular nevertheless; for "Yes," continued young hopeful, "just one chance so strange and incomprehensible is human nature, in a hundred thousand." "Then, why the that it will pay a premium for being humbugged. don't you work away on that chance?" returned The Galen who calls things by their right names, the Major, with a voice of thunder. The hint was and tries to be honest with his patients, is generally taken, and the invincible soldier was saved. The whistled down the wind, having but little other rewhite hairs and the glistening sword of this old ward for his labor than the approval of a good consoldier waved along the victorious lines of our science; the palaces and the "seven story stores" troops in Mexico; but he at last had to yield to a are the inheritance of the venders of specifics-the foe, if not more courageous, yet more insatiable, very people who, in spite of the proverb, advertise and he now sleeps upon his native banks of the to do more impossible things than make silk purses Hudson. out of sows' ears!

AT a late hour of night, a while since, we were AN eccentric lawyer, named Burgess, many years attracted by the appearance of a shrewish but ago lived in a New England village, and became healthy-looking Irish woman, sitting upon a curb quite famous for his "skeptical notions." Attendstone near the City Hall, and pouring out her de- ing a town meeting, after its adjournment he linnunciations upon the world generally, and the Com- gered among the groups of substantial farmer deamissioners of Immigration particularly. In her arms cons who composed it, and listened to the prevailwas a fine healthy infant of a few months old, and it ing conversation. The bad weather, the fly, the was enough to call forth sympathy even from stonier rot, the drought, and the wet were duly discussed, hearts than ours, to behold the group compelled when some one turned to Burgess, and asked, "How from want to find lodgings upon the "cold ground." comes on your garden?" "I never plant any thing," Upon inquiring of "Bridget" what was the diffi- replied Burgess, with a solemn face; “I am afraid culty, she gave to us an incomprehensible state- even to put a potato in the ground." "It's no wonment about her home on Blackwell's Island, and der," groaned one of the most eminently pious perthe refusal of the Mayor, or some one else, to fur- sons present, "it's no wonder, for a man who disnish her money to get back to that "popular resort,' believes in revealed religion could not expect to winding up as follows: "You see, your honor, the have his labors blessed." "I am not afraid of failState and the corporation have paid for my sup-ing in a reward for my work," replied Burgess; port, and the devil a bit of obligation am I under to "but I am afraid that agricultural labor would make any one for it." We have read a great deal about me profane. If I planted a single potato, what ill-advised and unappreciated charity; but Bridget would be the result? Why, I should get up in the crowded a large number of heavy treatises into one morning, look about and growl-'It's going to rain, paragraph; for all such recipients, individually, and it will ruin my potato;' then I should, in dry would say if they were as honest as Bridget-weather, say-The drought will kill my potato' "the devil a bit of obligation am I under to any

one for it."

WHAT is the reason that "Quackery," as it is termed, thrives and waxes fat, while the "scientific" and the "truthful" struggle on, and with dif

then I should be unhappy, because the 'rot' might destroy my potato: in fact, gentlemen," concluded Burgess, in a solemn manner, "I should be afraid to do any thing that would induce me constantly to distrust Providence." The reproof was keenly felt by many present; and for months afterward, the

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »