sag i ? T-HE WHOLE ART OK GOVERNMENT CONSISTS IN THE ART OF BEING HONEST. Jefferson. STRO UDSBURG, MONROE COUNTY, PA., THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1846. VOL TERMS Two dollars per annum In advance Two dollars and a quarter, half vearly-and if not p:iJ before the end ol the vcar, Two dollars and a hair. Those who re .ccive i then papers by a carrier or stage drivers employed by the proprie tors, will be charged 37 1-2 cts. per year, extra. No papers discontinued until all arrearages arc paid, except at the option of the Editors. i:oc IDAJvertise,ncnts not exceeding one square (s "'eenlines) uillbe inserted three weeks for one dollar: ty-hvc cents for every subsequent insertion : larger ones in proportion. A liberal discount will be made to yearly advertisers 1DAU letters addressed to the Editors must be post paid JOB PRINTING. Having a general assortment of large, elegant, plain and orna mental Tvpe, we are prepared to execute every description of Cards, Circulars, Bill Heads, Notes, likiiiK Receipts, JUSTICES, LEGAL AND OTHER BlfAJVKS, PAMPHLETS, &c. Printed with neatness and dospatch,on reasonable tei ms AT THE OFFICE OF THE Jcffcrsonian Republican. The Gentle Word. A gentle word hath a magical power. The weary breast 10 beguile ; It gladdens the eye, it lightens the brow, And changes the lear to a smile. In ihe genial sunshine it sheds around. The shadows of care depart, And we feel in its soothing and friendly. tone, There's balm for the wounded heart. Oh! watch thou, then, that thy lips ne'er breathe A bitter, ungentle word, For ihat which is lightly and idly said, Is ofien too deeply heard; And tho' for the moment, it leave no trace, For pride will its woes conceal, Remember, the spirit lhat's calm and still Is always the first to feel. It may not bo in thy power, perchance, To secure a lofty place, And blazen thy name upon history's page , As a friend to the human race; But oft in the daily tasks of life, Tho' ihe world behold thee not, Thy gentle and kindly words may soothe A desponding brother's lot. Tis well to walk with a cheerful heart, Wherever our fortunes call, With a friendly glance, and an open hand, And a gentle word for all ; Since life is a thorny and difficult path, Where toil is the portion of man, We all should endeavor, while passing along-, To take it as smooth as we can. The First and Last Dinner. A TALE OF LIFE. Twelve friends, much about the same age, and fixed, by their pursuits, their family con nexions, and other local interests, as permanent inhabitants of the metropolis, agreed one day, when they were drinking their wine at the Star and Garter at Richmond, to institute an annual dinner among themselves, under the following J ejaculation, and an instinctive observation upon regulations : That they should dine alternately j ,he uncertainty of life, made up the sum of leu at each others houses on the first and last days' der posthumous offering to the name of George of the year: that the first bottle of wine uncork-! Fortesque,' as they proceeded to discharge the ed at the first dinner, should be recorked and I fnt"e important duties for which they had met. them doze between each deal, put away, to be drank by him who should be By the time the third glass of champaigne had At length came the last dinner; and the sur ihe last of their number; that they should nev-J gone round, in addition to potations of fine old' vivorof the twelve, upon whose head four score er admit a new member; that when one died' eleven were to meet, and so on ; and that when only one remained, he should, on those two days dine by himself, and sil the usual hours at his solitary table ; but the first time he so dined alone lest it should be the only one, he should then uncork the first bottle, and in the first glass, .drink to the memory of all who were gone. There was something original and whimsical m the idea, and it wa6 eagerly embraced. They were all in the prime of life, closely attached by reciprocal friendship, fond of social enjoy ments, and looked forward to their future meet ings with unalloyed anticipations of pleasure. The only thought, indeed, that could have dark ened those anticipations, was not likely to in trude itself at this moment, ihat of the hapless -wight who was destined to uncork the Just bot tle at his lonely repast. It was high summer when this frolic compact was entered into; and as their pleasure yacht skimmed along the dark bosom of the Thames, on their return to London, they talked of noth ing but their first and last feasts of ensuing years. Their imaginations ran out with a thou sand gay predictions of festive merriment. They wantoned in conjectSfes of what changes tliljo would create. " As for you, George," exclaimed one of jbe twelve, addressing his brother-in-law, " I ex pect I shall see you as dry, withered and shrunk en as an old eel skin, you mere outside of a man!" and he accompanied the words with a beany slap on the shoulder. George Fortesquo was leaning carelessly over the side of the yacht, laughing the loudest of any at the conversation which had been car ried on. 'The sudden mutual salutation of his brother-in-law threw him off his balance, and in a moment he was overboard. They heard the heavy splash of his fall, before they could bo said to have seen him fall. The yacht was proceeding swiftly along; but it was instantly stopped. The utmost consternation now prevailed. It was nearly dark, but Fortesque was known to be an excellent swimmer, and siariling as the accident was, they felt certain ihat he would regain the vessel. They could not see him. They listened. They heard the sound of his hands and feet. An answer was returned, but in a faint gurgling voice, and the exclamation "Oh God!" struck upon their ears. In an in stant, two or three who were expert, swimmers, plunged into the river, and swam towards the spot whence the exclamation had proceeded. One of them was within arm's length of For ltique ; he saw him ; before he could be reach ed, lie went down, and his distracted friend be held tht eddying circles of the wave just over ihe spot where he had sunk. He dived after him, and touched the bottom; but the tide must have drifted the body onward, for it could not be found ! They proceeded to one of the nearest stations where drags were kept, and having procured the necessary apparatus, they proceeded to the fatal spot. After the lapse of above an hour, they succeeded in raising the lifeless body of their lost friend. All the usual remedies were employed for restoring suspended animation, but in vain ; they now pursued the remainder of their course to London in mournful silence, with the corpse of him who had commenced carry it to their lips, if more than half full; and the day of pleasure with ihem in fulness of cracked their jokes, though they articulated health, of spirits and of life ! And in their se- their words with difficulty, and heard each other vere grief they could but reflect how soon one 'with slill greater difficulty. They mumbled, of the joyous twelve had slipped out of the lit-; they chattered, they laughed, if a sort of strang le festive circle. J led wheezing might be called a laugh ; and The months rolled on, and cold December came with all its cheering round of kindly greet ings and merry hospitalities ; and with it came a softened recollection of the fate of poor For tesque ; eleven of the twelve assembled on the last day of the year, and it was impossible not to feel their loss as they sat down to dinner. The very irregularity of ihe table, five on one hand, and six on the other, forced ihe melan choly event upon their memory. A decorous sigh or two, a low, becoming hck, and 'capital madeira,' they had ceased to discover any thing so very pathetic in the in - equality of the two sides of ihe table, or so melancholy in their crippled number of eleven Several years had now elapsed, and still our friends continued to celebrate their double an niversaries, as ihey might properly enough be called, with scarcely any perceptible change. But, alas! there came one dinner at last which j was darkened by a calamity they never expect ed to witness ; for on thai day, their friend, companion, broiher-altnosi, was hanged! Yes, Stephen Rowland, the wit, the oracle, tho life of the circle, had, on the morning of that day, forfeited his life upon a scaffold, for having made one single stroke of his pen in the wrong place. In other words, a bill of exchange which passed into his hand for JC700, passed out of it for JC1.700. It would be injustice to the ten to say, that even wine, friendship and a merry season, could dispel the gloom which pervaded this dinner. It was agreed before hand, that they should not allude to the distressing and melancholy theme; and having thus interdicted the only things which really occupied all their thoughts, the natural consequence was, that silent contem .plationtook the place of dismal discourse ; and they separated long before midnight. Some fifteen yenrs had now glided aWay since the fate of Rowland, and the ten remain ed ; but the stealing hand of time had written sundry changes in most legible characters. Raven locks had become grizzled, two or three heads had not as many locks altogether as may be reckoned in a walk of half a mile along the Regent's Canal one was actually covered with a brown wig, the crow's feet were visible in the corner of the eye good old pott and warm madeira carried it against hock, claret and red burgundy, and champaigne, stews, hashes, and ragouts, grew into favor ; crusts were randy called for to relish the cheese after dinner conversation grew less boisterous, and it turned chiefly on politics and the state of funds, or the value of landed property apologies were made for coming in thick shoes and warm stockings the doors and windows were most carefully provided with list and sand bags the fire more in request and a quiet game of whist filled up the hours that were wont to be devoted to drinking, singing and riotous merriment. The rubbers, a cup of coffee, and home by 1 1 o'clock, was the usual cry, when the fifth or sixth glass had gone round after the removal of the cloth. At parting, too, there was a long ceremony, in the hall, buttoning up great coats, tying on woollen comforters, fixing silk handkerchiefs over the mouth and up to the ears, grasping sturdy walking canes to support unsteady feet. Their fiftieth anniversary came, and death had indeed been busy ! Four little old men of withered appearance and decrepit walk, with cracked voices and dim, layless eyes, sat down, by the mercy of Heaven, (as they themselves tremulously declared,) to celebrate for the fiftieth time, the first day of the year; to observo the frolic compact which, half a century before, they had entered into at the Star and Garter at Richmond. Eight were in their graves ! The four that remainod stood upon its confines. Yet they chirped cheerily over "their glass, though they could scarcely when the wines sent their icy blood in warmer ' pulses through their veins, they talked of the past as if it were but yesterday that had slipped by them and of the future as if it were a busy century that lay before them. They were just the number for a quiet rubber of whist ; and for three successive years they sat down to one. The fourth come, and then their rubber was played with an opcnjlummy ; a fifth, and whist was no longer practicable ; two could play only at cribbage, and. cribbage was the game. It was little more than ihe mockery of play. Their palsied hands could hardly hold, or their fading sight distinguish the cards, while their torpid faculties made and ten winters had showered their snow, ate : his solitary meal. It so chanced thai it was in ; his house and at his table, they had celebrated the first. In his cellar, too, had remained, for eight and fifty years, the bottle they had un corked, recorked, and which he was that day to uncork again. It stood beside him; wiih a feeble and reluctant grasp he took the frail me morial of a youthful vow, and for a moment memory was faithful to her office. She threw open her long vista of buried years : and his heart travelled through them all. Their lusty and blithsome spring, their bright and fervid summer their ripe and temperate autumn their chill, but not too frozen winter. He saw, as in a mirror, how one by one, the laughing companions of the merry hour, at Richmond, had dropped into eternity. lie felt all the lone liness of his condition, (for he had eschewed marriage, and in the veins of no living creature ran a drop of blood whose source was his own;) and as he drained a glass "to the memory of those who were gone," ihe tears slowly trick led down tho deep furrows of his aged face. He had tluis fulfilled one part of his vow, and ho prepared himself to discharge the other, by sitting the usual number of hours ai his desolate table. With a heavy heart he resigned him self to the gloom of his own thoughts a leth- argic sleep stole over him his head fell upon his bosom confused images crowded into his mind- he babbled to himself was silent and when his servant entered the room, alarmed by the noise which he heard, he found his master stretched upon the carpel at ihe foot of the easy chair, and out of which he had slipped in an apoplectic fit. He never spoke again, nor once opened his eyes, though the vital spark was not still extincl till the following day And this was the last dinner. The Culinary art in the Texas Prairies. The following graphic account of the straits to which the Texan Rangers are sometimes re duced for cooking materials, addresses itself to "the charity that believeth all things" never theless many things have had their day as sooth, which are not quite as credible as this. There is no compulsion intended upon the credit of any body, though the story, all must admit, is easier of deglutition than the meal when roasted. MatamorAs, June 13, 1846. Race nags may be found among the Texas Volunteers, yet the funniest fellow of all is a happy-go-lucky chap named Bill Dean, one of Chevallief's spy company, and said to be one of the best ''seven-lip" players in all Texas. While at Corpus Christi, a lot of us were sit ting out on tho stoop of the Kinney House, early one morning, when along came Bill Dean. He did not know a single soul in the crowd, although he knew we were all bound for the Rio Grande ; yet the fact that the regular for malities of an introduction had not been gone through with, did not prevent him slopping short in his walk and accosting us. His speech, or harangue, or whatever it may be termed, will lose much in the telling, yet 1 will endeavor to put it upon paper in as good shape as possible. 'Oh, yes,' said he, with a knowing leer of the eye, 'oh yes; all goin' down among the rob bers on ihe Rio Grande, are you? Fine limes you'll have, over the left. I've been there, my self, and done what a good many of you won't do I come back : but if I did'nt see nateral h 11 in August at that 1 am a teapot. Lived eight days on one poor hawu anu tnree omck- . it i t it t I berries-could nt kill a prairie rat on the whole route to save us from starvation. The ninth day come, and we struck a small streak of pood luck a horse give out and broke down, plumb out in the centre of an open prairie not a stick in sight big enough to tickle a rattle snake with, let alone killing him. Jusi had time to save the critter by shootin' him, and that was all, for in three minuies longer he'd have died a nateral death. It did'nt tako us long to butcher him, nor long to cut off some chunks of meat and stick 'em on our ram-rods; but the cookin' was another matter. 1 piled up a heap of prairie grass, for it was high and dry, and sot it on fire ; but it flashed up like powder and went out as quick. Bui ' But,' put in one of his hearers, 'but how did you cook that horse meal after thai?' How?' Yes, howT 'Why, the lire caught the high grass close by, and tho wind carried the flames streakin' across ihe prairie. I followed up the lire, hol ding my chunk of meal directly over the hol iest part of ihe blaze, and the way we went it was a caution to anything short of locomotive doins. Once in a while a little flu'rry of wind would come along, and the fire would get a few yards the start; but I'd brush upon her, lap her with my chunk, and ther. we'd have it again, nip and luck. You never seed such a light race it was beautiful.' 'Very, we've no doubt,' ejaculated one of the listeners, interrupting the mad wag just in sea son to give him a little breath: 'but did you cook your meat in ihe end V 4 Not bad I did'nt. I chased that d n fire a mile and a half, ihe almigluiost hard race you ever heer'd on, and never gave it up until I run right into a wet marsh; there the fire and chunk of horse meat came out even a dead heat, es pecially the meat.' But, wasn't it cooked V put in another of the listeners.' 'Cooked ! no ! just crusted over a little. You don't cook broken-down horse flesh vary easily, no how; but. when it comes to chasin nn a nrairif! firfi' with a chunk of it, I don't know which is toughest, the meat or the job. I -v .l l I 1 . , , i uu u wave mugiivu iu sjim yuurseit to fiavtf seen me in that race -to see the lire leave inn at times, and then to see me a brushm' up nit her again, htimpin'and moven myself as though,' I was a runniti' agin some of those big ten milt)?, an hour Gilderslceves in the old States. Wwv I'm a goin' over to Jack Harnett's to get a cock-. tail and some breakfast I'll see you all dowtk among the robbers on the Rio Grande.' And so saying Bill Dean stalked off. I aw the chap this morning in front of a Mexican fonda, trying to talk Spanish with a Greaser and endeavoring to convince him that he was ;i 'd n robber.' Such is one of Bill Dean's- stories if I could only make it as effective on paper as he did in the telling, it would draw a laugh from those fond of the ludicrous. Ar. 0. Picayune: Correspondence of the N. Y. Spirit of ihe Times. Incidents of the War Delicacy of the WolvesFolks iu Matamoras Tim Ladies their dress,. bathing, &o. In the memorable engagements of the Sth and 9th, none fought with more vim than tint 1 risli. In the midst of death, surrounded by the dying, their mother wit and humor would! break out. At the risk of repeating an auc dote, which is now going ihe rounds of the pa pers, I must record it for the "Spirit:" Very early in the morning, after the battle of the 8th, an Irishman walking over ihe battle field, heard a pack of wolves, apparently from, iheir growling, quarreling over the bodies of ao dead. He exclaimed-." Be asy with yz ; w herb's the use of quarreling, sure there's enough for all of ye'es." He little knew that the wolves would not eat them. Their howl must have beyr.i a wail at their not finding Americans. UN a singular fact, Mr. Spirit, that neither the wolves -nor buz Z3r(s wi,i lQuch lhem Al lhis mo,wenlf on thtt field of Palo Alio, are to be seen numbers of the dead completely dried up with Oheir clothes on them, giving evidence of not having been touch ed by any beast or bird of prey. It is unac countable to me. The bodies of our men would, be destroyed immediately the Mexicans re mafn untouched. Some pretend to account r,or h from ,he facl of ,heir eali s0 muck . 'j caijenne pepper...ihe wolves not v.oy pungenl condiments. As far as J -a1 c tut: h pungent condiments. As far as J' in con cerned, I give duo weight lo the abov e reasons, for I have none to assign. Some f your sci entific readers may account for it. Of the fact that they will not touch them, .ney may be as sured. Set your scientifica -at woik to discov er a better. cause than that assigned by the vul gar. The good citizens are becoming more at home wiih us ; many of the genteeler classes are showing themselves There is a great deal of beauty among hem- some most stri kingly beautiful faces They hare a luxurious life, at least I c?.U it so; if you, friend Porter, had inhabited a Southern clime, and felt tho enervating effects of the climate, you would bo of my opinion,. They sit all day long in build ings with thick walls and brick floors, with their beautiful suits of hair nicely braided and tie' op, with the least possible quantity of dress (like Mrs. Trollope says of us, I'm a little mo dest and hate to mention it) that you can poasi bly fancy. I say there they ait the lire long day, without hardly a particle of heat reaching them, and in the evening they emerge like bees from their hives, and take possession of iheir balconies, and enjoy one of the most delicious evening climates that God has ever granted to us poor mortals. I apply this, of course, to the better class, for the filth of ihe lower is rim en durable. They are very sociable, and will per mit you to stop and gaze on their beautiful fa ces, whether from sheer laziness, or from ihe inherent love of admiration, part and parcel of the sex, I leave you to judge. If you ar a lover of nature -unadorned you can gruuly your taste by looking up to Fort Paredes, and. witness the fair creatures bathing in the IVto Grande. Every evening you will find crowds of them bathing, and no offence is taken by looking at ihem enjoying their aquatic amuse- An intelligent captain in the navy, who, ha cruised three years in the Pacific, state-, that in Monterey a piece of fresh beef can 'be ex- posed to tho sun tor iniriy-six imwa 'y; " the least taint the air is so pure
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