H Editor's Drawer. ERE is an item, to begin with, from New Brunswick: "What's the news down town this morning?" asked a gentleman of some judicial distinction, the other day, at the conclusion of the business for which the brilliant barrister had waited on him. "Oh," said the barrister, "there's a great sensation on the street this morning. you hear of it?" Didn't "No. What is it?" asked the judge. "Why, there's a split in the Liberal party." "You don't tell me! Are you sure?" "Undoubtedly, and I know all about it. I'll tell you how it happened: I have left the party." SOME time ago a man came into a Baltimore lawyer's office in a state of great excitement, and asked him to commence proceedings for a divorce. Mr. Dobbin heard him through, and then said: "I think I have something that will exactly suit your case. Sit still, and I will read it to you.” The man remained seated, all ear, supposing he was to listen to Blackstone or Kent, when Mr. Dobbin began to read "Betsey and I are Out." By the time he had ended, the man's eyes were full of tears. "I believe I will go home," he said. And he and his wife have lived happily ever since. THOSE who read Mrs. J. C. R. Dorr's poem, "The Parson's Daughter," in the July number of this Magazine, will be interested in the following poem, by Miss Anna C. Brackett, based on a similar incident during our civil war, published in the Christian Enquirer in 1864: FOR THE SOLDIERS. A call came up from the soldiers' camps, Above all the roar of the heavy guns, It said: "We are fighting for you, for yours; Our days and nights, they are spent for you; And the farmers afar, in the Prairie State, There's my doll, and my hoop, and all my toys, And they would not care for the games or the books "I think, papa, it is very hard, I have thought all my playthings o'er, And there isn't a thing they would want to take: I'm sure there is nothing I would not give They had played together, the child and lamb, It had shared her supper of bread and milk- It would run at the sound of its whispered name And she loved it, her darling little pet, Far better than I could tell. She stopped, and looked in her father's face, Then she flung her arms round the lamb's soft neck, And her eyes grew full of the blinding tears And, "Oh, papa, my darling lamb!" And closer and closer she held it then, Till she lifted her head, and spoke again Oh, pet, you must go for our soldiers brave! And stronger growing: "Oh yes, papa, Why, they give up their arms and their lives for us: It isn't much-I'm a little girl But perhaps, if you tell them so, They will take it with all the bigger things Oh, darling, I love you so!" I think the angels looked down from heaven, At the tearful little upturned face, God love her, and bless her, and save the land IN old colonial days and newspapers there was a degree of candor very refreshing to those accustomed to the forms of courtesy or respect now so indiscriminately given. A student of And they answered the voice from the far-off camps colonial literature sends the Drawer the folWith a cheerful, whole-souled "Ay." A little girl stood and watched the teams, With their loads of the full-cared yellow corn, Till the rosy apples, and onions white, That the farmers brought of their hard-earned stores And she said: "Oh, papa, I have nothing to give I am so sorry I am so small; I have neither silver nor gold. lowing delightfully natural obituary from the Virginia Gazette of October 5, 1769: "Died, at his house, the Rev. Mr. John Ramsey, who, although not universally beloved, was an affectionate husband, a good neighbor, father, and friend; charity, many virtues, many failings." The same paper speaks of a Mr. David Mead, Esq., of Nansemond, as marrying Miss Sallie Waters," an agreeable young lady"; and advertises the sale of an estate and negroes by lottery, with this singular claim on public sym SOME clergymen of the Episcopal Church, strong in the consciousness of elocutionary powers, and with a mistaken idea of being duly impressive, are given to reading the Ten Commandments to their people in stern, deep, menacing tones, like small thunders of Sinai. "Thou shalt do no mur-r-r-der-r-r" offers them an especial opportunity to come out with blood-curdling effect. A late criticism upon one of them would take their breath away: "He reads the Commandments," said an amused clerical brother, "as if he himself had recently enacted them, and was determined to have them enforced!" THE following comes from Newport: Bishop Clark, of Rhode Island, has recently finished a sea-side villa, built out of the munificent proceeds of his contributions to Bonner's Ledger. He was at a loss for a name which should gracefully acknowledge the soil from which his new roof-tree had sprung. After much ingenious twistification therein, and the bursting of many puns, he laid bare the true nature of the ground. The witty prelate's summer address when off duty is "Bon Ledge." LAST year a certain lady in London, of more wealth than education, was anxious to be shown Mr. Ashmead Bartlett and his fiancée. Her wish was gratified. She was asked the other day had she seen them recently. "No," she replied, "not since they were married. When I saw them last she was only his financier." THE 22d of February is a Kentucky holiday; but the Kentucky Legislature is, or a few years ago was, an economical body, and did not always readily waste a whole day on the memory of the Father of his Country. One 22d some of the more frugal members, who were chiefly economical in the record, insisted on meeting, so that the world might know they had not missed a day, and at an early hour proposed to adjourn, so that they might enjoy the holiday. This provoked a debate, in which some mischievous young members took | occasion to shock patriotism and worry the old shams of economy by declaring that the war of independence was a mistake, and that our people would have been happier if we had remained subject to England. This brought out a gushing old country patriot, who, after exhausting invective on the scapegraces who had riled him, majestically waved his hand toward the portrait of George Washington over the Speaker's desk, and exclaimed, “Such, at least, young men, was not the sentiments of the gentleman on the wall." A CONGREGATIONAL clergyman in C is making a sensation at his weddings. He uses the Episcopal marriage service, with improvements of his own. One of these improvements comes in at the giving of the ring. He has got up the greatest novelty for that, and we all look for it. "Is there," says he, in inquiring tones, "any visible pledge of this affection here present?" OF Senator Davis, of Illinois, who is known as a rather stout gentleman, the following is sent by a correspondent at St. Louis: "Last summer we called on Judge Davis at his house in Bloomington. After we had left, the little eight-year-old boy of the friend who was with me remarked, 'Mamma, that gentleman had his legs put on behind."" WE have before us a postal card addressed to the sheriff of Skamania County, Cascades, Washington Territory, on which is printed a card signed Christen Paulsen, Evanston, Wyoming Territory, offering $5 reward for any information respecting his wife and five children (giving names, ages, etc.), who started for Washington Territory two years ago. The card was posted on the post-office door, and our correspondent was about to copy it, when the postmaster said: "You can take it; it has been there long enough. I don't want to aid a man to ascertain the whereabouts of his wife and children who only valued them at eightythree cents a head, and waited a year before advertising." COLONEL WOODS, the oldest practicing lawyer in Iowa, and familiarly known as "Old Timber," was recently called upon as an expert to prove the reasonable value of certain services rendered by a brother attorney. On his direct examination he stated in a rather careless manner that he had been practicing law in the Territory and State of Iowa for the last fifty or sixty years. Upon cross-examination a young attorney, whom we will call Charley, undertook to have some sport at "Old Timber's" expense, with this result: "How long did you say you had practiced law in this country?" "Fifty or sixty years, sir." "Well, will you state what was the character of your practice during the earlier part say for the first twenty-five or thirty years in the Territory and State ?" "Yes, sir. I was then what might be appropriately called an itinerant lawyer." | awful sorry it was your brother; and though I was driven to it, and the law can't touch me, I'm willing to pay you damages. Be kinder fair with me, for Bill was old and tough. About how much do you think is fair?" "An itinerant lawyer! Will you be so kind, colonel, as to explain to the Court and jury what you mean by the term 'itinerant law-rated across the stove, and replied: yer' ?" The other wiped a tear from his eye, expecto "Certainly, sir. In those early days I used to travel around the circuit with the judge, and my business was to try causes for young gentlemen like you, Charley, who had brass enough to undertake a case, but not brains enough to try it." "Stranger, where is your dad?" "Well, I killed him. I knew you were his son the minute I saw you. He and I were in a mine one day, and as we were going up in a bucket, I saw that the old rope was going to AT a recent dinner party in Washington, break under the strain. When we were up Miss Marie Prescott, who supported Salvini about two hundred feet, I picked up your old during his late professional tour in this coun- dad and dropped him over. It was bad on try, gave a specimen of the nice distinctions him, but it saved me. Now you ate my brother in the negro dialect of her old Kentucky home. | Bill, and I murdered your dad, and I guess we Aunt Susan, of color, was in the habit of sup- had better call it even, and shake to see who plying the corner grocers with honey. One day, pays for the drinks.” her own supply being exhausted, she went to town to purchase some from one of her own customers. She stopped her rickety wagon in front of the grocery, and called out, "Oh, Mr. Smith, is you got any honey?" Mr. Smith replied, "No, Aunt Susan, I don't want any to-day; I have plenty." He had misapprehended Aunt Susan, who exclaimed, in a higher key, "I didn't ask you isn't you, but is you, got any honey to-day." IN Mr. Joseph Hatton's To-day in America, recently published in the "Franklin Square Library" by Harper and Brothers, are several anecdotes racy of the soil, which Mr. Hatton heard during his trip to the West. We reproduce a couple: There is less respect for human life in America than in England, and the humorous history of two strangers, each having murdered the other's relative, may be taken as an illustration in point, with this advantage, that it is an example of the common and ready habit of "capping" an extravagant statement, which is quite a specialty of American humor. The two strangers in question were toasting their shins on opposite sides of a big stove in a ferry waiting-room, and it was noticed that they often looked at each other as if almost certain that they had met before. Finally one of them got up and said: "Stranger, I've seen a face almost like yours. Did you ever have a brother Bill?" Another legend is of a grocer hungrily wait- "And you look like a good boy." "And good boys should always be encouraged. In a box in the back room there are eight dozen eggs; you can take them home to your mother, and keep the basket." In The grocer had been saving up those eggs for days and weeks to reward some one. rewarding a good boy he also got eight dozen bad eggs carried out of the neighborhood free of cost, and he chuckled as he walked homeward. The afternoon waned, night came and went, and once more the grocer went to his dinner. When he returned, his face wore a contented and complacent smile. His eye caught a basket of eight dozen eggs as he entered the store, and he queried : "Been buying some eggs?" 66 Yes; got hold of those from a farmer's boy," replied the clerk. "A lame boy with a blue cap?" "Yes." "Two front teeth out?" "Yes." The grocer sat down and examined the eggs. The shells had been washed clean, but they were the same eggs which the good boy had taken home the day before. NOT long ago a bright little girl in the Sunday-school of St. Luke, Mn, New Jersey, who was in the Calvary Catechism class, taught by Miss S-, and evidently had reached the bottom facts of the lesson-the creation of "Because I saw Aunt Emma whip Gracie, and I saw the dust fly out of her. I know it is so." Little Gracie had been playing with ashes. WE are indebted to an Ohio correspondent for the following: After services at the African M. E. church at the other Sunday, Brother Coleman, one of the pillars of the church, invited the minister home to dine with him. While partaking of the simple repast, the minister, whose distaste for corn-bread was not known to the hostess, astonished the family by saying: "Mother Coleman, dis yer corn-bread tickles my throat." Mother Coleman was so taken aback as to be unable to reply; but her husband came to her relief, and remarked, with a philosophical air: "Br'er Jenks, if you stays roun' dis yer neighborhood long, you'll get tickled to death." 6. "Lullaby, lul-la-by." were engaged in that abomination a game of cards, he secured a good-sized endgel, and quietly mounted the ladder. Just as he stepped on the mow, one of the hopefuls asked: "What's trumps?" The old gentleman observed, in a manner not to be misunderstood, "Clubs is trumps, and it's daddy's deal." The boys soon found out that daddy held a "lone hand." "DOCTOR," said an anxious mother, "James is actually killing himself by sitting up until one or two o'clock every night." "No," said the doctor, "that will not hurt him. It is the getting up in the morning that is killing your son." CASTE still asserts itself in the Old Dominion. Recently a second-class, seedy-looking man of that State said to the commodore of a ferry-boat at Alexandria: "Cap'n, I hain't got no money, and want to go to Washington." "Are you of the first families?" gently queried the skipper. "No, suh," replied the party; "I belong to one of the second-class families of Virginia." "Jump right aboard," said the captain; "I never carried any of that kind befo'." NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. CCCLXXVIII.—NOVEMBER, 1881.-VOL. LXIII. IN CORNWALL WITH AN UMBRELLA. ITTLE is left of imaginative simplicity frock is a thing of antiquity; the insular capacity for wonderment that made any stranger an object of attention in the which comes from common schools and newspapers-an illumination which often Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by Harper and Brothers, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. VOL. LXIII.-No. 378.-51 |