spair, Dave held on, but his situation grew more | and more desperate, and, for the first time in many years, Dave bethought himself, as he was sure to be killed, that he ought to pray. But when did Dave Harris ever pray? Why, when he was a little boy, at his mother's knee, as he was about to go to bed; and now the only words of prayer the wild Texan rover could recall were the child's evening petition, "Now I lay me down to sleep;" and this prayer he put up over and over again, as, Mazeppa-like, he was whirled over the plain, with a troop of mad buffaloes thundering in his rear. While thus engaged in praying, the horse undertook to leap a hole and struck his fore-feet on the other side, which accident dropped Dave back into the saddle; and, once more in his seat, he managed to elude his pursuers and make good his escape. Dave often told the story, but never omitted to confess that he was frightened, and wished with all his might that he knew how to pray. But, like a great many other Dave Harrises, he was mighty willing to say his prayers when he thought the devil was after him, and quite as ready to live without them when he thought the danger was over. OUR bribery men at Washington are up to all manner of tricks to evade the laws and yet buy the votes they want; but in the old country they have had longer experience, and know the ropes better than we. A correspondent says: "At a warmly contested election in one of the rotten boroughs in Ireland, all sorts of tricks were resorted to, for the sake of buying votes, in evasion of the law. One of the candidates, Mr. Anson, went into a barber's shop, and, having submitted to the idle ceremony of being shaved, paid the barber, who was a voter, five guineas for the operation. When the polls were opened, the knight of the razor came forward and voted openly for Mr. Benson, the opposing candidate. “Anson, astounded, cried out to him, 'What do you mean? Didn't you shave me yesterday?' "Yes, indade, Sir,' replied the sharp-set barber; but I shaved Mr. Benson this morning!" There are plenty of men up to just that trick all around. A rascal in Congress or Common Council, who will take a bribe, is not to be trusted even by the rascal who offers it. They will cheat one another if they get the chance. JUDGE BRACKENRIDGE says: "I once had a Virginia lawyer object to an expression in one of the acts of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, which read that 'the State House yard in the city of Philadelphia should be surrounded by a brick wall and remain an open inclosure forever.' But I put him down by citing one of the acts of the Legislature of his own State, which is entitled 'A supplement to an act entitled an act making it penal to alter the mark of an unmarked hog."" A KENTUCKY contributor asks us if we ever heard of Judge Koonston of that State. He is no judge of law, but is a good judge of leather, having followed the tanning and currying profession for many years, and has worn the title of Judge so long that nobody knows how he got it, and nobody cares. The fact is, that he does not know one letter of the alphabet from another, and, what is stranger still, he thinks that no one knows his ignorance. When he comes into the tavern he will take up the newspaper and study it as closely as if he were deeply interested in its perusal. He was so engaged the other day, when Colonel Wines coming up to him said, familiarly, "Well, Judge, what's the news?" "Bad, Colonel, very bad," replied the Judge; "there's been a terrible gale at sea, and the ships are upside down, and the niggers are all running off on their heads." The Judge had the paper wrong side up, and had drawn these dreadful inferences from the inverted pictures, which he had been studying for half an hour. "WHY is a pun always styled the lowest kind of wit ?" "Because it lies at the base of all other wit." "A FRIEND of ours in the country," writes an entertaining correspondent, "has a peacock, that, like other peacocks and people, has a habit of spreading himself considerably. Our friend has a German servant in his employ quite unacquainted with the peacock tribe and nature; and when the bird expanded himself the boy was frightened, thought something was the matter, and, having vainly tried to put the upright feathers down, he ran in to tell his mistress that the wind had blown the peacock up. The lady came out, and, for the sake of seeing how far the boy would go in his wonder, she told him to catch the bird and bring him to her. As he made the attempt, the queenly bird dropped his tail, and the boy exclaimed: "So longer as a man lives so more he finds out." True, very true; and happy he who has wit enough to know it. THE Crowds were coming out of Burton's theatre at the close of the prayer-meeting, when one of the by-standers observed that it looked like a benefit, there had been so full a house. "You are right," said another; "it is a benefit for the soul. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women actors-acting for eternity." There's a good thought there: half Shakspeare, and all true. Mr. DID you ever hear of the Scotch clergyman, Rev. Mr. Morrison, who was insulted at a dinnerparty by a half-tipsy army officer? The military man had taken more wine than was wise, and began to worry the Dominie, and finally offered to bet ten pounds that he could preach off-hand half an hour from any text that might be given. Morrison accepted the wager, and opening his pocket Bible read a text from the story of Balaam: "And the ass opened his mouth and spake." The officer was not so drunk but that he felt the cutting rebuke, and gave up the attempt, keeping his mouth shut the rest of the evening. "JUDGE DAGGETT," you say in the April Drawer, "had no faculty of making rhymes. Some men have not, and some have no power of distinguishing colors: they can not tell red from green, nor yellow from blue. But in the rhyming line Judge Wilkins, of Richmond County, was the queerest specimen of this infirmity. He could not make a rhyme, and did not know when one was made, and did not know that he was deficient in | iff. Supposing that the Judge was about to hold this faculty. In fact, he was quite offended, on a special term of the Court, he obeyed the request one occasion, when the peculiarity was made the subject of conversation. He was then challenged to perpetrate a rhyming couplet on the spot; and, putting a bold face on the matter, he said: "Johnny Ray They say so.' "Of course the company were satisfied, and so was the Judge. It was all one to him, and he never knew but he had convinced them of his genius at making poetry." AMONG the thousands who met at Indianapolis to welcome Colonel Johnson, of Kentucky, when he made his electioneering tour through the Western States in 1840, was "Old Charlie," a negro who once was a servant of the Colonel, but was now free and settled in Indiana. Charlie was now in full feather. He took the old soldier under his protection, installed himself as door-keeper, and no one was permitted to shake hands with his former master unless by Charlie's introduction. While the crowd was at the door, a portly, pompous man came up, and, taking the negro by the hand, said: How d'do Charlie? glad to see you." Charlie's dignity was touched by this familiarity, and he refused to recognize the gentleman. "Why, I used to know you," said the man, "when you belonged to Colonel Johnson." "Very likely, Sar, very likely," replied Charlie; "there was a great many people that knew us Johnsons that we didn't know. The Johnsons didn't associate with every body!" by calling the sheriff's name three times at the door. The sheriff hastened across the public square in a broiling sun, dashed into the office, wiped the perspiration from his dripping brow, and asked his Honor if he should open Court. "No," said the Judge, “I only wanted to borry twenty dollars, and I thought you could accommodate me." The Sheriff complied with the demand; but, considering the state of the weather, he thought it the coolest operation he ever knew. We think the Judge liable to indictment for obtaining money under false pretenses. A TUSCALOOSAN correspondent sent us a budget of good ones last autumn, and they have turned up at last. They have kept well, and poorer ones would have spoiled in half the time. "At a big meeting' in Sumter County, Alabama, I was fortunate in hearing the famous Mr. Whigins preach a sermon on the miracle in Cana of Galilee. When he reached the sixth verse, he read: 'And there were set six water pots of stone, containing two or three firkins apiece.' On these words he gave a curious exposition, equally original and amusing as a specimen of critical exegesis: 666 Now, my bretheren, see how this miracle was wrought without the intervention of any visible second cause. You see that in each one of these water pots there were two or three fur-skins; and you know there is no power in any kind of a skin, And the pompous gentleman was decidedly cut. least of all in a fur-skin, to̟ generate any vinous KITTIE. KITTIE is a country lass, From the early morn Till the shades of evening come Light of foot and light of heart Like the bee to flowers- Kate is wild as wild can be, Pulls my hair, and tweaks my nose- But I know she'd pause, Nor make my cheek to smart, She's but just sixteen- Love has power to move her; Kate will own a lover. MANY years ago, when Judge Haines was presiding over the Orphan's Court of one of the western counties of Alabama, he stepped into the County Clerk's office one day a sultry afternoon in August-and requested the clerk to call the sher fluid: yet this was the instrumentality employed to turn this water into superior wine.' "After the service was over, one of the ministers, the Rev. Mr. Benedict, a man of much learning and ability, took Father Whigins to task for confounding firkins with fur-skins; and, giving him the true reading and sense of the passage, compelled the old gentleman to admit his mistake. "But,' said he, I confess I never could see exactly what the Jews should put fur-skins into their water pots for; and, after all, I'm sorry you told me, for you have spoiled one of the best sermons in the whole lot I have got.' "But his turn for criticism came, and well did he improve it. Mr. Benedict preached in the afternoon. Unfortunately for him, he used some illustration drawn from the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. The eye of old Father Whigins twinkled; for now he had caught his critic in a prodigious blunder. After service he took Mr. Benedict home with him, and alluding most delicately to the fact that the wisest men are sometimes mistaken, he went on to say: 'Brother Benedict, I am astonished that a well-read preacher like you should draw an illustration from a work of fiction like the life of Bonaparte!' "Mr. Benedict was puzzled to know what the good man was at, but ventured to say he presumed Father Whigins was jesting. "Father Whigins had been convinced by the the canvas with his twinkling and laughing eyes, Archbishop's reasoning, and Brother Benedict did and thus addressed him: 'Now, Bishop, sit up not attempt to unreason him, hoping one day to straight; turn your head a little more to the right hear a sermon on the 'Fictitious in French His--that will do. Now, Sir, look at me, and shut up tory."" It may be conceived that the venerable Bishop appreciated the joke, took the hint, and remained silent." We hope to hear "many a time and oft" from the correspondent who furnishes the two or three stories below from the "Old Dominion :" "In the early history of the Richmond Theatre, under the management of the late Charles Gilfert, North Carolina money formed part of our currency, and ranged in our city at a discount of from ten to fifteen per cent. your mouth!' "I was coming down the Hudson on the nightboat, and trying to sleep in a berth in the cabin. Two country dealers-slow, old coaches-sat near me, drawling out a conversation about store-keeping and buying goods, while I was wishing they would go to bed and let me go to sleep. They "Gilfert was frequently hard pressed to meet the kept up a low, buzzing kind of a dreamy talk-not current expenses of his theatre, and it was no un-life enough in it to interest a sleepy hearer, and just usual circumstance for him to resort to the ex- too much to let him drop away. But I was finally pedient of borrowing North Carolina money of a amused by overhearing them, as they got upon two noted broker, to be returned in Virginia money. or three of the big merchants of New York, who, With this depreciated currency he paid the sala- they allowed, were something. Purty smart, İ ries of his actors and orchestra, much to their dis-'spose, they are in York,' said one of the men; content and injury. 'but I'd like to know what chance any of them fellers would stand in Willsville ?'" on this wise: "Gilfert had in early life cultivated a knowledge of music, and was not only a skillful leader but a composer of merit; he prided himself in his or- "Ar the Lyceum,'" writes an Owego correchestra, and had among its members artists of dis-spondent, "a rising young lawyer spread himself tinguished ability, and made music a prominent feature of the establishment. His flute-player was a venerable-looking old gentleman, by the name of Stone; his leader, Nickola. Stone was eccentric and irritable, and justly felt the injustice of Gilfert's financiering, and had made more than one complaint to the treasurer of the imposition. "On one occasion Gilfert had bestowed considerable time and labor in preparing music for some piece about to be produced, in the success of which he felt deep interest, and which prompted him to give his personal attention to its rehearsal. In the overture was introduced a beautiful flute solo, which Stone failed to take up in time. Gilfert directed Nickola to commence again, but with the same result-flute not heard. After examining the flute part with the score, and finding it correct, Gilfert directed the orchestra to try it again; but the flute failed to come in. Seizing the part, and striking it in an excited manner with his finger, he, in great passion, said, 'Mr. Stone! don't you see these notes?' Stone, equally excited, replied, 'Yes, Sir!' 'Well, Sir,' said Gilfert, can't you play them?' No, Sir,' said Stone; 'I can't play North Carolina notes at ten per cent. discount!' Sufficient to say that Gilfert and his green spectacles made quick exit off the stage." "Mr. Per-res-e-dent, methinks I have some indistinct er-im-iniscences that I had the honor to discourse before this society, upon this subject, at a future period of time.' Then, dashing into the merits of his subject, he 'spread' himself for a few minutes, and his peroration was as follows: 'You will understand me, Sir, as saying, if this be so, consequently, er-er-I remark, Sir, if what I have stated be true, then, consequently-please observe, Sir, my position is, if the reasoning be correct, then, consequently [long pause]--consequently— I had a very good speech, Sir, but it has gone from me.' "And the young orator shared the fate of many another whose great speech went from him before it went out of him, and so the world lost it." ONE of the sweetest poets ever born-the poet whose verse has gladdened more firesides than any other's-was a poor melancholy madman. "Great wits to madmen oft are near allied;" but one of the drollest incongruities in Nature's works appears in so building the human brain that fun and woe shall nestle in adjoining cells. Think of poor Cowper seeking to die by his own hands; trying poison, and the halter, and razor, and river, and then driving away the demon by composing the John Gilpin ballad! Who has not laughed over it? Who has not been amazed that a mind "JARVIS, no less celebrated as an artist than a wit, from his versatile talents, was a most desirable companion in all convivial parties; and wheth-frenzied with pain-a wretched, melancholy paer at the dinner-table, in the evening soirée, or his studio, he was the life and the spirit, and but few could be long in his society without yielding to the force of his flashes of wit and his remarkable repartees, and imbibing much of his cheerful disposition. The late venerable Bishop Morse was prevailed upon to have his portrait painted by Jarvis, and during his sittings availed himself of the opportunity of conversing with him on the subject of religion. Though Jarvis listened with deference and respect to the aged Bishop, the subject was not one, at that time, in which he felt much interest. "At one of the sittings the subject was resumed, when Jarvis, becoming somewhat impatient, looked for a time alternately at the Bishop and then at tient, unfitted for the world he lived in, and anxious to rid himself of the intolerable burden of life itself-should toss on his sleepless pillow and cheat his own agony into such amusing, laughter-making rhymes? Alluding to it in one of his letters, he said, "If I trifle, and merely trifle, it is because I am reduced to it by necessity; a melancholy, that nothing else so effectually disperses, engages me sometimes in the arduous task of being merry by force. And, strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood-perhaps had never been written at all but for that saddest mood." "The experience of Cowper in this regard," says a writer in the Journal of Insanity, "does not stand alone, as the history of literature abundant- | right good fellow was Sweet, and fond of a joke, ly shows." and not slow in working one off upon his customers, True-very true; but how very little does the if it came in his way. Like most others given to history of literature ever reveal of the inner life joking, he sometimes carried things a little too far, of the men whose wits have gladdened the homes and found the laugh coming out on the wrong side. and hearth-stones of the world! Who knows the Now Lord Jocelyn had a coat made by this same tears that have been crystallized into diamonds of Sam Sweet, and it proved to be a perfect fit. His thought? Who knows the heart-throes in which lordship thought it a little too long-half an inch, the sweetest lines and the most entertaining pages or so-and as his friends concurred in the sentihave been born? To coin money out of heart-ment, he sent it back to Sweet to have the fair problood; to make smiles come from a breast where portions of its tail curtailed to that extent, no all is desolation, death, and despair; to laugh when more.' you want to go away into the wilderness and die; to flash with the merry quip, the polished jest, the gay retort, the genial humor, when the chambers of imagery are all hung in sackcloth, and the soul is sick unto death-this is the work that poor Cowper had to do, and many a man who lives by the sweat of his inner brow has had to do since Cowper composed "John Gilpin." Griefs there are for which philosophy has no antidote and religion no balm. They are griefs that crush a mind diseased; or, if that is what may not be affirmed with truth of mind, they are griefs that crush a mind imprisoned in a brain diseased. The victim is conscious of his doom, and powerless to make an effort to escape. He knows that his suffering no medicine will cure; and in that bitterness of his hopeless anguish he puts forth the wondrous energies of his excited, over-worked, but ever new-creating mind; and the town laughs at his wit, and calls him the happiest man alive. "Every scene of life," said Cowper himself, "has two sides-a dark and a bright one; and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection.” "Sweet says to his foreman, Breed, 'I told you I thought my Lord Jocelyn's coat about half an inch too long; now, hang it up for three or four days, then send it home, without cutting off a bit of the tail; his lordship will never know the difference, and one of these days we will tell him of it.' "Breed did as he was told. Lord Jocelyn sent for his coat, as it did not come home; Sweet sent him word that his best man was off on a spree, but he would have it done at once, and sent to-morrow. The next day the coat went home as it came. "Two or three days afterward Jocelyn, with a brother officer, sauntered into Sweet's with his coat on-Sweet's make-and, accosting the tailor, said to him, 'I say, Sweet, I think my coat looks twenty per cent. better since you took off that half inch; it needed just that, I told you, to make it the thing.' "You are right, my Lord,' said Sweet-' you always are; it needed just exactly that much to come off. I told my foreman so when he cut it, and when you sent it back I had him take off the very half inch that your quick eye detected as being more than was needed.' 666 'Oh, ah! have you the piece here you cut off?' says Jocelyn; 'I want to see just how much you did cut off, for I'm not to be trifled with about it; let's see the piece.' Then let it not be imagined, saith the keeper of the key of the Drawer, that he who laughs the most has the lightest heart. As weeds of mourning often cover faces that are not sad, so smiles are flowers "But the piece was not to be found; and Jocethat sometimes deck the grave, or hide heart-sor-lyn, giving the wink to his brother officer, went rows deeper and darker than the tomb. "A SMALL CONTRIBUTOR" writes: "A man came to Philadelphia some years ago, exhibiting six boys and six girls, but all of them were dressed in girls' clothes. They were all so much like girls in appearance, that he made money betting that no one could tell t'other from which. An Irishman went out and returned with a dozen apples. Throwing one to each of the children, he observed that some caught them in their hands; these, he said, were boys. Others held their aprons; these, he said, were girls. Pat hit right." A NOVA SCOTIAN writes from Halifax to the Drawer, and tells a story of a lord and his tailor that is as pleasant a bit of reading as we have had in many a day. It is all the better for coming from over the line, where our correspondent volunteers to tell us that the Magazine is sought for all the more for the fuss that was made about it in the reading-room of some Canadian city-we forget which. This gentleman goes on to say: on: 'Now, look here, Sweet, perhaps I can find the "Do you see that little mark there?' "Well, you audacious little rascal, I put that mark there before I sent the coat to be alteredjust half an inch from the end of the coat-and you pretend to have cut off just so much, and yet the mark is just where I put it, eh?' "Sold, by scissors!' says Snip; and, fearing his lordship's foot, he shot out of a side-door, and left his lordship to blow out and cool off at his leisure. This cured the tailor of practical joking; or, if he ever tried his hand at it again, he made no experiments of the kind on live lords." SCOTCH wit is uncommon rich; there's not much of it in circulation, though Sandy is full of goodhumor when he is also full of whisky-toddy. A Canada correspondent says: "During the rebellion of 1837, at a place called Port Sarnia, there were stationed three brothers "During the stay of the Rifle Brigade in the from the borders of Scotland and an English sercity of Halifax Lord Jocelyn was among its offi-geant, a poor fellow. The sergeant was in the cers, and his extraordinary feats are still well remembered by many among us. At the same time there was one Sam Sweet, a tailor, here, whose chief business lay in the army and navy line. A habit of boiling his beef in large quantities, enough for two or three days at one time, and it grieved these canny Scots that Bull would throw away all the water in which he boiled his beef. They could turn it to good account if they had it, and resolved | 'No, my friend, I don't think thee knows good on making an application for the waste. One of manners!' the brothers, therefore, said to the Englishman one day: "And so I say of all the correspondents of your Drawer who send silly stories, mixing up Yankees and Jerseymen, and making fun of both. They (your correspondents, I mean) don't know good manners. That's my opinion." TIOGA County, Pennsylvania, is the scene of the following, which a clever writer there paints up for the Drawer: "Uncle Bill Fenton is one of the shrewdest old Dutchmen in these parts. He is a thrifty farmer, two miles from town, and often comes down to do a little trading and ask all hands about the store to dake a liddle zumbtin! Free and easy, and fond of a social glass, he would now and then get tipsy; but with the progress of the age he was actually overcome by the Temperance reform, and of late years he has given up drinking in a great measure. [Meaning, we suppose, that he drinks out of a small measure.-Ed.] On one of his recent visits to town, he came with a yoke of oxen to the mill, loaded his grist, and was starting for home, when he saw some of his old friends hanging about the store. Getting into a little chat with them, he invited them in to take something; took something "He got his license, and hastened off to his himself, and then a little more, till it got to be too waiting bride." A JERSEYMAN writes: "I was over in your city the other day, and dropped in at a gallery of daguerreotypes. There I saw a picture, an Irish hod-carrier standing by the side of his hod, pipe in mouth. The poor fellow looked wearied enough with his toil, and I appreciated the fanciful title written underneath, The Greek Slave, By the Powers!' "Just then a dandyfied fellow happened to spy it, and, taking out his eye-glass, gave it a critical examination and drawled out, 'Ah, yes! Greek Slave! Powers's Greek Slave: very fine; saw the original; very good copy this is; very good; fine specimen of the art.' And being perfectly satisfied that he had seen a copy of the Greek Slave, he walked on to study the next." "Bright youths, some of your fellows are over there in York! "Some time ago I was at a public table at a Philadelphia hotel, and among the boarders was a conceited fellow from the District of Columbia, who was running down Jerseymen, and Jersey Quakers as the worst even of them. I asked him how many persons present he supposed were of the class he was vilifying. He presumed there were none! On inquiry, for the whole table joined heartily in it, it was found that three-fourths of the company were Jerseymen and nearly half of them of Quaker families. The fellow was glad to finish his dinner and get out of the room. "An old Quaker gentleman, of Trenton, New Jersey, having occasion to visit the town of Salem, took passage in one of the steamboats down the river. He had never been down before; a remarkable fact but true, nevertheless, and of course was desirous to learn the names of the places by which he was passing. He took the liberty of asking a passenger sitting near him, who answered gruffly a few times, and then, being annoyed at his repeated inquiries, exclaimed in a pet, Why, you think I know every thing, don't you?' The mild old gentleman looked at him quietly, and replied, much, and night coming on, he set off with his oxen and cart, having perched himself as well as he could on the top of the load. The road was muddy and so was his head, and he soon sunk down under the power of the liquor, and with a lurch of the cart, was rolled into the road, while the oxen went swinging along home. One of his neighbors coming along from town with a team saw Uncle Bill lying in the mud, and, getting down, shook him soundly and cried out, "Uncle Bill, is this you?' "No no, it ain't Uncle Bill. I quit drinking more'n a year ago, and dis ere feller's drunk as a peest.' "But when Uncle Bill is sober, nobody can get the advantage of him in a trade. He brought a load of pork in barrels to town, and left it with Bacon and Hanson, merchants, to be sold and accounted for, and the barrels to be returned to him. The dealers sent it off to their lumber works, and settled with Uncle Bill, paying him off. By-andby the pork came back, proved to be bad, and the dealers thought to fasten Uncle Bill with it by showing him the barrels and telling him that they were his and ready for him. Not he. Uncle Bill looked at the barrels, couldn't recognize them, never had seen them before! And he never called for his empty barrels." "WE have a sexton who has officiated in his office a long time, but was very green when he first undertook the office. He was desired to blow the organ until the plummet should rise to a certain mark. The organist took her seat and tried to strike the notes, but there was no wind. She kept calling to him to ' Blow, blow!' It was still a failure. She then proceeded to the back of the organ, and there was John, down upon all-fours, his cheeks distended, and the perspiration rolling off his face. Faith, Miss,' he said, 'I have been blowing all the time as hard as I could, but the thing won't rise at all, and I'm jist used up with the trying!"" An attentive friend in St. Louis sends us several |