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structed, and shuts the person passing entirely out of view of the occupants of the ante-room.) "On his way through he heard the baby cry. He instantly went back to his office and rang the bell. 'Daniel,' said he, 'is there a woman with a baby in the ante-room?' I said there was, and if he would allow me to say it, I thought it was a case he ought to see; for it was a matter of life and death. Said he, 'Send her to me at once.' She went in, told her story, and the President pardoned her husband. As the woman came out from his presence, her eyes were lifted and her lips moving in prayer, the tears streaming down her cheeks." Said Daniel, "I went up to her, and pulling her shawl, said, 'Madam, it was the baby that did it !'"

Another touching incident occurred, I believe, the same week. A woman in a faded shawl and hood, somewhat advanced in life, at length was admitted, in her turn, to the President. Her husband and three sons, all she had in the world, enlisted. Her husband had been killed, and she had come to ask the President to release to her the oldest son.

Being satisfied of the truthfulness of her story, he said, Certainly, if her prop was taken away she was justly entitled to one of her boys." He immediately wrote an order for the discharge of the young man. The poor woman thanked him very gratefully, and went away. On reaching the army she found that this son had been in a recent engagement, was wounded, and taken to a hospital. She found the hospital, but the boy was dead, or died while she was there. The surgeon in charge made a memorandum of the facts upon the back of the President's order, and, almost broken-hearted, the poor woman found her way again into his presence. He was much affected by her appearance and story, and said, "I know what you wish me to do now, and I shall do it without your asking: I shall release to you your second son." Upon this he took up his pen and commenced writing the order. While he was writing the poor woman stood by his side, the tears running down her face, and passed her hands softly over his head, stroking his rough hair, as I have seen a fond mother caress a son. By the time he had finished writing his own heart and eyes were full. He handed her the paper. "Now," said he, "you have one and I one of the other two left; that is no more than right." She took the paper, and reverently placing her hand again upon his head, the tears still upon her cheeks, said, "The Lord bless you, Mr. President! May you live a thousand years, and always be the head of this great nation!"

One day the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens called with an elderly lady, in great trouble, whose son had been in the army, but for some offence

had been court-martialled, and sentenced either to death or imprisonment at hard labor for a long term, I do not recollect which. There were some extenuating circumstances, and after a full hearing the President turned to the representative and said: "Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?" "With my knowledge of the facts and the parties," was the reply, "I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon." "Then," returned Mr. Lincoln, "I will pardon him," and he proceeded forthwith to execute the paper. The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by her tears, and not a word was said between her and Mr. Stevens until they were half way down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke forth in an excited manner with the words, "I knew it was a copperhead lie !" "What do you refer to, madam ?" asked Mr. Ste"Why, they told me he was an ugly-looking man," she replied, with vehemence. "He is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life!" And surely for that mother, and for many another throughout the land, no carved statue of ancient or modern art, in all its symmetry, can have the charm which will forevermore encircle that care-worn but gentle face, expressing as was never expressed before, "Malice towards none-Charity for all.”

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M. Laugel, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, relates from personal observation one or two interesting incidents:

"A soldier's wife reduced almost to destitution by the absence of her husband, sought to obtain his discharge from the armythis, Mr. Lincoln told her was beyond his power; but he listened patiently to the poor creature's tale of suffering and sorrow, cheered her and comforted her, reminded her how not herself alone, but the nation generally, were passing through a season of trial, and dismissed her not only with many kind and thoughtful words, but with substantial proofs of sympathy." A beautiful and touching picture M. Laugel places before us of Mr. Lincoln, in that fatal theatre-months before the real tragedy which ended his lifelistening to that representation of manly sorrow in "King Lear"-with his little son pressed close to his ample breast, at times answering patiently the little prattling fellow-then showing in every feature how keenly he felt the great dramatist's representation of the sorrows of paternity. To him Shakspeare was, as to all true men, a great teacher, whose words cannot be heard too often, and cannot be rendered more powerful by any extrinsic circumstances. "It matters not to me," he said one day, "whether Shakspeare be well or ill acted; with him, the thought suffices."

Here is a characteristic touch of humor as well as pathos;-the incident is strictly true:

A distinguished citizen of Ohio had an appointment with the Presi dent one evening at six o'clock. As he entered the vestibule of the White House, his attention was attracted by a poorly-clad young woman who was violently sobbing. He asked her the cause of her distress. She said she had been ordered away by the servants, after vainly waiting many hours to see the President about her only brother, who had been condemned to death. Her story was this:--She and her brother were foreigners, and orphans. They had been in this country several years. Her brother enlisted in the army, but, through bad influences, was induced to desert. He was captured, tried, and sentenced to be shot-the old story. The poor girl had obtained the signatures of some persons who had formerly known him, to a petition for a pardon, and alone had come to Washington to lay the case before the President. Thronged as the waiting-rooms always were, she had passed the long hours of two days trying in vain to get an audience, and had at length been ordered away.

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The gentleman's feelings were touched. He said to her that he had come to see the President, but did not know as he should succeed. He told her, however, to follow him up-stairs, and he would see what could be done for her. Just before reaching the door, Mr. Lincoln came out, and meeting his friend said good-humoredly, "Are you not ahead of time?" The gentleman showed him his watch, with the hand upon the hour of six. "Well," returned Mr. Lincoln, "I have been so busy to-day that I have not had time to get a lunch. Go in, and sit down; I will be back directly."

The gentleman made the young woman accompany him into the office, and when they were seated, said to her, "Now, my good girl, I want you to muster all the courage you have in the world. When the President comes back, he will sit down in that arm-chair. I shall get up to speak to him, and as I do so you must force yourself between us, and insist upon his examination of your papers, telling him it is a case of life and death, and admits of no delay." These instructions were carried out to the letter. Mr. Lincoln was at first somewhat surprised at the apparent forwardness of the young woman, but observing her distressed appearance, he ceased conversation with his friend, and commenced an examination of the document she had placed in his hands. Glancing from it to the face of the petitioner, whose tears had broken forth afresh, he studied its expression for a moment, and then his eye fell upon her scanty but neat dress. Instantly his face lighted up.

"My poor girl," said he, "you have come here with no governor, or senator, or member of Congress, to plead your cause. You seem honest and truthful; and you don't wear hoops-and I will be whipped but I will pardon your brother."

Though kind-hearted almost to a fault, nevertheless he always endeavored to be just. A member of Congress called upon him one day with the brother of a deserter who had been arrested. The excuse was that the soldier had been home on a sick-furlough, and that he afterwards became partially insane, and had consequently failed to return and report in proper time. He was on his way to his regiment at the front to be tried. The President at once ordered him to be stopped at Alexandria and sent before a board of surgeons for examination as to the question of insanity. "This seemed to me so proper," said the representative, "that I expressed myself satisfied. But on going out, the brother, who was anxious for an immediate discharge, said to me, 'The trouble with your President is, that he is so afraid of doing something wrong.'"

A correspondent of the New York Times, writing from Kentucky, gives the following

"Among the large number of persons waiting in the room to speak with Mr. Lincoln, on a certain day in November last, was a small, pale, delicate-looking boy about thirteen years old. The President saw him standing, looking feeble and faint, and said:'Come here, my boy, and tell me what you want.' The boy advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President's chair, and with bowed head and timid accents said: 'Mr. President, I have been a drummer in a regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me and turned me off; I was taken sick, and have been a long time in hospital. This is the first time I have been out, and I came to see if you could not do something for me.' The President looked at him kindly and tenderly, and asked him where he lived. 'I have no home,' answered the boy. 'Where is your father?' 'He died in the army,' was the reply. Where is your mother? continued the President. 'My mother is dead also. I have no mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, and,' bursting into tears, 'no friends-nobody cares for me.' Mr. Lincoln's eyes filled with tears, and he said to him, 'Can't you sell newspapers?' 'No,' said the boy, 'I am too weak, and the surgeon of the hospital told me I must leave, and I have no money, and no place to go to.' The scene was wonderfully affecting. The President drew forth a card, and addressing on it certain officials to whom his

request was law, gave special directions 'to care for this poor boy.' The wan face of the little drummer lit up with a happy smile as he received the paper, and he went away convinced that he had one good and true friend, at least, in the person of the President."

Mr. Van Alen, of New York, writing to the Evening Post, relates the following:

"I well remember one day when a poor woman sought, with the persistent affection of a mother, for the pardon of her son condemned to death. She was successful in her petition. When she had left the room, he turned to me and said: 'Perhaps I have done wrong, but at all events I have made that poor woman happy.'

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One night Schuyler Colfax left all other business to ask him to respite the son of a constituent, who was sentenced to be shot, at Davenport, for desertion. He heard the story with his usual patience, though he was wearied out with incessant calls, and anxious for rest, and then replied:-"Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me rested, after a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends." And with a happy smile beaming over that care-furrowed face, he signed that name that saved that life.

Said the Rev. Dr. Storrs, in his eulogy upon Mr. Lincoln, pronounced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music:

"Of course his sensibilities came gradually to be under the control of his judgment, and the councils of others constrained him sometimes to a severity which he hated; so that at length the order for the merited restraint or punishment of public offenders was frequently, though always reluctantly, ratified by him. But his sympathy with men, in whatever condition, of whatever opinions, in whatever wrongs involved, was so native and constant, and so controlling, that he was always not so much inclined as predetermined to the mildest and most generous theory possible. And something of peril as well as promise was involved to the public in this element of his nature. He would not admit that he was in danger of the very assassination by which at last his life was taken, and only yielded with a protest to the precautions which others felt bound to take for him; because his own sympathy with men was so strong that he could not believe that any would meditate serious harm to him.

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