Bradford reporter. (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, May 26, 1859, Image 1
jfjgl® PER ANNUM INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE. Thursday Morning, May 26, 1869. CATCH THE SUNSHINE Clch tb sunshine ! though it flickers Through a dark and dismal cloud ; Though it fails so faiat antl feeble On a heart with sorrow bowed : Catch it quickly—it is passing. Passing rapidly away ; |i has only come to tell you There b yet a brighter day. Otcb the sunshine ! thought 'tis only One pale flickering beam of light; There is joy within its glimmering, Whispering 'tis uot always night, pon't he moping, sighing, weeping, Look up! look up like a man ! There's no time to grope in darkness, Catch the sunshine when you can. Catch the sunshine ! though life's tempest May unfiurl its chilling blast ; Catch the little hopeful straggler Storms will not forever last! Don't give up and say " forsaken !" Don't begin to say " I'm sad !" Look I there comes a gleam of sunshine ! Catch it! oh, it seems so glad ! Catch the sunshine ! don't be grieving O'er that darksome billow there ! Life's a sea of stormy billows, We must meet them every where. Pass right through them ! do not tarry , Overcome the heaving tide, There's a sparkling gleam of sunshine Waiting on the other side. Catch the sunshine ! catch it gladly ! Messenger in Hope's employ, j Sent through clouds, through storm und billows, I Bringing you a cup of joy. Oh! then don't be sighing, weeping. Life, you know, is but a span, There's no time to sigh and sorrow, 0 Catch the sunshine when yon can. Slisttllsntans. Ike Eleventh Commandment. T S Arthur tells a good story about a lov ing couple in New Jersey, who belonged to the Methodist church. A new presidiug cider, Mr. X., was expected in that district ; and as the ministers all stopped with brother W. and his wife, every preparation was made to give him a cordial reception. The honest couple thought that religion in part consisted in mak ng some parade, and therefore the parlor was put in order, a nice fire was made, and the kitchen replenished with cake, chickens, and every delicacy preparatory to cooking. While Mr. W. was out at his wood-pile, a plain-looking, coarsely-dressed, but quiet-like pedestrian came along and inquired the dis tance to the next town. He was told that it was three miles. Being very cold, he asked permission to enter and warm himself. As sent was given very grudgingly, and both went into the kitchen. The wife looked daggers at this untimely intrusion, for the stranger had on cow hide boot*, an old hat, and a thread bare, but neatly patched coat. At length she gave him a chair beside the Dutch oven, which was baking nice cake for the presiding elder, who was momentarily expected, as he was to preach the next day at the church a mile or two be vond. The stranger, after warming himself, prepa red to leave, but the weather became more in clement, and as his appetite was roused by the viands about the fire, he asked for some little refreshment ere he set out for a cold walk to the towu beyond. Mrs. W. was displeased, hut on consultation with her husband, some cold bacon and bread were set on an old tabic, ad he was then somewhat gruffly told to eat. It was growing dark, and hints were thrown out that the stranger had better depart, us it was three long miles to town. The wife grew petulant as the new preacher did not arrive, aud her husband sat whistling the air " Auld Lang Syne," while he thought of the words of the hymu—"When 1 can Read my Title Clear," au'l felt as though he could order the stranger off without any further ado. The homely meal was at last concluded— 'he man thanked him kindly for the hospitali be had received, aud opened to door to go. 't was quite dark, and the clouds denoting a f tc r m filled the heavens. " \ou say it is three miles to D ?" ' I do," said Mr. W., very coolly, " I said when you first stopped, and you ought to e pushed on. like a prudent man. You could have reached there before it was quite dark." " But I was cold and hungry, and might e fainted by the way." The manner of saving this touched the farm tr ® feelings a little. ou have warmed and fed me for which I act f )' on " ot bestow another and%\ dneSß u P on one ' n a slran K e ptace, 1 im'Jif e ocs out the darkness, may lose h/mseff aud in the co, d ." wc L l' dUu 'u\ar form in which this request terpH a . e '- Snd tone ' n w hich it was nn sav n'o^ U 11 ° Ut B ower the farmer to nnintimV! 1 t ! l . Pre l an d sit down." he answered, wife inH , ch * n "and I will see my a TE^ hal she Ka y ß " sntmlr u m T * ent '"to the parlor where the c ,r^ ,e k-' ° ove ' ed with a ,now white china 18!w '^ e 8 Be ttof blue-sprigged occasions °° ,jr broUht out 'n'spSial °' ou ! d cand,es were burning there ,i ? a , \ b e hearth blazed a cheerful fire. Mrs ' qfl A llow ? one yet ?" asked the door vo ' ce as b ® returned wbat J° j™ oppose ? He wants k stay all night T' well do no such tbiug. We can't THE BIUDFORD REPORTER. have the likes of him in the house now. Where could he sleep ?" " Not in the best room, even if Mr.N. should not come." " No, indeed t" " But really, I don't see, Jane, how we can turn him out of doors. He doesn't look like a very strong man, and it's dark and cold, and full three miles to D " It's too much ; he ought to have gone on while he had daylight, and not liugered here, as he did, till it got dark." " We can't turn him out of doors, Jane, and it's no use to think of it. He'll have to stay, somehow." " But what can we do with him ?" "He seems like a deceut man at least; and does uot look as if he had anything bad about him. We might make him a bed en the floor somewhere." " I wish he had been in Guinea before he came here 1" said Mrs. W., fretfully. The disappointment, the conviction that Mr. N. would not arrive, occasioned her to fret, and the intrusion of so unwelcome a visitor as the stranger, completely unhinged her mind. " Oh, well !" replied her husband in a sooth ing voice, " never mind. We must make the best of it. He came to us tired and hungry, and we warmed and fed him. He now asks shelter for the night, and we must not refuse him, nor grant his request in a complaining or a reluctant spirit. You know what the Bible says about entertaining angels unawares." " Angels ! Did you ever see an angel look like him ?" " Having never seen an angel," said the far mer, smiliug, " I am unable to speak as to their appearance." This had the effect to call an answering smile from Mrs. W. and a better feeling at her heart. It was finally agreed between them that the man, as he seemed like a decent kind of person, should be permitted to occupy the minister's room if that individual did not ar rive, an event to which they both looked with but little expectancy. If he did come the man would have to put up with poor accommoda tions. When Mr. W. returned to the kitchen, where the stranger had seated himself before the fire, he informed him that they had decided to let him stay all night. The man expressed in a few words the grateful sense of their kind ness, and then became silent and thoughtful. Soon after the farmer's wife, giving up all hope of Mr. N.'s arrival, had supper taken up, which consisted of coffee, warm short cake and broiled chickens. After all was 011 the table, a short conference was held as to whether it would do uot to invite the stranger to take supper. It was true they had given him as much bread and bacon as he could eat, but then, as long as he was going to stay all night, it looked too inhospitable to sit down to the table and not ask him to join them. So, mak ing virtue a necessity, he was kindly asked to come to supper—au invitation which he did not decline. Grace was said over the meal by Mr. W., and the coffee poured out, the bread helped, and the meat carved. There was a fine little boy, six years old, at the table, who had been brightened up and dressed in his best, in oder to grace the minis ter's reception Charles was full of talk, and the parents felt a mutual pride in showing him off. even before their humble guest, who no ticed him particularly, though he had not much to say. "Come, Charley," said Mr. W., after the meal was over, aud he sat lounging in his chair, " can't you repeat the pretty hymn mamma learned you last Sunday?" Charley started off without further invita- j tion and repeated very accurately two or three verses of a new camp meeting hymn, that was then very popular. " Now let us hear yon say the command ments, Charley," spoke up the mother, well pleased at her child's performance. And Charley repeated them all with the aid of a little prompting. " How many commandments are there ?" asked the father. The child hesitated, and then looking up at the stranger, near whom he sat, said inno cently— " How many are there ?" The man thought for some moments, and said, as if in doubt, " Eleven, are there not ?" " Eleven !" ejaculated Mrs. W., in unfeigned surprise. " Eleven !" said her husband, with more re buke than astonishment in his voice. "Is it possible, sir, that you do not know how many commandments there are ? How many are there, Charley? Come, tell me —you know, of course." " Ten," replied the child. " Right, my son," returned Mr. W., looking with a smile of approval on the child. "Right. There isn't a child of his age within ten miles who can't tell you there are ten command ments." " Did you ever read the Bible, sir ?" address ing the stranger ?" " When I was a little boy I used to read it sometimes. But I am sure I thought there were eleven commandments. Are you not mistaken about there being only ten ?" Sister W„ lifted her hands in unfeigned as tonishment, and exclaimed, " Could any one believe it ? Such ignorance of the Bible ?" Mr. W. did not reply, but rose, and going to one corner of the room where the good book lay upon the small stand, he put it ou the ta ble before him, and opened at that portion in which the commandments are recorded. " There," he said, placiDg his finger upon the proof of the stranger's error. " There ! look for yourself." The man came round from his side of the table aud iooked over the stranger's shoul der. " There ! ten, d'ye see ?" " Yes, it does say," replied the man, " and yet it seems to me there are eleven. lam sure I have always thought so." " Doesn't it say ten here ?" inquired Mr. W. with marked impatience in bis voice. " It does, certainly." " Well, what more do yon want ? Can't yoo believe tee Bible ?" PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY AT TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., BY E. O'MEARA GOODRICH. " REGARDLESS OP DENUNCIATION FROM ANT QUARTER." " O, yes, I believe the Bible ; and yet, it strikes me somehow, that there are more than ten commandments. Hasn't one been added somewhere else ?" Now this was too much for brother and sis ter W. to hear. Such ignorance of sacred matters they felt to be unpardonable. A long lecture followed, iu which the man was scold ed, admonished, and threatened with divine in dignation. At its close he modestly asked whether he might not have the Bible to read for an hour or two before retiring for the night. This request was granted with more pleasure than any of the preceding ones. Shortly after supper the man was conducted to the little square room, accompanied by the Bible. Before leaving him alone, Mr W. felt it to be his duty to exhort him to spiritual things, aud he did" so, most earnestly, for ten or fifteen minutes. But he could not see that his words made much impression, and he final ly left his guest, lamenting his obduracy aud ignorance. In the morning he came down, and meeting Mr. W., asked him if he would be so kind as to lend him a razor, that he might remove his beard, which did not give his face a very at tractive appearance. His request was com plied with. "We will have prayers in about ten min utes," said Mr. W. as he handed him the razor aud shaving box. The man appeared aud behaved with due propriety at family worship. After breakfast he thanked the farmer and his wife for their hospitality, and parting, went on his journey. Ten o'clock came, but Mr. N. had not arri ved. So Mr. and Mrs. W. started for the meeting-house, not doubting that they would find him there. A goodly number of people were inside the meeting-house, and a goodly number outside, but the minister had not arrived. " Where js Mr. N ?" inquired a dozen voices, as a little crowd gathered uround the farmer. "He hasn't come yet. Something has de tained him. But I still look for him—iudeed, I fully expected to find him here " The day was cold, and Mr. W., after becom ing thoioughly chilled, concluded to go in and keep a good lookout for the minister from the window near which he usually sat. Others, from the same cause, followed hisexample, and the little meeting house was soon filled, and one after another came dropping in. The farmer, who turned towards the door each time it was opened, was a little surprised to see his guest of the previous night enter, and come sjovvly down the aisle, looking on either side as if searching for a vacant seat, very few of which were now left. Still advancing, he finally got within the little enclosed altar, aud ascending to the pulpit, took off his old gray overcoat and sat down. By this time Mr. W. was at his side, aud had his hand upon his arm. " You rausu't sit here, come down aud I will show you a seat," he said iu an excited tone. " Thank you," replied the man, in a com posed voice. "It is very comfortable here." And the man remained unmoveable. Mr. W. feeling embarrassed, went dowu in tending to get a higher " official" to assist him iu making a forcible ejection of the man from the place he was desecrating. Immediately upon his doing so, however, the man arose, and standing up at the desk, opened the hymn book. His voice was thrilled to the finger ends of brother W. as, in a distinct and im pressive manner, he gave out the hymu begin ning : " Help us to help each other, Lord, Each other's cross to bear ; Let each his friendly aid affjrd, And feci a brother's care." The congregation rose after the stranger had read the entire hymn, and had repeated the first two lines for them to sing. Brother W. usually started the tunes. He tried this time, but weut off on a long metre tune' Discover ing his mistake at the second word, he balked and tried again, but now he stumbled on short metre. A musical brother here came to his aid, and led off with a tune that suited the measure in which the hymn was written. After singing, the congregation kneeled, and the minister—for no one doubted his real char acter—addressed the Throne of Grace with much fervor and eloquence. The reading of a chapter in the bible succeeded. Then there was a deep pause throughout the room in an ticipation of the text, which the preacher pre pared to announce. Brother W. looked pale, nnd his hands and knees trembled. Sister Ws face looked like crimson, and her heart was beating so loud that she wondered whether the sound was not heard by the sister who sat beside her. There was a breathless silence. The dropping of a pin might have been heard. Then the fine, emphatic tones of the preacher filled the crowd ed room. " And a new commandment 1 give unto you, that you love one another." Brother W. bent his head forward to listen, but now he had sunk back in his seat. This was the Eleventh Commandment. The sermon was deep, searching, yet affec tionate and impressive. The preacher uttered nothing that could in the least wound the broth er and sister of whose hospitality he had par taken, but he said ranch that smote upon their hearts, and made them painfully conscious that they had not shown as much kindness to the stranger as he had been entitled to receive on the broad principles of humanity. But they suffered most from mortification of feeling. To think that they had treated the Presiding El der of the District after such a fashion, was deeply humiliating ; and the idea of the whole affair getting abroad, interfered sadly with their devotional feeling throughout the whole period of service. At last the sermou was over, the ordinance administered, and the benediction pronounced. Brother W. did not know what it was best for him to do. He was never more at a loss in his life. Then Mr. N. descended from the pnlpit, bat be did not step forward to meet bim. How could be do that ? Others gathered around aud shook hands with him, but still he liugered and held back. " Where is brother W ?" he at length heard asked. It was the voice of the minister. " Here he is," said one or two, openiug the way to where the farmer stood. The preacher advanced, and catching his hand said— "How do you do, brother W., I am glad to see you. And where is sister W.?" Sister W. was brought forward and the preacher shood hands with them heartily while his fave was lit up with smiles. " I believe I um to find a home with you," he said, as if it was settled. Before the still embarrassed brother and sis ter could make reply, some one asked— " How came you to be detained so late ? You were expected last night. And where is brother R.?" " Brother R is sick," replied Mr. N.. " and I had to come alone. Five miles from this my horse gave out, uud I had to come the rest of the way on foot. But 1 became so cold uud weary that I found it necessary to ask a farm er to give me a night's lodging, which he was kind enough to do. I thought I was still three miles off, but it happened I was very much nearer my journey's end thau I had sup posed." This explanation was satisfactory to all par ties, and iu due time the congregation dispersed and the presiding elder went home with broth er aud sister W. One thing is certain, how ever, the story never got out for some years after the worthy brother aud sister had passed from their labors, and then it was related bv Mr. N himself, who was rather eccentric in his character, and, like numbers of his ministe rial brethren, fond of a joke and given to re lating good stories. BOOKS AS AX ORNAMENT. —Men are not ac customed to buy books unless they want them. If. 011 visiting the dwelling of a man of slender means, 1 find the reason why he has cheap carpets, and plain furniture, to be that he mav purchase books, he rises at once in my esteem. Books are not made for furniture, but there is j nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. The plainest row of books that cloth or paper covers, is more significant of refine ment than the most elaborately carved ctagere or sideboard. Give me a house furnished with books rath er than furniture ! Both, if you can, but books at any rate ! To spend several days iu a friend's house, and hunger for something to read, while you are treading on costly carpets, and sitting upon luxurious chairs, and sleeping upon down, is as if one were bribing your body for the sake of cheating your mind. Js it not pitiable to see a man growinc rich and beginning to augment the comforts of home aud lavishing money on ostentatious upholstery upon the table, upon everything but what the soul needs ? We know of many and many a rich man's house w hen it would not be safe to ask for the commonest English classics. A few garnished annuals on the table, a few pictorial monstro sities, together with the stock of religious books of liis " persuasion," and that is all ! No range of poets, no essayists, no selection of historians, no travels, or biographies—llo select fictions or curious legendary lore ; but then, the walls have paper 011 which cost three dol lars a roll, and the floors have carpets that cost four dollars a yard ! Books are the win dows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them ! Children learn to rend by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading, and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge in a young mind, is almost a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices. Le us pity those poor rich men who live bar renly in great bookless houses 1 Let us con gratulate the poor that, iu our day, books are so cheap that a man may every year add a hundred volumes to his library for what his tobacco and beer would cost him. Among the earlier ambitions to be excited in clerks, workmen journeymen, and, indeed among all that are struggling up in life from nothing to something, is that of owing and constantly ad ding to a library of good books. A little li brary growing larger every year is an honor able part of a young man's history. It is a duty to have hooks. A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities ol life.— Henry Ward Beecher. INTERESTING ART DISCOVERY IN ROME. —The interest of the artistic portion of the communi ty in polities has this week been suspended by the discovery of a remarkably beautiful statue of Venice, in Parian marble. Possess ing very high merit, is pronounced by some connoisseurs to be as fine as as the Venus de Medica. Eminent sculptors, while more mod erate in their praise, still speak of it as being very beautiful, as being very probably a copy of the Florentine Venus, and as being of Greek Art. It will settle a very disputed point, and lead probably to the correction of a great error in the repairs made by Bcrniui in the Venus de Medici. It will be remembered that Bernini has so adjusted her arras that, while bent over the bosom and lower part of the body, they do not touch it in auy part. In the new statute the marks of the fingers 011 the right thigh and left bosom are plainly vis ible. The head, too, I should say, is some what larger thau that of the Venus de Medici. The head has beer, broken off, as also the two arms, but the only parts missing are the left hand and wrist and the fingers of the right band, all of which may be easily supplied, as enough exists to show the perfect pose of every limb of the body.— Rome correspondence of the London Times, April 22. tSf The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always th 6* - f pleasantness and peace. Modern Warfare as Compared with the Means of Destruction in the Past. We are apparently on the eve of the most tremendous armed conflict which the world has seen since the downfall of Napoleon the Great. The wars of imperial France were bloody wars, as ull the world knows. No slaughtered hetacombs were ever piled so high as the great emperor piled them. The dead never lay so thick on any battle field, of which history makes mention, as they lay on Eylau and Borodino and Waterloo. What amount of destruction and misery science, in the hands of genius, could, in a given time, deal out on a given number of men was there amply demon strated. But it is not saying too much to say that if the Europeau powers let their armed hordes loose upon one another this summer, ruthless destroyer as Napoleon was, he will be shown before three years are overt-) have been a mere tyro in the art of destruction. Since his day all the arts have advanced with rapid strides, but none with strides so rapid 11s this one. The weapons with which his soldiers were armed, with which the bridge of Lodi was carried,and Austerlitz and Meraugo were won, bear much the same relation to the rifle of the present day as the matchlock bore to the firelock. Death did not in his time flash from serried ranks until the foetnen stood two or three hun dred yards apart. It now flies iu the air nearly three quarters of a mile, as fur as the sharpest eye can mark a human figure. His siege artil lery would be to-day by no means heavy field pieces. Wellington's heaviest breaching guns at Badojos and Salmanca were twenty-four pounders. The Russians at Inkerman, and the British at Tchernava,brought thirty-two pound ers into the field with ease and effect. But the advantage which heavy guns have always had over light ones, hitherto, for the purposes of field artillery, has been rather iu the length of range thau in the size of the bail. A twelve pounder rushing through a column of infantry is full of destruction and almost as demoralizing us one treble its weight ; but formerly it could not be projected nearly so far. Science has, iu our day, destroyed the difference between them. Recent inventions, some of them those of our own countrymen, some of them English men, aud some of the present Emperor of France, have furnished field pieces, which four horses can whirl at the giddiest gallop from point to point, with more than the deadly pow er which, forty years ago, belonged only to weapons which sixteen horses could only move with difficulty, and which were ulwajs pieces de position. Moreover, facilities have been created since Waterloo was fought, for bringing together masses of men thus armed, and dashing them against one another, such as the great Napo leon in his wildest dreams never thought of.— We all know how the rapidity of his move ments dazzled and astounded our futhvrs. We know how he strode over Europe like a mag ician, taking armies up, as it seeuied in those days, iu the hollow of his hand, an I flinging them in the twinkling of an eye on every point where his giant plans needed them. We know how distance seemed to shrivel up at the blast of his trumpet. We know how the pupils of Turrenne and Montecucnli recoiled in dismay before legions which struck like a thunderbolt after having advanced like the wind But great as was the perfection to which he carried the art of rapid concentration, it becomes the craw ling of a turtle compared with the power with which railways have armed the generals of our day. When Napoleon started 011 his expedi tions, armies were of necessity divided into col umns, which, in order to secure the bare means of subsistence and of transport, were compelled either to follow each other at tolerably long intervals, or else march on the same point by different circuitous routes. And they did march —literally marched, trudged every inch of the way 011 foot, and the eagle flapped his wings over them in approbation if they achieved fifty miles in twenty-four hours. The maddest im patience of the maddest conqueror had in those times to adapt itself to the capabilities of hu man legs and human stomachs. It took, even in the hands of Napoleon, a long while to concentrate two hundred thou sand men at a point three hundred miles dis tant ; and when they were there it required stupendous energy and stupendous resources to feed them. All the grand heroes had to take pork aud flour into their grandest calcula tion ; aud pork and flour, alas! have to be carried about to be of any use. The other day we were told, in contrast with this, that the present Emperor was able to send twenty five thousand men in a day from Paris to Lyons—a distance of three hundred miles. It would have taken his uncle a week of forced marches to accomplish the same object. Aus tria is sending troops into Italy at the same rate. Moreover, the same power which ren ders this rapid concentration of troops so easy, renders their subsistence, while concentrated, just as easy. Tne railroad dumps the soldiers now a days down on the battle-field, and the next day dumps down a months provisions in their rear. The telegraph, we need hardly soy, plays as wonderful apart in this change as the railroad. One of Napoleon's generals would have required four or five days to ask for a re inforcement, which he now asks for in as many minutes. It reaches him in as many hours as it would then have taken days. The destructiveness of the changes which these new instruments are likely to introduce into warfare, has not so far, attracted so much attention as it ought, because within the last 30 years we have had no wars in the part of the world in which science conld render the soldier efficient ; and what science has done, in that interval to mnke war more sanguinary, will only appear when two countries like Italy and Germany, which arc blessed, or cursed, with all the "modern improvements." Hav ing armed the combatants with the means of destroying life all aronnd him within a radius of a thousand vards, it hurl® K{ ~ 018 fo at tha rate'of •- u,IU ' "" • nnman misery revealed by even . u ii minutes reflection on such a theme as this, which no one who has ever seen war in its vol.. XIX.—XO. 51. most harmless aspect, cau coutemplate without u shudder. Wonders of the Mississippi. The difference of level between high and low water mark a Cairo is fifty feet. The width and depth of the river from Cairo and Memp his to New Orleans is not materially increased yet immense additions are made to the quanti ty of water in the channel by large streams from both the eastern ami western sides of the Mississippi. The question naturally arises, what becomes of this vast added volume of water ? It certainly never reaches New Orleans and as certainly does not evuporate ; and of course, it is not confined to the channel of tbo river, for it would rise far above the entire re gion south of us. If a well is sunk anywhere in tho Arkansas bottom, water is found as soon as the water level of the Mississippi is reached. When the Mississippi goes down, the water sinks accord ingly in the well. The owner of a saw mill, sotne twenty miles from the Mississippi, in Arkansas, dug a well to supply the boilers of his engine, during the late Hood. When the waters receded, his well went down till his hose would no longer reach the water, and finally, his well was dry. He dug a ditch to an ad jacent lake to let water into his well ; the lake was drained, and the well was dry again, having literally drank ten acres of water in less than a week. The inference is, that the whole val ley of the Mississippi.from its banks to the high lands on either side, rests on a porous substra tum which übsorbs the reduudant waters and thus prevents that degree of accumulation which would long since have swept New Orleans into the Oulf but for this provision of nature, to which alone her safety is attributable. In fact, if the alluvial bottoms of the Missis sippi were like the shores of the Ohio, the vast plain from Cairo to New Orleans would to-day be part and parcel of the Oulf of Mexico, and this whole valley a vast fresli water arm of the sea. Were the geological character of the valley different, the construction of levees, coa fining the water of the Mississippi to its chan nel, would cause the rise in the river to become so graet at the South that there not sufficieut levees could be built. The current would be stronger and accumulation of water greater as the levees are extended North of us. Such results were reasonably euough antici pated ; but the water, instead of breaking the levees, permeates the porous soil, and the over flow is really beneath the surface of the swamps Such, it seems to us, are the wise provisions of natural laws for the safety and ultimate recla mation of the rich country South of us. We believe that the levee system will be success ful, and that the object of its adoption will be attained. The porcsity of the material used in making them has caused most if not all of crevusscs. Men may deem it a superhuman task to wall in the Mississippi from Cairo to New Orleans, but our levees are the work of pigmies when contrasted with the dykes of Holland. The fioodtide of tho Mississippi is but a ripple ou the surface of a glassy pool, compared with the ocean billows that dash against the artificial shores of Holland. The country to be reclaimed by our levees—all of which will not for fifty years cost the j>eoplo as much as those of the Dutch when originally built—would make one hundred sucli kingdoms a> that over which Bouaparte once wielded the sceptre — Memphis Avaalnrhe. fleg- A beggar accosted a member of Par liament, and telling a piteous tale, said, "If your honor does not assist me I shall be com pelled to an act which nothing but despera tion could tempt me to do." The honorablo gentleman gave him a shilling and walked on, but an idea struck him ; so he called the beg gar, and asked him what he had meditated doing " Can't you guess," said the beggar. " I should have been compelled to hunt for for work which nothing but desperation could have tempted ine to do." LOLA Montcz, in her book, "The Art of Beauty," lays down the following rule among her hints to gentleman on the art of Fascina tion." You ought to know there are four things which always more or less interests a lady—a parrot, a peacock, a monkey, and a man ; and the nearer you can come in uniting all these about equally in your character, the more will you be loved. This is a cheap and excellent recipe fur making a dandy, a crea ture which is always an object of admiration to the ladies. How THE Pooi>l K GOT WET.—Enter Bridget, with the mistress' favorite poodle, wringiig wet. "How is this, Bridget ? How came Fido to get so very wet?" "An' faith, mam, an' it was little Tommy that had the little baste lashed to the end of a powl, and was washing the windets wid him." BtaT" Looking out of his window one summer evening, Luther saw on a tree at hand a little bird making brief and easy dispositions for a night's rest. " Look," said he," how that lit tle fellow preaches faith to us all. lie takes hold of liis twig, tucks his head under his wing, and goes to sleep, leaving God to think for him. Bzir A newspaper thus describes the effects of u hurricane—" It shattered mountains,tore up oaks by the roots, dismantled churches, laid villages waste, and overturned— a haystack ?' IT is rumored that the lad es are going to raise the moustache. We believe that they can do it without difficulty, for every hand some woman can, whenever she pleases, have a "moustache" to her lip. A quack doctor in one of his hills, said lie could bring living witnesses to prove the effi cacy of his nostrums, " which is more," she " than others in my lin* 3°" jv nas been computed that there are eight hundred millions of gold and jewels at the bottom of the sea on route between Eng land and India. " I'm getting fat," as the loafer said when he was stealing " lard."