 Letter 50 of Orpheus C. Kerr Papers by Robert Henry Newell, Letter 50 Remarking upon a peculiarity of Virginia and describing Commodore Head's great naval exploit on Duck Lake, etc., Washington, D.C., June 15, 1862. Early in the week I trotted to the other side of the river on my gothic steed Pegasus and having lent that architectural pride of the stud to a thoughtful individual who wished to make a sketch of his façade. I took a branch railroad for a circuitous passage to Paris intending to make one stoppage on the way. The locomotive was about two saucepan power, my boy, and wheezed like a New York alderman at a free lunch. First we stopped at a town composed of one house, and that was a depot. "'What place is this?' says I to my fellow passenger, who is the conductor, and was reading the Tribune and was swearing to himself. It's Mulligan's courthouse, the capital of Sallianne County,' says he, and again took out the bill I had paid my fare with to see if it was good. I took another branch road here, and we snailed along to another town composed of a woodpile. "'What place is this?' says I to my fellow traveller at the breakman. "'It's Abadnego Junction, the capital of Laura Matilda County,' says he, sounding my quarter on his seal-ring, to make sure that it was genuine. Now, as London, the city I was going to, happened to be the capital of Anna-Maria County, my boy, I made at my mind that the sacred soil had as many metropolises as railways. "'Virginia,' says a modern southern giant of intellect, is one grand embodied poem. I believe him, my boy, for, like a poem, Virginia appears to have a capital at the commencement of every line. Reaching London and brushing past a crowd of our true friends the contra-bands, whose cries of anguish upon hearing that I had brought them no plum pudding, were truly harrowing, I pushed forward to the new Union paper, the London Times, with whose editor I had business. Just as I entered the office, my boy, there rushed out in a great rage an exasperated southern Union man. Having no gun about the house to pick off our pickets as they came into town, he borrowed a barber's pole and stuck it out of the window, proclaimed himself an oppressed Unionist, had a meeting of his family to elect him to the United States Congress from Anna-Maria County, and made a thrilling Union address to two contra-bands from his back stoop. He wound up this great speech, my boy, by saying, "'Young man, it is your duty to fight for the Union, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would feign dissuade him, let him say to her in the language of the poet, I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.'" This touching peroration was sent in manuscript to the London Times, and this is the way it appeared in that intellectual American journal. "'Young hen, it is your duty to fight for the Union, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would feign dissuade him, let him say to her in the language of the poet, I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.'" When the Southern Union man read this twistification, he put his paper where his wife couldn't see it, she being a very jealous woman, and went out to cowhide the editor. He cowhided him by frantically placing the cowhide in the editor's hands and then running his back repeatedly against the weapon. All errors have a unique effect in reports of killed and wounded my boy, but they knocked the Prometheum blaze out of eloquence. Having transacted my business with the editor and read a dispatch just received from a gentleman of eminence stating that Beauregard, who was at Ockelana, had a force of 120,000 men, but that Halleck would probably succeed in putting the entire 80,000 men to flight before Beauregard could return from Richmond, though it was currently reported that the rebels were 60,000 strong, and General Pope must be expeditious if he wanted to capture the whole 10,000 before General Beauregard got back from the Shenandoah Valley. I turned to the editor and says, I, how does newspaper business pay now my gifted censor? He sighed as he shoved a demi-john further under his desk and says he, there's only one newspaper in the world that pays now, sonny. What's that, says I. The Paris pays, says he. I left him immediately, my boy. Ordinary depravity don't affect me, for I have known several congressmen in my time, but I can't stand abnormal iniquity. Looking at Paris, I found that a recent shower had made Duck Lake navigable, and Commodore Head was preparing his fleet to attack a secession squadron, which some covert rebel had built during the night for the purpose of annoying the Mackerels in Paris. Batter my plates, says the Commodore, hilarically. I could capture that poor cuss easily if I only had a proper pilot. As Duck Lake is only about four yards wide at a fresh at my boy, your ignorance may suggest no sufficient reason for a pilot in such case, but you are no Marshal Mariner, my boy. Luckily the man for the place was at hand. On Wednesday a glossy contraband in a three-story shirt-collar and looking like a fountain of black ink with a strong wind blowing against it came into Paris and surrendered to Captain William Brown. Ha! says William, replacing the newspaper that had just blown off from two lemons and a wicker flask on the table. What says our cousin Africa? Marshal Vandal, says the faithful black earnestly, I have important news to come barbecate. I knows all the secrets of the rebel scratch-it area of the Navy. True as you live, Marshal Vandal, so help me gad, as the coachman of the pirate sumpter. Ah! says William cautiously. Tell me, blessed shade, what has a coachman got to drive on board a vessel? The true-hearted contraband modestly eyed a wonder of the insect kingdom which he had just removed from his hair, and says he, I drove the engine, Marshal. That was enough, my boy. Having learned from this intelligent creature what the rebel secretary was going to have for dinner next Sunday, and what the secretary's wife said in her letter to her mother, William ordered him to act as pilot on the mackerel fleet. And now let me draw a long breath before I attempt to describe that terrific and sanguinary naval engagement which proved conclusively what Europe may expect if Europe bother us with any more by-god nonsense. Having ballasted with mortar, my boy, to seem more naval, the unblushing Commodore mounted his swivel gun at the bow of the mackerel fleet, and selected for his gunner and crew a middle-aged mackerel chap whose great fondness for fresh fish made him invaluable for ocean service. Crack my turrets, says the Commodore, as the fleet pushed off amid the cheers of Company 4, Regiment 1, mackerel brigade. I'll take that craft by compound fracture. Belay the starbird ram there, you salamander, and take a reef in the grating, up with the signal, two strips of pig-iron rampant, with a sheet of tin in the middle. All this was splendidly performed by the crew, my boy, who trimmed the rudder, did the rowing, and tended the gun all at once. The craft fairly blew through the water in the direction of the rubble-craft, whose horse-pistol amidship still remained silent. It was an awfully terrific and sublime sight, my boy. I shall never forget it, my boy, if I live till I perish. The faithful-colored pilot sat in the stern of the fleet, examining some silver spoons which he had found somewhere in the southern Confederacy, and we could see the noble old Commodore mixing something that steamed in the four sheets. Two seconds had now passed since our flotilla had started, and the hostile squadrons were rubbing against each other. We were expecting to see our navy go through some intricate maneuver before boarding, when the mackerel crew accidentally dropped a spark from his pipe on the touch-hole of the swivel, and, bang, went that horrid engine of destruction, sending some pounds of old nails right square into the city of Paris. Simultaneously, four and twenty foreign consuls residing near Paris got up a memorial to Commodore Head, protesting against any more firing while any foreigners remained in the country, and declaring that the use of gunpowder was an outrage on civilized warfare and the rights of man. They tied a stone to this significant document and threw it to Commodore Head, who instantly put the mackerel crew on half-rations and forbids smoking a bathed the big gun. Meanwhile the enemy had wounded our brave pilot on the shins with his oar, and exploded his horse-pistol in an undecided direction, with such dreadful concussion that every glass in Commodore Head's spectacles was broken. It was at this dreadful crisis of the fight that the gay mackerel crew leaned over the side of our fleet, placed one hand on the inside of the enemy's squadron, and with the other, regardless of the shower of old bottles and fish-bones flying about him, deliberately bore a small hole with a gimlet through the bottom of the adversary. At about the same moment the Commodore touched off the swivel gun at the enemy's rudder and threw one of his boots against the rear stomach of the rebel captain. This sickening carnage might have lasted five minutes longer had not the Confederate squadron sunk in consequence of the gimlet hole. Down went the doomed craft of unblessed treason, and in another moment the officer and crew of her were in the water which reached nearly to their knees, imploring our fleet not to let them drown. Oh, that sight! the thrilling yet terrifying and agonizing grandeur of that dreadful moment. Shall I ever forget it? Ever cease to hear those cries ringing in mine ears? I'm afraid not, my boy. I'm afraid not. The Commodore rescued the sufferers from a watery grave, and having been privately informed by them that the South might be conquered, but never overcome, brought them ashore by the collars. Need I describe how our noble old nautical sea-dog was received by the mackerel brigade? Need I tell how the band whipped out his key bugle and played all the triumphant heirs of our distracted country and several original cavatinas? But alas, my boy, this iron plate business is taking all the romance out of the navy. How different is the modern from the ancient captain? The smiles of an evening were shed on the sea, and its wave-lips laughed through their beardings of foam, and the eyes of an evening were mirrored beneath the shroud of the ship and her home. As time knows an end so that sea knew ashore, afar in a beautiful tropical climb, where love with the life of each being is blunt in a soft psychological rhyme. Oh, grand was the shore, when deserted and still, it breasted the silver-mailed hosts of the deep, and like the last bulwark of nature it seemed, twixed death and an innocence sleep. But grander it was to the eyes of a knight, when clad in his armour he stood on the sands, and held to his bosom its essence of life and eras of titles and lands. Ah, fondly he gazed on the face of the maid, and blush-spoken fondness replied to his look, while heart answered heart with a feverish beat, and hand pressed the hand that it took. Fair lady of mine said the night stooping low, before I depart for the banquet of death, I crave a new draft from the fountain of life, whose waters are all in thy breath. The breast that is filled with thine image alone may safely defy the dread tempest of steel, for while all its thoughts are of love and of thee, what peril of self can it feel? He paused, and the silence that followed his words was spread like a hope, twixed a dream and a truth, and in it his fancy created a world, wrought out of the dreams of his youth. Then shadows crept over the beautiful face, turned up to the sky in the pale streaming light, as shadows sweep over the orient pearl, far down in the river at night. You're going, she said, where the fleets are in leash, where plumed is a night for each wave of the sea, yet all the wide ocean shall have but one wave, one ship and one sailor for me. He left her as Leaveth the God of a dream, the portals that close with a heavier sleep, and then as he sprang to the shallop in weight, the roars pushed off in the deep. When a captain leaves his lady fair nowadays, my boy, he's not an economical man if he don't destroy his life insurance policy and defer making his will. Yours, Naveli, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of Letter 50. Letter 51 of Orpheus C. Kerr papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr papers by Robert Henry Newell Letter 51. Giving due prominence once more to the conservative element, noting a cat and dog affair, and reporting Captain Bob Shorty's foraging expedition. Washington DC, June 23 1862. Not wishing to expire prematurely of inanity, my boy, I started again last Sunday for Paris, where I took up my quarters with a dignified conservative chap from the border states, who came on for the express purpose of informing the executive that Kentucky is determined this war shall be carried on without detriment to the material interests of the South. Otherwise, Kentucky will not be answerable for herself. Kentucky has married into the South and has relations there which she refuses to sacrifice. What does the Constitution say about Kentucky? Why don't say anything about her? Which is clear proof, says the conservative chap violently, that Kentucky is expected to take care of herself. Kentucky says he, butting his vest over the handle of his bowing-knife, Kentucky will stand no nonsense whatsoever. I have much respect for Kentucky, my boy. They play a good hand of old sledge there, and train up a child in the way he should go fifty better. But Kentucky reminds me of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward. This chap hired a room with another chap, and the two were engaged in the dollar-jewelry business. Their stock and trade was more numerous than valuable, my boy, and a man couldn't steal it without suffering a most painful swindle. But the two dilapidaries were all the time afraid of thieves. And at last when a gentleman of suspicious aspect moved into the lower part of the house, and flavored his familiar conversation with such terms as swag, kinship, and coppers, the second chap insisted on buying a watch-dog. The first chap said he didn't like dogs, but if his partner thought they'd better have one he would not object to his buying it. The second chap bought a sassagacious animal in white and yellow, my boy, an animal covered with bark that peeled off in large pieces all night long. The first chap found he couldn't sleep much, and says he, if you don't kill that air-stentorian beast we'll have to dissolve partnership. His partner took a thoughtful chew of tobacco, and says he, that intelligent dog is a defending of your property as well as mine, and if we put up with his strains a little while longer the chap downstairs will understand the hint and make friends. With that the first chap flamed up and says he, I sold a breast-pin to the chap downstairs the other day, and found out that he considers the dollar jewelry business the same by nature as his own. I'm beginning to think we misjudged him, and can't have no dog kept here to worry him. Our lease of these here premises don't say anything about keeping a dog, says the chap reflectively, nor our Articles of Partnership, and I refuse to sanction the dog any longer. So the dog was sent to the pound, my boy, and that same night the burglarious gentleman downstairs walked off with the dollar jewelry in company with the first chap, leaving the poor second chap to make himself uselessly disagreeable at the police-office, and set up an apple-stand for support. Far be it from me, my boy, to say that certain border states are like the first chap, but if Uncle Sam should happen to be the second chap, let him hold on to the watch-dog. Speaking of dogs, I must tell you about a felicitous canine incident that occurred while I was at Paris. Early one morning the Kentucky chap and I were awakened by a great noise in the hall outside our door. Presently an aged and reliable contraband stuck his head into the room and says he, I, golly, Marsha, there's a big fat going on this yaw-place. At the word, my boy, we both sprang up and went to the door from whence we beheld one of those occurrences but too common in this dreadful war of brother against brother. Face to face in the hall stood my frescoed dog baloney and the regimental cat Lord Mortimer, eyeing each other with looks of deadly hatred and embittered animosity. High in air curved the back of the enraged Mortimer and his whiskers worked with intense wrath, whilst the eloquent tale of the infuriated baloney shot into the atmosphere like a living flagstaff. Oh, how now, ejaculated baloney, throwing out his nose to reconnoiter the enemy's first line. S'death, s'death, hastily retorted Mortimer skirmishing along in his first parallel with spasmodic clawing. And now my boy commenced a series of scientific maneuvers that only Russell of the London Times could describe properly. Lord Mortimer advanced circularly to the attack in four columns, affrighting the air with horrid yells of defiance. And I noticed, with the feeling of mysterious awe, that his eyes had turned a dreadful and vivid green, whilst an expression of inexpressible bitterness overspread his countenance. Fathoming the enemy's plans at a glance, baloney presented his front and rear divisions alternately, to distract the fire of the foe, and then by a rapid and skillful flank movement cut off a portion of Lord Mortimer's tail from the main body. This reminded me of General Mitchell's tactics, my boy. Here the conservative Kentucky chap wanted to stop the fight, says he. Mortimer will be forever alienated if he loses any more of his tail. I protest against the dog's teeth, says he, for they'll render future reconciliation between the two impossible. Let him use his paws alone, says the conservative chap reasoningly, and he won't injure Mortimer's constitution so much. You're too late with your talk about conciliation, my noble Cicero, says I. It's the cat's nature to show affection for his young ones, even by licking them, and Mortimer will never be convinced that Baloney cares for him until he has been soundly licked by him. Ah, well, says the Kentucky chap vaguely, let hostilities proceed. Finding that the enemy had cut off a portion of his train in the rear, Mortimer quickly masked his four columns and precipitated them upon the head of Baloney's two front divisions, succeeding in destroying a bark half launched and driving him back four feet. Hurrah for Mortimer, says the Kentucky chap, and then he burst into the conservative Virginia national anthem. John Smith's body lies a muldren in the grave, twas him that Pocahontas risked her father's wrath to save, an unto old Virginia certain chivalry she gave that still goes scalping on. Calm your exultation, my impulsive cataline, says I, and behold the triumph of Baloney. Undaunted by the last claws of the foe's argument, my boy, the frescoed dog hurled back the torrent of invasion and, with a howl of triumph, charged headlong upon Mortimer's works, routing the foe who retreated under a cover of a cloud of fur. I looked at the conservative Kentucky chap, my boy, and I could see by his expression that it would be useless for me to ask of him a contribution toward rewarding Baloney with a star-spangled kennel. He still felt neutral, my boy. I had intended to remain in Paris all the week, but on receiving a telegraphic dispatch from the general of the macro brigade to attend a strawberry festival he was about to give in this city, I hastened hither, for I am very fond of the gay and festive strawberry, my boy, on account of its resemblance to one of the hues in our distracted banner. The strawberry festival was given in an upper room at Willards, and the arrangement of the fruit would have provoked an appetite in a marble statue. At short intervals around the table were strawberries and foes supported by pedestals of broken ice, which was kept in position by a fluid of pleasing color, and walled in by a circular edging of thin glass. Strips of lemon and oranges garnished the rich fruit, and from their midst sprang up a dainty mint plant and a graceful hollow straw. When the festival was in full operation, my boy, the general of the macro brigade arose to his feet and waved his straw for silence. Says he, my children, though this strawberry festival is ostensibly for the purpose of encouraging fruit culture by the United States of America, it has yet a deeper purpose. The Democratic Party, says the general paternally, is about to be born again, and it is time to make preparation for the next presidential election in 1865. I must go to Albany and Syracuse and see the state conventions, after which I must attend to the reorganization of the party in New York City. Then I go to Pennsylvania to do stump duty for a year, and from thence to, here, a serious chap, who had taken rather too much strawberry festival, looked up and says he, but how about the war all that time? The war, the war, says the general thoughtfully. Thunder, says the general, with such a start that he spilt some of his festival. I'd really forgotten all about the war. Hum, says the serious chap gloomily, you are worth millions to a suffering country, you are. Flatterer, says the general blandly. Yes, says the chap, you're worth millions with a hundred percent off for cash. In Vino Veritas is a sage old zane, my boy, and I take it to be a free translation of the scripture phrase, in spirit and in truth. Our brigadiers are so frequently absent-minded themselves, my boy, that they are not particularly absent-minded by the rest of the army. Upon quitting the strawberry festival, I returned post-haste again to Paris, where I arrived just in time to start with Captain Bob Shorty and a company from the conic section of the macro brigade on a foraging expedition. We went to look up a few straw-beds for the feeding of the anatomical cavalry horses, my boy, and the conservative Kentucky chap went along to see that we did not violate the Constitution nor the rights of man. It's my opinion, comrade, says Captain Bob Shorty, as we started out. It's my opinion, my Union Ranger, that this here unnatural war is getting worked down to a very fine point when we can't go out for an armful of forage without taking the Constitution along on an ass. I think, says Captain Bob Shorty, that the Constitution is as much out of place here as a set of fancy harness would be in a drove of wild buffaloes. Can such be the case, my boy? Can such be the case? Then did our revolutionary forefathers live in vain. Having moved along in gorgeous cavalcade until about noon, we stopped at the house of a first family of Virginia who were just going to dinner. Captain Bob Shorty ordered the macros to stack arms and draw canteens in the front door-yard, and then we entered the domicile and saluted the domestic mass meeting in the dining-room. We come, sir, says Bob, addressing the venerable and high-minded chivalry at the head of the table, to ask you if you have any old straw beds that you don't want that could be used for the cavalry of the United States of America. The chivalry only paused long enough to throw a couple of pie-plates at us, and then he says, Are you accursed abolitionists? The conservative Kentucky chap stepped hastily forward and says he, No, my dear sir, we are the conservative element. The chivalry's venerable wife, who was a female Southern Confederacy, leaned back a little in her chair so that her little son could see to throw a teacup at me, and says she, You ain't Tribune reporters, be you? We were all nos and no eyes, quite a feature in social intercourse, my boy. The aged chivalry caused three fresh chairs to be placed at the table, and having failed to discharge the fouling-piece which he had pointed at Captain Bob Shorty by reason of dampness in the cap, he waved us to seats and says he, Sit down, poor harleanes of a guerrilla despot, and learn what it is to taste the hospitality of a Southern gentleman. You are Lincoln hordes, says the chivalry, shaking his white locks, and have come to butcher the Southern Confederacy, but the Southern gentleman knows how to be courteous, even to a vandal foe. Here the chivalry switched out a cane which he had concealed behind him, and made a blow at Captain Bob Shorty. Say here, says Bob indignantly, I'll be— Hush, says the conservative Kentucky chap agitatedly, don't irritate the old patriarch, or future amicable reconstruction of the union will be out of the question. He is naturally a little provoked just now, says the Kentucky chap soothingly, but we must show him that we are his friends. We all sat down in peace at the hospital board, my boy, only a few sweet potatoes and corn cobs being thrown by the children, and found the fair to be in keeping with the situation of our distracted country. I may say war fair. In consequence of the blockade of the Washington Ape, says the chivalry pleasantly, we only have one course, you see, but even these last year's sweet potatoes must be luxuries to mercenary mud-seals accustomed to husks. I had just reached out my plate to be helped, my boy, when there came a great noise from the mackerels in the front door-yard. What's that? says Captain Bob Shorty. Oh, nothing, says the female confederacy, taking another bite of hoe-cake. I've only told one of the servants to throw some hot water on your reptile hirelings. As Captain Bob Shorty turned to thank her for her explanation, and while his plate was extended to be helped, the aged chivalry fired a pistol at him across the table, the ball just grazing his head and entering the wall behind him. By all that's blue, says Captain Bob Shorty excitedly. Now I'll be. Be calm, now be calm, says the conservative Kentucky chap hastily. Don't I tell you that it's only natural for the good old soul to be a little provoked? If you go irritate him, we can never live together as brethren again. Matters being thus rendered pleasant, my boy, we quickly finished the simple meal, and as Captain Bob Shorty warded off the carving-knife just thrown at him by the chivalry's little son, he turned to the female confederacy and says he, Many thanks for your kind hospitality, and now about that straw-bed. The Virginia matron threw the vinegar-cruet at him and says she, My servants have already given one to your scorpions, you nasty Yankee. Of course, says the venerable chivalry, just missing a blow at me with a bowie-knife. Of course, your despicable government will pay me for my property. Pay you, says Captain Bob Shorty hotly. Now I'll be. Certainly it will, my friend, broke in the conservative Kentucky chap eagerly. The Union troops come here as your friends, for they make war on none but traitors. As we left the domicile, my boy, brushing from our coats, the slops that had just been thrown upon us from an upper window, I saw the chivalry's children training a fouling piece from the roof and hoisting the flag of the southern confederacy on one of the chimneys. And will it be possible to regain the love of these noble people again, my boy, if we treat them constitutionally? We shall see, my boy, we shall see. Yours for further national abasement, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of Letter 51. Letter 52 of Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers by Robert Henry Newell, Letter 52. Describing, among other things, a specialty of Congress, a venerable popular idol, and the difficulties experienced by Captain Samuel Smith in dying. Washington, D.C., June 25, 1862. How beautiful is old age, my boy, when it neither drinks nor swears. There is an oily and beneficent dignity about fat old age which overwhelms us with a sense of our crime in being guilty of youth. I have at last been introduced to the venerable gammon, who is all the time saying things, and he is a luscious example of overpowering old age. He is fat and gliding, my boy, with a face that looks like a full moon coming out of a sheepskin, and a dress indicating that he may be anything from a revolutionary forefather to the patriarch of all the Grace Church sextons. I can't find out that he ever did anything, my boy, and no one can tell why it is that he should treat everybody in office and out of it in such a fatherly and fatly condescending manner, but the people fairly idolize him, my boy, and he is all the time saying things. When I was introduced to the venerable gammon, he was beaming benignantly on a throng of adoring statesmen in the lobby of Congress, and I soon discovered that he was saying things. Men tell us that this war has only just commenced, says the venerable gammon with fat profundity, but they are wrong. War is like a stick which has two ends, the end nearest you being the beginning. Then each statesman wanted the venerable gammon to use his pocket handkerchief, and five and twenty desperate reporters tore passionately away to the telegraph office to flash far and wide the comforting remarks of the venerable gammon. Are we a race of unsuspecting innocents, my boy, and are we easily imposed upon by shirt ruffles and oily magnitude of manner? I believe so, my boy, I believe so. Speaking of Congress, I attended one of its sittings the other day, my boy, and was deeply edified to observe its manner of legislating for our happy, but distracted country. The Honorable Speaker, Nay Grow, occupied the chair. Mr. Poggers, Republican Massachusetts, desired to know if the tax upon Young Heisen is not to be moderated. Speaking for his constituents, he would say that the present rate was entirely too high to suit any grocer. Mr. Staggers, conservative, border state, wished to know whether this body intended to legislate for white men or niggers. His friend, the pusillanimous scoundrel from Massachusetts, chose to oppose the tax on Young Heisen because, to use his own words, it would not suit any grocer. Mr. Poggers thought his friend from the border state was too hasty. The phrase he used was any grocer. Mr. Staggers withdrew his previous remark. We were fighting this war to secure the Constitution and the pursuit of happiness to the misguided South, and he accepted his friend's apology. Mr. Figgins, Democrat New Jersey, said that he could not but notice that everything all the honorable gentleman had said during this session was a fatal heresy, destructive of all government, degrading to the species, and an insult to the common sense of his, Figgins, constituents. His constituents demanded that Congress should set the country at rights before Europe. It would appear that at the least imperious sign from Europe, the American knee grows. Mr. Juggles, conservative border state, desired to inquire of the House whether the great struggle in which we are now engaged is for the benefit of the Caucasian race or the debased African. His friend, the peeling idiot from New Jersey, had seen fit to remark that the American knee grows. Mr. Figgins denied that he had spoken at all of knee grows. He was about to say that at the slightest behest of Europe the American knee grows flexible to bend. Mr. Juggles wished it to be understood that he was satisfied with his honorable friend's explanation. He would take something with the honorable gentleman immediately after adjournment. Mr. Chunky, Representative New Hampshire, was anxious to inquire whether it was true, as stated in the daily papers, that General McDowell had been ordered to imprison all the Union men within his lines on suspicion of their being secessionists and place a guard over the property of secessionists on suspicion of their being Union men? If so, he would warn the administration that it was cherishing a viper which would sting it. The rose you deftly colored man may wound you with its thorn and Mr. Waddell's Union border-state protested against the decency of a constitutional body like Congress being insulted with the infamous and seditious abolition doggerel just quoted by his friend, the despicable incendiary from New Hampshire. We were waging this war solely to put down treason and not to hear a rose the fairest of flowers mentioned in the same breath with the filthy colored man. Mr. Chunky was sorry to observe that his honorable friend had misunderstood his language. The line he had used was simply this, the rose you deftly culled, man. Mr. Waddell's was glad that his valued friend from New Hampshire had apologized. He had only taken exception to what he considered a fatal heresy. That was enough for me, my boy, and I left the hall of legislation, for I sometimes become a little wearied when I hear too much of one thing, my boy. I mentioned my impression to the venerable gammon and says he, Congress is the soul of the nation. Congress, says the venerable gammon with fat benignity, is something like a wheel whose spokes tend to tire. He said this remarkable thing in an over-towering way, my boy, and I felt myself to be a crushed infant before him. Early in the week I took my usual trip to Paris and found Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade making an advance from the further shore of Duck Lake for sanitary reasons. It was believed to be detrimental to the health of the gay Mackerels to be so near a body of pure water, my boy, for they were not accustomed to the element. Thunder, says the general, brushing off a small bit of ice that had adhered to his nose. They'll be drinking it next. Captain Samuel Smith was ordered to command the advance, but when he heard that the Southern Confederacy had two swivels over there he was suddenly taken very sick and cultivated his bed-clothes. When the news of the serious illness of this valiant officer got abroad, my boy, there was an immediate rush of free and enterprising civilian chaps to his bedside. One chap, who is an uncombed reporter for a discriminating and affectionate daily press, took me aside and says he, Our paper has the largest circulation and is the best advertising medium in the United States. As soon as our brother-in-arms expires, says the useful chap, feelingly, just fill up this printed form and send it to me, and I will mention you in our paper as a promising young man. I took the printed form, my boy, which I was to fill up, and found it to read thus. Biographical sketch of the late blank. This noble and famous officer, recently slain at the head of his blank, I put the word bed in this blank, my boy, was born at blank on the blank day of blank, 1776, and entered West Point in his blank year. He won immortal fame by his conduct in the Mexican campaign and was created Brigadier General on the blank of blank, 1862. These printed forms suit the case of any soldier, my boy, but I didn't entirely fill this one up. Samuel was conversing with the chaplain about his federal soul when a tall shabby chap made a dash for the bedside and says he to Samuel, I'm agent for the great American publishing house of Russian men-jinx and desire to know if you have anything that could be issued in book form after your lamented departure. We could make a handsome duodesimal book, says the shabby chap persuadingly, of your literary remains, works of a union martyr, eloquent writings of a hero, should be in every American library, take it home to your wife, twenty editions ordered in advance of publication, half-calf, one dollar, send in your orders. Samuel looked thoughtfully at the publishing chap and says he, I never wrote anything in my life. Oh, says the shabby chap pleasantly, anything will do, your early poems in the weekly journals, anything. But, says Samuel regretfully, I never wrote a line to a newspaper in all my life. What, says the publishing chap, almost in a shriek, never wrote a line to a newspaper? Gentlemen, says the chap looking toward us suspiciously, this man can't be an American. And he departed hastily. Believing my boy that there would be no more interruptions, Samuel went on dying, but I was called from his bedside by a long-haired chap from New York, says the chap to me. My name is Brown, Brown's patent hair dye twenty-five cents a bottle. Of course, says the her-suit chap affably, a monument will be erected to the memory of our departed hero, an Italian marble shaft standing on a pedestal of four panels. Now, says the hairy chap insinuatingly, I will give ten thousand dollars to have my advertisement put on the panel next to the name of the lamented deceased. We can get up something neat and appropriate, thus. We must all die, but Brown's dye is the best. There, says the enterprising chap smilingly, that would be very neat and moral, besides doing much good to an American fellow being. I made no reply my boy, but I told Samuel about it, and it excited him so that he regained his health. If I can't die, says the lamented Samuel, without some advertising cusses making money by it, I'll defer my visit to glory until next season. And he got well, my boy, he got well. I was talking to the chaplain about Samuel's illness and says the chaplain. I'm happy to say, my fellow sinner, that when our beloved Samuel was at the most dangerous crisis, he gave the most convincing proof of realizing his critical condition. How, says I skeptically. Why, says the chaplain with a Christian look, when I told our beloved Samuel that there could be little hope of his recovery, and asked him if his spiritual advisor could do anything to make his passage easier, he pressed my hand fervently, and besought me to see that he was buried with a fan in his hand. Can it be, my boy, that the soul of a mackerel will need a fan in another world? Let us meditate upon this, my boy. Let us meditate upon this. Yours seriously, Orpheus C. Kerr.