"SlUMI/, * Author ofYFiV Port-Folio of a Sot!ur-'i * University o/ California Berkeley The Theodore E. Koundakjian Collection of American Humor I NEW ORLEANS SKETCH BOOK. The Lost Child. Page 75. THE NEW 'OKLEANS SKETCH-BOOK. BY "STAHL." Organized Bull Fi-^ht mi .Jncksnn Square. Ptf 36. PHILADELPHIA: A. HART, Late CAREY & HART. THE NEW ORLEANS SKETCH BOOK. BY "STAHL," AUTHOR or "THE PORT-FOLIO OF A SOUTHERN COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. PHILADELPHIA: A. HART, LATE CAREY & HART. 1853. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by A. HART, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court, of the United States, in and for the" Eastern District of Pennsylvania. E. B. HEARS, STEREOTYPER. T. K. & P. O. COLLINS, PRINTERS. MY inclination is certainly more to feel pulses than to press the grey goose-quill ; yet, during the last six or eight months that I have been connected with the New Orleans DELTA, I have managed to throw physic to the dogs, and to live by the plume of that foolish bird alone. I have, in this interval, written a deal of nonsense assuredly, which, however, some of my friends have condescended to think amusing enough to bear a re-issue in book-form. For myself, I do not know ; but, if the PKESS don't snub me, and if Mr. HART gets his money back again, and if I should by chance hear that my old friend and school-fellow, E. P. GUELEY, Esq., away off in Texas, cracked a smile over even the poverty of my conceits, I shall be sufficiently remunerated and sufficiently flattered. G. M. WHARTON. NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1st, 1852. 1* (5) CONTENTS. THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER .... Page 21 PAULINE'S PET; A BIRD STORY .... 26 TAKING A BRACE OF BRIGS IN TOW . . . .31 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BETTER AND ABETTOR AT MONTE 34 ORGANIZED BULL FIGHT ON JACKSON SQUARE . . 36 PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; OR, ROMANCE ON THE SIDEWALK ... 41 THE CHARITY HOSPITAL 44 A HACK-NIED STORY 51 SCENE AT THE CEMETERY 56 THREE AT A HAUL; A REMARKABLE DEER STORY . 60 SKELETON OF THE GREEN MONSTER . . .65 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT OWL . . . 69 THE LOST CHILD ..!.... 75 THE DROMIO THOMPSONS; OR, JACOB RESIGNING HIS BIRTHRIGHT TO JOSEPH 81 THE NEW ORLEANS DUTCH GARDENS . . . .84 INTERVENTION PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED . . 88 PEE-WI HO-KI, THE TAHITIAN CANNIBAL; WITH A PRE FACE AND AN APPENDIX 91 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOYS 98 A HEAD UP 101 THE MICROSCOPIST . . . . . .104 AN INSTANCE OF THE FORMER SANS-CULOTTISM OF THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR . . . .106 STATIUS HUMBRAR; OR, THE MAN OF TWO SHADOWS 110 (7) Ylll CONTENTS. LISETTB 114 CAMILLE BRUSHE, THE PORTRAIT PAINTER f[A TALE OF THE FINE ARTS 119 A TOUCHING STORY 122 JAQUES PASSE, THE MESMERIC PICKPOCKET . . 125 PICTURE-FRAMERS' SHOPS, AND THOSE WHO;PATRONISE THEM . 130 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY EXEMPLIFIED . . .133 THE FRUIT SHOPS 136 AUGUSTUS DORMOUSE; OR, THE SUNBURNT MAN . 138 BONY PYBAS, THE GREAT NEWSBOY . . . .142 SUMMER 146 POETRY AND JUVENILITY AT THE LAKE . . .148 THE COTTON AND SUGAR THIEF .... 150 AN EGG-CITEMENT 154 THE OLD MEN OF NEW ORLEANS .... 156 A CUPPING GLASS 160 THE CASE SO MUCH TALKED OF YESTERDAY . . 162 HAIR PICTURES .167 JOHNSON w. THOMAS, &c 170 REPORTERS 176 ROCHESTER RUSH; OR, THE MAN WITH AN OBJECT . 179 BOLIVAR BEE, alias CHARLES HENRY SPARKS . . 181 MOONEY 186 SHIVERTON TRIMBLE; OR, THE MAN WITH A TACK IN HIS BACK . 188 THE EXPERIMENTS AS ACTUALLY PERFORMED . 191 LOVE AND MONEY A VERACIOUS HISTORY . . 196 MAL D'ESTOMAC THE DYSPEPTIC 200 THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER. WE stopped, yesterday, at a barber's shop on Chartres street, lured by the plaited serpents white, red and blue of brighter dyes than usual coiled about the advertising pole, and each endeavoring to swallow the gilded sphere on its upper extremity. Within, the furniture was what our masculine readers are familiar with, high-backed, cushioned chairs, mar ble stands, with bowls set in them, having small perfora tions in their bottoms, and brass corks to plug them up, attached to the ends of short chains, water-pipes and conduits, sand-boxes scattered over the floor, tables, spread with closed, half-opened and opened razors, soap- mugs, brushes, cologne bottles and gallipots of perfumed unguents, mirrors here and there, in which you might witness the reaping of your cheek's harvest, pictures of saintly nuns reproaching airily-dressed heroines of the ballet, pirouetting opposite, placards and theatrical bills fluttering upon the walls, the morning papers lying upon a sofa, and, in the window, shelves groaning under glass-ware in part, flasks enveloped in tinsel, and filled with hair-restoratives in part, diminutive phials, constricted in the waist like wasps, and redolent of inexpressible Parisian extraits. But one feature struck us as a rare adjuvant to the ordinary fixtures of a barber-shop A LIBRARY. Hanging our hat on one hook, our coat upon another, and drawing our neckerchief riband-like between our (21) 22 THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER. fingers, we cast our eyes rapidly over the titles of the volumes, legible, through the glass-doors of the book case. They were tomes, treating mainly of the mind, however, from phrenological points of view. The works of Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe, alternated with the journals and pamphlets of Fowler and Powell. A cranium, polished, and smooth, and round, variegated with black parallels of latitude and longitude, officiated as globe to the new intellectual geography. Evidently, we were looking into the cabinet of a Phrenologist ; but who could he be ? and where ? and how came his books here ? " Vill you be shave, sair ?" inquired the barber of us, at this moment. Without doubt, at the same time he began inspecting our phrenological developments ! Surprised, we seated ourself in his comfortable arm chair, and, over the linen bib and tucker, with which he encompassed our gorge, surveyed him as he mixed a cup of suds. We will decapitate this man, and exhibit his top-knot to the public. His was a bald head, excepting two pomatumed locks curling behind either ear. He had a blandish, broad, blank face, with lack-lustrous eyes, and brows receding from each other. The nose was of the insignificant pug variety, and turned itself up, not so much in contempt, as from necessity, like a little man endeavoring to see in a crowd. He wore a mere kid of a goatee, that, timidly clinging to his gullet, and thinly fledging it, dared not yet ascend the rugged acclivity and bleak boss of his chin. The goblet of soap was at length foaming, and we resigned ourself to the brush of the barber. "Say!" we exclaimed, starting up, and almost gulping THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER. 23 the brush, like a sandwich. "No shampooning! It injures our hair." His fingers, you must know, were groping in our scalp. "Shampoo! Ha! ha! mon Dieu! I vas feel your freenologeek organz, sair. Beg pardong." " Granted. But lather away, and take care of the bump of combativeness." For several minutes the philosophical barber attended to us professionally. When he approached us with his razor, he said "Sair, I bleeve strong in freenologie. But I ave oreeginal teorie. Sooppose you ave von vera bad orgarn. Go to the docteur, and he trephine you, take out von leetle peece, it get veil, and you become good. Yat you tink, eh?" "Do you stand in front of us shave us in front! Never mind our seeing the glass, our reflections are not so exceedingly agreeable just at present!" The barber had his thumb upon our "ideality," as he propounded his theory, and he revolved his hand around it, as though he really concealed a gimlet, at least. But, to go away in a jacket of towel, with the face on one side unshaved, and an epaulette of soap-suds on the shoulder we submitted to our fate. "Sair," he continued we trembling as he shaved " dat is for too beeg orgarn. For beeg orgarn, trephine. But, heer, for exomple, you ave small fyloprogenteev- ness. You do not lov your zon." " Son ! You son of a gun ! we have no son !" " Sooppose," said the barber, gathering us by the nose, and also scraping against the grain up our neck, near the jugulars. "Suppose. Encore: For beeg orgarn, trephine. For small orgarn razor!" In truth, we didn't wish to seem afraid, even for 24 THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER. safety's sake, if there was any danger. Yet, to have a man with a single idea, and several sharp-cutting in struments within reach, manipulating your carotids ! We would have been delighted could we have slipped out of .our body, as the dryads of old "slipped their bark" and walked! "Yes, sair. Go to de barbare, go to me. I shave your fyloprogenteevness let de air come to it ; I bleester it I cup it and you lov your zon ! Comprehend?" " You needn't touch the upper lip ; intend to keep it stiff admire moustaches! Some water to wash !" we cried, rising from the chair, and hurrying on our necker chief and coat, determined to encourage the enterprising phrenologist no further. We splashed our phiz, and napkined it, in a twinkling. "Von instont," interposed the barber. "Sail not I dress your hair ? It afford me great pleaseer to dress hair, I feel the organz and tell your caracktare !" "We have no character, or, at all events, a danger ous character, and you had best not meddle with us!" " Oh, sair, I no meddl, boot to amproov. Pairmit me to shave your fyloprogenteevness ?" "Shave! Shave our head! Madman! your own pate is cracked ! Shave every one of your own degene rated bumps they're not bumps, they're dimples! blister them cup them put them under a suction pipe, an air pump irritate, draw and puff them into inflated tumors, you crazy fool, and see if you can increase your shallow amount of sense ! You have the skull of a cricket the brains of a flea !" Choked with rage, we threw him a dime, and one half of our collar up, the other half down, our necker chief streaming like a queue down our back, and our unbrushed hat set awry we rushed to the door. THE PHRENOLOGICAL BARBER. 25 The demented barber followed after us, one hand grasping the razor, the other almost seizing our tube- rosity of "esteem." " Sair sair sair !" were his last words. Vat < firmness' amounting to obstinacy ; it exceed de maxi mum ! I vould shave you all de time for noting -joust to feel your head ! He is gone ! He'las ! mon Dieu ! quel malheur ! Sac-r-r-r-e* !" PAULINE'S PET: A BIRD STOEY. AH, mon Dieu ! La pauvre Pauline ! Where are you now, my child ?" exclaimed a strange, piping voice. It was far down Royal street, in that part of New Orleans where everybody and everything speak French. We turned to look. We could see no one. Whence came the melancholy cries ? " Your little hands are so cold, so cold. Ah, mon Dieu, so cold. La pauvre Pauline !" The notes were so distinct, the voice so peculiar ; and still we could see no one. At length, hanging before the low door of an old frame building, we observed a round, fluted cage, with a Chinese dome, and perched in a ring dangling from the top, a PARROT. He was a green-coated bird, with a crafty eye and an aquiline nose. Could it have been he whom we heard ? We should judge not, from his demureness. He held his tongue as we surveyed him, and, when we changed our position, revolved his shallow sinciput about the pivot of his neck, like an owl. W^ averted our face, and watched him furtively. " La pauvre " What ! was it the parrot, after all.? We wheeled around suddenly. No the bird fluttered his wings, scratched his bill with his foot, and resumed his quiet manner again. Here the door opened, and a man appeared in it, (26) PAULINE'S PET. 27 food for the bird. The bird was animation itself, now, and no longer regarded us. Ah, mon Dieu ! La pauvre Pauline ! Where are you now, my child ? Your little hands are so cold, so cold. Ah, mon Dieu ! so cold. La pauvre Pauline !" It was the parrot. We were stopping in front of a bird-fancier's store, and it was the proprietor who appeared at the door. He was a man of at least fifty years, and had a grave, dignified countenance, not very appropriate to his busi ness. Had we met him elsewhere, we should have taken him for a Judge. He had grown gray in the service of canaries. His soul had been devoted to robins. His heart was a cote full of white doves. What treasures of ornithological hygiene, pathology and pharmacy he had stuffed his brains withal ! He could feel the pulse of a wren, he could diagnose a fever in the wing of a thrush, and detect a toothache in the bill of a sparrow. He could tell you when a blackbird labored under an indigestion, and name the identical fly or spider that occasioned it. He could touch the craw of a pigeon and relieve him of a surfeit, and cure a mocking-bird of a colic by the administration of two or three little stony pilules or gravels, that would make a homceopathist's bowels rumble. He prescribed the diet of his feathered tenants like a physician, and served them like a steward. There was a dash of sentiment in the man, also. He sympathized in the loves of his plumed choristers, and was on the qui vive for a flirtation. What a match maker he was, to be sure ! He promoted a tete-d-tete, and on an emergency officiated as a clergyman to unite a couple, and, as a bridesman, showed the way to a cock to the vestal cage of a hen. Generous creature ! he even studied architecture, to save a young pair the trouble 2* 28 PAULINE'S PET. of building a nest. He was an admirable housekeeper cook cup-bearer nightman and nurse. No obstetri cian excelled him in his patient attendance on a partu rient female, or was more useful in the birth of an egg. He contemplated the callow brood with a yearning of paternity, as though the ovoid germs had been warmed into life by the heat of his own breast ; and, on the blooming of the first*feather, experienced the sensations of a father when he beholds the ivory tip of the first tooth sprouting from the coral gums of his child. How joyously, then, he undertook the education of the new generation the patriarch of many wise as Mentor, but indulgent as Grandfather Whitehead ! You may go to the Theatre d'Orleans, or listen to Jenny Goldschmidt, to Catharine Hayes, to Anna Bishop what are their concerts compared to his ? You may be a whig, and Scott may be your favorite; he has fuss and feathers" of his own ! His existence passes away in a bird-Babel. The learned blacksmith, Elihu Burritt, knows not more lan guages than are here spoken. Every passion, all affec^ tions, are uttered in them. Do his starlings, piled cage above cage on his shelves, pine for liberty ? They were never acquainted with it. They were born in prison, for years back. He has been a Providence to them. They are happy; and so sing " they cannot say why." But, indeed, what do they sing ? Is there no more burden to their lays than there is meaning in the mur murs of the brook ! No more ! There is a fountain of melody in their throats, and the strains you hear are its unconscious, motiveless overflowings. There is no link between them and man. " La pauvre Pauline !" PAULINE'S PET. 29 There is a link, after its fashion. Those words, mechanically repeated, as if the fickle winds had memory and the thin air lips, have a sad sig nification. Let us draw the picture. An old and widowed man, with silver locks and anxious face. See him seated by a small bed. Hold the curtains back, and look. Yes, it is the sickly flower, half blooming into life, half fading out of it, under the shadow of the stricken tree. A lit tle girl rapidly declining. Her early sun already sets in her hectic cheek, and her brief day glistens, like the latest flush of evening, in the ominous lustre of her eyes. Her white temples gleam amid her loosened tresses, like young moons dimming in the clouds. A few phials are scattered over a table near the bed, and a crucifix wreathed with flowers rests on her pillow. On the mantelpiece is a round, fluted cage with a Chinese dome, and perched in a ring dangling from the top, a PARROT ; a green-coated bird, with a crafty eye and an aquiline nose, the little girl's Pet. The little girl gazes upon her sobbing father. What is it she is saying ? " It's getting dark, mon pre." Alas! it was broad glaring sunlight. " Light the candle, I cannot see. Or, kiss me, and let me go to sleep. Bonne nuit !" She kisses him. How his tears rain upon her face ! She gropes for the crucifix on her pillow ; and, folding the holy symbol upon her breast, falls asleep in Christ. Oh, divine Lover of children, kiss Thou her into life once more ! " La pauvre Pauline ! Thy hands are so cold so cold. Ah, mon Dieu ! so cold. Where art thou now, my child ?" cried the heart-broken parent. Years, long years ago. The stricken tree has per- 30 PAULINE'S PET. ished as the blighted flower. Others live in the house the father and daughter then occupied ; and the parrot has gone to the bird-fancier's. There, at all times, out of season and out of place, he repeats what he heard his old master oftenest say. It is his nature. "Will you sell us this parrot?" we asked. Sacrd ! no," said the shopman. "He is too old. Et puis, he amuses me and the other birds. I can make him -call the jolie demoiselle any time, for a cracker. Youlez-vous de buiscuit, my bird? Listen !" " Poor Pauline ! Ah, mon Dieu !" said the parrot ; and stopped. TAKING A BRACE OF BRIGS IN TOW. Two young brigs, about half seas over, were tacking, at yardarm and yardarm, down Chartres street, late last evening, when, with a lurch that shook them fore and aft, they hauled up opposite Stewart's clothing store, and cast anchor on the sidewalk, their sterns playing about, until they braced themselves against a lamp-post. "Lad, a-hoy!" hailed the captain of one brig. "Boy, a-hoy !" hailed the captain of the other. " D'ye spy that youngster aloft there, Bill ?" inquired the first. "White pants, yellow vest, pea-green jacket, and cap?" " Ay, ay, sir !" "What's his object, standing out on the bowsprit of that concern, eh?" " Dim my top-lights, if I know, Tom !" "He's hanging out a signal," cried the first captain, launching himself into the street. " Pipe all hands on deck !" exclaimed the secondhand, putting his fingers in his mouth, he gave vent to a shrill whistle, which re-echoed along the street, bringing many night-caps of clerks and shop-men to their doors and windows. " Clear the long-boat ! My hearties, over with the yawl !" fairly screamed the brig Bill. "I say," said the brig Tom, "we must board that (31) 32 TAKING A BRACE OF BRIGS IN TOW. concern I She's a coaster with a contraband cargo French goods, shiver my timbers ! Come, up with me, and we'll rescue the cabin-boy. Now have at ye yo- he !" and Tom, urged by the shoulders of Bill, began to scale the main-mast supporting the veranda. " Hello ! what are you about there ?" demanded watch man Moreau, heaving up along side of the two crafts. " Get down from there, will you ? and go away, and be quiet !" "A foreigner, blast my eyes! A rakish-looking schooner a pirate, Tom ! To your guns, my jolly tar ! Let's give him a broadside !" Whack ! thwack ! bing ! bang ! sounded the fists of the parties. Tr-r-r-r ! sounded the watchman's rattle, and soon a posse of Charlies bore down upon the devoted brigs, surrounding and overpowering them. " Well, Bill, we've gotten into a nest of corsairs Spanish freebooters, by the Lord ! What can we do against a fleet, eh ? We must e'en strike our colors, though it's enough to spring a leak in a good seaman's eyes to think of such a thing!" and Tom began to weep in a maudlin manner. "Why, Tom! in the hold at the liquor, already? Never give up be a man ! Let's blow up the magazine !' and Bill drew a pistol from his breast. No you don't, my lark ! no you don't !" said the city guardian, disarming the rioter. E-gad ! both of you shall be put in the lock-up for your smartness. So come along with you.'* " In the dry-dock, marlinspikes and hammercloth ! Well, well, this has been the stiffest breeze we've had for a long time, Tom !" "A perfect squall !" assented Tom. TAKING A BRACE OF BRIGS IN TOW. 33 " However, never mind," acquiesced Bill, cheerfully. " Farewell, my sweet little cherub, up there aloft ! We'll throw you a line yet. Farewell farewell" kiss ing his hand and waving it towards the wooden statue, until watchmen and prisoners disappeared, on their way to the lock-up of the Second District. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BETTER AND ABETTOR AT MONTE. AT the Metairie race- course, the other day, we were struck with the prodigious luck of a very gentlemanly man, apparently, with an open, smiling face, and well- brushed, white hat, at the game of monte. No one was playing at his table, but the <* professional" man and himself. The " professor" seemed in a fret a fume, and yet was magnanimous withal, acknowledging that the tide was against him to-day, that he would suffer a Waterloo defeat, but avowing that he would die game as long as he had a picayune. The man with the white hat smiled more and more ; he began to bet carelessly recklessly and still he won ! The professional" man, in agony at his repeated heavy losses, invoked the spec tators to come to his assistance, and immolate him at once, not prolong his sufferings. The white hat requested all to stand back, adding with a brighter smile than ever, that he wished to have the happiness of breaking and ruining his opponent by his own single exertions. At length a third individual, who had been watching the game with intense interest, moved from our side and approached the table. He was evidently a "raw hand" at gambling, but the sight of the pile of dollars, melting down so rapidly and flowing into the pockets of the gentleman with the white hat, was too powerful a tempt ation for him to resist. He, also, began betting. But he was prudent enough to follow in the wake of his sue- (34) DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BETTER AND ABETTOR. 35 cessful confrere. On whatever numbers the latter de posited stakes, he placed his own. But, now, strange to say, the tide of good fortune, which had so long wafted the white hat buoyantly along its silver current, like the Mississippi river, made a sudden detour, and disembogued itself into the lake at the elbow of the " professor." The two betters, finding themselves in shoaly water, hastened to get back into the current again. They did ! They got into deep water, and found that they were the simplest gudgeons in the world to swim, too ! The white hat lost all his winnings, and hundreds besides, he declared, with the same cordial smile animating his open countenance. The equanimity of that cfiapeau bland As for the "raw hand," he was certainly out of pocket a hundred and fifty dollars in five minutes, as we reckoned ourselves ; but he had not the pleasant philosophy of the other, to smooth his mug with and he went off very dejected, looking (as we dare say he felt) essentially green and mean. The "raw hand," who was the plucked pigeon really, was not a better, of any account to himself: a bettor was that same white hat and there's the difference ! ORGANIZED BULL-FIGHT ON JACKSON SQUARE. A FEW words upon this important subject. The centre of Young New Orleans, we leaned against the high pedestal of one of the low statues in Jackson Square, and listened to the music with as unsophisticated ear as any of the short people who surrounded us. The fact is, we had treated the juvenile party to figs, and agreed to pay the organ-grinder. The organ-grinder was an Italian, and by his musical taste earned his bread. His clothes were covered with patches, which at a distance might have been mistaken for stars and garters ; and below his jacket, behind, de pended a white pocket-handkerchief viewing it, also, at an enchanting distance. Over his shoulders passed the belt which supported his organ, after the manner of a drum, in front of him. With his right hand he turned a windlass, that brought up buckets full of melody, with which he refreshed the air. His left hand he extended for a dime, the toll he exacted for his grinding. The notes of the organ-grinder made the youngsters' trifles of hearts throb like peas on a sounding-board, though our own large viscus yet rested quietly at its tether. But, at a change in the tune, with considerable clatter, a door in the organ flew open, and in an instant we were transported to Spain ! The scene exhibited Madrid afar-off, a convent on one side, a gipsy tent on the other, a barren plain, a shallow (36) ORGANIZED BULL-FIGHT. 37 stream, and, most conspicuous of all, in the midst of the panorama, a circular enclosure, which we instinctively knew to be the arena of An approaching Bull-Fight ! "VVe throw down our pen in utter despair of depicting the delight of Tommy Sands, the ecstacy of Willie McKay, the exultation of Pierre Labonne, the timid interest of Susy Prue, the giddy hilarity of Patty Dimple, or the positive glow of attention that flushed the pretty face of Corallie La Riante ! The sport began. The prelude to the performance consisted of five or six rapid revolutions of the crank, by which we under stood the organ-grinder to be screwing up the courage of the gladiators in the green-room, and advising us to brace our nerves generally. Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ta ! sounded an imitation of penny trumpets, and four caballeros, the size of our thumb, mounted on fairy steeds, and armed with tooth-picks, pranced gallantly into the lists. The reporter was here uncomfortably jammed about the knees by the juvenile mob. "Wai, neow, ar'n't them nice, I swan!" exclaimed the delighted Tommy Sands, a blade of a Yankee just planted in the South. 'Ah, bother! they're retrating a'ready, the dirthy blaggards !" said Willie McKay, a green bud from Erin, also newly grafted here. " Oh, mon Dieu !" cried Pierre Labonne, an indige nous " sacre," the shell still capping his head, and only beginning to be fledged " vat is dat?" It was a couple of matadores, evidently chips from the same blocks as the knights, with swords and red flags, followed by what would have been taken for a 38 ORGANIZED BULL-FIGHT mouse in Bashan, but was really a miniature representa tion of a toro. Susy Prue was somewhat shy of the horns of the bull, but, notwithstanding, coveted him in petticoats for a doll ; Corallie La Riante danced laughingly around him, merry as a milkmaid; and giddy Patty Dimple, for whose fancy there was no accounting, was in the act of kissing the bullock, wlien a deep bass grunt of the organ scared her away. The matadores advanced, at a rather stiif pace, sud denly stopped, shook their scarlet banners, and with extraordinary deliberation touched off the torillo, as a school boy touches off a toy cannon. The animated mouthful of beef became enraged ! He lowered his head, he tossed his tail, he tore the ground with his fore feet, and, balancing hinself upon a pin, kicked up with his hind ones. He then rushed towards the swordsmen, who didn't move a peg, and would, without doubt, have gored them mortally, but for a change in the tune, which brought him back, with a jerk, upon his plumpest steaks. Once more the pantomime was repeated, and the espa- dachins were again rescued critically, by the crank. The organ, puffed up a good deal by its part in the play, was allowed to blow awhile, during which the spec tators relieved their legs by altering their positions, and eulogized the combat so far. The penny whistles announced the reappearance of the caballeros, who entered the circus at a trot. Cielo ! but the excitement increased! The crank spun around faster and faster, changing the tune every half minute ; the aggravated ternero lowered his head, tossed his tail, tore the ground with his fore-feet, and, balancing himself on the pin, kicked up with his hind ones more and more; the infantcria touched him off incessantly, firing hin\ ON JACKSON SQUARE. 39 like a signal gun ; and the horsemen pricked the poor veal with their tooth-picks, as though he was stalled in the hollow of an imaginary tooth ! At length, the bull made a desperate lunge at a senor mounted on a bit of blue sealing-wax. Rearing up, he would infallibly have taken the gentilhombre about the midriff, but for an unexpected cascade, of an octave, in the stream of melody, which served to depress the horns of the ox beneath the horse, whereby steed and rider, a frightful tableau ! were incontinently lifted up and saddled upon the bison ! The discovery, alone, of a string, connecting the left rear hoof of the horse with the machinery of the organ, prevented the riotous spectators from seizing the bull by the antlers, and releasing the cavalry. The crank, happily, like the rattle of a watchman, restored order by winding up the string, which dismounted the horse safely, the dragoon spurring, and the charger caracoling very livelily, as if to show that there was nobody hurt. The conflict proceeded with vigor. "Naz-a-reth!" a village near Je-ru-sa-lem, Tommy Sands not being big enough to swear by a metropolis, " it is funny now, I guess ! Go it, hurdy-gurdy ! go it ! They're all pitchin' into the ceow, at present. Don't she hook, though? That feller with the bloody rag, didn't he stick her with his dirk abeout a feet ? She's up agin ! Oh, she's pyert, she is," the Yankee urchin's exclamations being an excellent description of the fight, finally approximating its tragic climax. " Tonnere !" the recently hatched Creole thundered in the sunshine de horsemans vill give de coup. Courage, brave chevaliers En avant! en avant ! Foudre !" "Arrah, but that minikin wid the sjiillala of straw gave the ycarlin' the finishin' stroke. It's the organ 3** 40 ORGANIZED BULL-FIGHT. that's blating for the calf, d' you hear?" said petty Pat. The stroke Willie McKay spoke of, was, indeed, a neat hit we never saw a handsomer knock-down. Tommy Sands was particularly elated. " Handkore ! handkore ! handkore ! Don't you say so, Peer? Handkore!" Tommy insisted. The Italian reversed the crank several rounds, reset ting the bull, who was accordingly, by special request, knocked in the head over again, to the delirium of Thomas. At last, an uncommonly comical pigmy, with two di minutive black beads for eyes, and a score of diminutive white beads for teeth, which his distended mouth enabled him to exhibit, danced into the area, holding a lasso in his hand. After divers diverting capers, he cast the noose around the horns of the toro, and the caballeros and matadores forming a line with their backs upon the spectators, they all retreated into the green-room of the organ, the pigmy ultimately slowly dragging the defunct bull behind him, the orchestra meantime playing a sombre, dead march ! The boys and girls, much gratified, dispersed them selves over the square, the latter in company with their nurses, yet not before we had stolen from Patty Dimple the blossomy kiss she had tendered the kine. The organ- grinder, pocketing his toll, unscrewed his crank, stuck the balance-pin of the taurus in his jacket-collar, shut up the glimpse of Spain, slung his curious instrument upon his shoulders, and, his white handkerchief fluttering in the evening breeze, vanished beyond one of the corners of the Pontalba Buildings. Musica ! Toreo ! y Libertad ! PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES: OR, ROMANCE ON THE SIDEWALK. RAIN or shine, morning, noon, and evening, we have observed, in our rambles into the Third District, at the corner of Royal and Esplanade streets, a youth, of about nineteen years of age, plainly dressed, and wear ing a dilapidated sombrero slouched over his eyes, stand ing with his back turned upon passers-by, and his brow resting against the yellow wall of the house situated at the place we have indicated. The house is no store, or shop, or office, but appears to be a private residence, the doors and windows of which, fronting on the streets, are invariably closed. What relation, beyond that we have described, there exists between the young man and the dwelling, we could not discover ; apparently, there is none, only the spot seems to be a favorite haunt with him. The number of times we had noticed this youth, the singular, unsocial attitude he always maintains, and his profound abstraction, at length so piqued our curiosity, that we determined to ascertain his employment. Eight days ago, and yesterday during the rainy weather also, we slackened our pace as we passed, and peered over his shoulder. Our moment's glance, on both occasions, re vealed to us his engrossing occupation, which had re mained unchanged during the week's interval. (41) 42 PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE He was reading an old, worn and tattered edition of one of Cooper's novels The Deerslayer. Why does he thus linger upon the pages of the book ? It may be, from the epicurean delight he takes in the romance ; or, judging from his homely attire, perhaps, poor fellow ! he cannot read very well, and has painfully to spell every word as he proceeds. But, whatever the cause of his slow, yet persevering progress, he is evidently recompensed for his toil. What, to him, is the rumble of omnibuses and drays, the ceaseless scraping of foot passengers, the puffing of the distant steamboat ? His fancy is remote from the city, and his ear deaf to its noises. His spirit hovers mist- like over the tranquil waters of Glimmerglass lake. He hurries with Harry March to the island cabin of Float ing Tom Hutter. He kindles at the beauty of Judith, or yearns towards the wistful, half-dernented, guileless Hetty, pining with uncommunicated love. He shares the solicitude of the Big Serpent, Chingachgook, to free the captive Delaware maiden, Wah-ta !-Wah or Hist- oh !-Hist. His heart grows still with terror as he wit nesses nay, shares the dangers of dauntless Natty Bumpo, the Deerslayer ! Did the late Mr. Cooper, when, eleven years since, in New York, he sat at his study window, reclining easily in his large, cushioned arm-chair, comfortably plotting and writing this fine prose-poern ; did he ever fancy that he would be perused so devouringly at the street-corners of New Orleans ? And is this fame ? But what is fame to the gifted romancer, the chief of American authors, now ? Well, well a word to that Indefatigable Reader, then truce to this subject. Oh, thou ! who standest at the corner of Royal and UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 43 Esplanade streets, with slouched sombrero over thine eyes, thy back shown to the public, and thy brow resting against the yellow house, pursuing knowledge, it is but too plain, under difficulties perusing dead men's living romances on the unrefined side-walk ! Turn the leaves faster hasten to the "finis" at the close and retire. For, consider what a marvel thou art ! Many may, and do, think thee mad ; and so might we have portrayed thee : mad mysteriously drawn to one spot there spell-bound and mumbling senselessly over the un turned pages of the poet the rain beating upon thee, as yesterday the hot sun scorching thee, as for six days before ! Shut the volume ; Hist and the Serpent mar ried, March ran away blustering, Floating Tom was a pirate, Judith wasn't as virtuous as beautiful, poor Hetty died, and Deajrslayer vanished in the Glimrnerglass woods : Shut the volume ! THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. A STRANGER in the city, a plain and unassuming up- country man, not remarkable for the acuteness of his intellectual capacities, and who had never been in New Orleans before, among other places the fame whereof had reached his provincial ears, one day last week visited the CHARITY HOSPITAL. At the time, only a patient or two vanishing through a distant door a nurse going from the apothecary's room into some of the wards a dark-robe^d, quiet-moving Sister of Charity, on her round of heavenly mercy or a priest, with grave face, hastening to shrive a dying penitent were to be seen within the long corridors of that great-asylum of disease and suffering. The medical officers had either completed their clinical visitations, or they were engaged in their own private offices. The stranger had entered the main door of the hos pital, alone and unannounced, and soon, instead of re tiring to the Clerk's office, where every courtesy would have been extended to him, and information cheerfully imparted, became confused, and loitered awkwardly in front of the gilded placard in the hall, which recounts in brief the history of the institution. At length he was observed by an individual, who at once politely approached him. Several medical students had noticed the stranger at the same time, but, when the individual whom we have mentioned came forward, they disappeared in the apothe- (44) THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. 45 cary's apartment. Their rather singular conduct is, perhaps, explained by the dialogue that ensued between the individual and the stranger. "You are a stranger," said the former, blandly, "wishing to see our eleemosynary establishment?" "No, sir. I I would like to see the hospital, though," replied the latter, hesitatingly. " The same, the same. I perceive you are not familiar with our technicalities. We must employ them, how ever we could not get on without them," rejoined the individual, smiling. "But excuse me, pray. I am Dr. McTamoram, the house surgeon and physician. Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?" " Timothy Tyson, sir, of South Port, Alabama," an swered the stranger. "Sir, I am Uappy to form your acquaintance," said Dr. McTamoram, with empressement. " And I'm sure I'm glad to know you, Doctor," said Mr. Tyson, heartily. The individual and the stranger, accordingly, shook hands very cordially. The heads of the medical students were visible a mo ment just here, but disappeared quickly, as before. That, evidently, Dr. McTamoram, chief of the hos pital, keeps his students in disciplined awe of him, in spite of their idle curiosity, would have been a natural reflection ; and their rather singular conduct is explained, then. "Now, sir, if you will accept my arm, I will accom pany you through the various wards, elucidating matters as we proceed," said Dr. McTamoram. Mr. Tyson accepted his arm, and they passed conse cutively through various wards. " This is our cancer-ward," elucidated the Doctor. 46 THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. " Cancer, a crab. A portion of the flesh becomes or ganized and endowed with distinct vitality. It assumes the shape of a crab, burying its claws in the sound part, and nourishing itself thereupon. It clings with vivacity to its nest, and even when attacked by caustics, or the knife the practice, hitherto it is almost as difficult to eradicate its scattered members, as to destroy the life of the hideous parasite itself. I have a new remedy discover ed in my experiments upon the terrapin. I apply a coal of fire to the back of the monster ; it shivers, squirms, draws up its long, crooked legs from their sockets in the muscles, and, with a peculiar screech, leaps upon the floor, when it is annihilated with clubs by the younger surgeons. The wound of its former bed is rapidly brought together, strips of adhesive plaster are used, and it heals by the first intention." Mr. Tyson stared. " But why are your patients laughing so, Doctor ?" inquired he. " Can't help it, sir ! Joy in my infallible remedy ! We will continue our round. You are now looking up on fifty victims of elephantiasis. The word is derived from elephant. These people are West Indians. They are diseased in their legs not with white-swelling, not with dropsy with elephantiasis ! Such legs ! Larger than their bodies large as oaks ! They first had corns! A shooting pain irradiated from the little toe a pulsing star of agony ! circulation was arrested, and the young man or woman began to enlarge in the inferior extremi ties. Imagine their mortification ! They are fond of the dance ; they parade the beauty of their feet ; they are devoted to athletic exercises ; and to be confined forever with an hourly augmenting deformity ! The disease was originally inflicted upon the human species THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. 47 by the blow of an elephant's trunk that huge animal being in a state of hydrophobia. A lad from the coun try was giving it peanuts. It raised its muscular coil, lashed him around the legs, and inoculated him with elephantiasis. But I think I think not to give these people too much hope," whispered the chief of the hos pital a few grains of crushed billiard-ball powdered ivory taken daily, fasting, may be of service. There is a vulgar saying about the hair of a dog. Sir, there is truth in the hair of a dog. It is one of those pro verbs which embody the wisdom of the common obser vation, and furnish hints to the philosophers. The hair of a dog is the generatrix of homeopathy similia simil- ibus curantur ! A few grains of ivory dust" They were in another ward. " Our itch-charnber," said the Doctor. " Start not! I can preserve you with this watering-pot. I describe a circle of moisture around us. The itch-insects can not swim across the moat under an hour. This insect is analogous to the bed-bug, only being much smaller, it burrows in the pores of the skin. It there deposits thousands of eggs, which are warmed into existence by that hatching-machine, man himself. When the young begin to swarm, the curse of Pharaoh is realized ! They convert the entire surface into one vast honey-comb of tantalizing holes. What temptation to scratch ! But scratching affords no more relief than a mirage water. The usual medicaments are red precipitate and sulphur. I do not fancy them. I provide each patient, on his admission into the chamber, with a cheap microscope and a paper of needles. I say, < Scratching only ag gravates. Each of you, examine with your microscopes the backs of the others, which is pleasanter than claw ing. When you detect an insect, pin him. A cent a 4 48 THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. dozen for the bugs !' Thus, acting upon their cupidity, I prevent their self-irritation, and, when the bugs are all killed, cure the complaint." The heads of the medical students, who had followed them up stairs, were visible a moment, just here, but quickly disappeared again. " Step into this little cabinet. It is our tape-room, as we facetiously term it. Those bottles, there, are filled with tape-worms. They are an infinite series of watermelon-seeds, stringing themselves out for seventy and a hundred feet, in the manner of a flock of wild geese. They inhabit the bowels, you are aware. They devour your food, preventing nutrition. The afflicted waste away to skeletons, notwithstanding they have the appetites of gluttons. Our city has been denominated hell by a clergyman ; this is the worm that never dies, except under the combined influence of turpentine and tin ; though my own, and the best, antidote is a bolus of chesnut burs, on the sharp spines of which, button after button, they impale themselves, when, in my turn, I resort to the tin and turpentine. We pot these ento- zoa in vases of alcohol, afterwards desiccate them, and manufacture from them our straps and bandages." Dr. McTamoram paused before the entrance of the fifth ward. He was somewhat excited in his appearance, his eyes brightening and dilating. The muscles of his lips twitched nervously. Ere we examine the female apartment, permit me, dear Tyson, to present you my view of the origin of all diseases. I am an .animalculist," said the surgeon and physician. " I believe in the animalcular origin of all diseases. I have seen a pole covered with bees with flies with ants. Such a pole is the osseous frame of man, and it is covered with animals, from the crown of THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. 49 the head to the sole of the foot, inside and outside. Worms prey upon us in life, and are the source of every malady, being ocular or microscopic. The latter kind cloud the air in times of epidemics, and in most sporadic cases a -worm is found, on dissection, feeding upon the heart, burrowing in the stomach, or squirming in the brain. After death, worms batten on the waxen corpse, and on the tortured soul in purgatory. In the very dawn of our race's history, you remember, it was a serpent" That word seemed to produce a magical effect. McTa- moram's eyes grew brighter and wider, his lips twitched more nervously, his hair rose on end, he looked around him in horrible affright. Serpents !" he exclaimed, in a dreary whisper. " They surround us ! There ! and there ! and there ! Do you mark ? Great knots of them inextricably interfolded, each one struggling to get its fanged head uppermost ! And there ! creeping creep ing along the floor creeping ! Oh, heaven ! the veno mous spiral inevitably nears us ! Horror ! a hissing serpent wreathes itself around my neck tear ! tear it from me ! Ha ! stand back ! Why, Tyson you have deceived me you're an impostor YOU ARE YOURSELF A SERPENT ! ! Threat me not with your poisonous face draw in your lying, forked tongue ! Down, down erect yourself no longer upon your tail, ghastly serpent, but crawl crawl in your native dust !" The indescribable terror and fury with which these exclamations and imprecations were uttered, froze the veins of Tyson with fear. At last, he assumed courage enough to fly. McTamoram, shrieking, pursued him. He seized a bed-post on wings of wind he followed after the panic-stricken fugitive he raised his herculean club in act to inflict a fatal blow, when the medical 50 THE CHARITY HOSPITAL. students, whom we have mentioned, rushed upon the physician, and disarmed him ! Timothy Tyson, continuing his flight, did not stay to learn that McTamoram was once a student of medicine, but that hard drinking had brought upon him a singular variety of mania, during which he imagined himself chief of the Charity Hospital. His deranged humor had hitherto been but a harmless crotchet, limiting itself to the constant assertion that every creature was a worm or wormy, which afforded amusement to both attache's and visitors. The students were surprised as well as shocked by the sudden and violent change we have described, and, in consequence, the victim of intempe rance was securely confined in his cell. A HACK-NIED STORY. SNODGRASS is a hackman. Have you never seen him ? He is not one of the first to board a steamer on her arrival at the levee ; he is rather slow, and generally heads the second assault. He is about your size, with a very red, knobby nose, and a dark crescent under either eye. He has lost his front teeth, and doesn't interro gate you too distinctly. When that splendid boat, the "AMERICA," Johnson, captain, (he stands indebted a trip to us for this mention !) touched here on her last passage down, we were lean ing against her guards, contemplating the busy, motley scene before us. The question was put to us'by sundry individuals but somehow we only noticed Snodgrass "Have a hack, sir?" " My good fellow, yes. To the Veranda." He transported us and our baggage to the hotel. As he lifted the latter from the footboard of his vehicle, he glanced at our name. It is no potent name, to have produced such an effect. Down from his broad shoulders into the unclean gutter dropped the burden, and tears coursed over the rude driver's cheeks. a Ah, Mr. ," said he, "I am **** ***** r> A schoolmate of ours, in our boyhood, many years ago ! But what a change ! The child of most respect able provincial parentage of love, and of hope ; born in easy circumstances educated at the best schools of his native town, and a graduate of his State's University; reduced to his present ungainly appearance and humble 4* (51) 52 A HACK-NIED STORY. calling ! We will not attempt to describe the bitter anguish of his feelings as he narrated his mournful his tory to us ; and we give his narrative for the sake alone of the solemn lesson it conveys. "I came here eight years since," said he, "with a thousand dollars in my pocket, and a score of letters to the most prominent merchants who dealt up our way. I had never visited a large city before, and was so elated at the opportunity now, that I didn't often think of the advice of my father and the prayers of my mother, when I left home ; even at the time I thought them tedious and useless. I knew how to take care of myself, and, besides, I resolved I ivould have some fun, let my kind and prosy parents snub me as they pleased. "We had a jolly spell coming down I and a lot of Mississippi young men rich as cream and free as water. We were drunk every night, I believe. To be sure, I, who never was intoxicated previously, felt squeamish in the mornings, but it was a gand thing to lie abed till afternoon on the next day, and then renew the orgies. I learned to play cards also, by losing over a hundred dollars, for I had been a Methodist church-member on trial heretofore, and was quite ignorant. "Well, we reached New Orleans, and stopped at the St. Charles. I remember I was tipsy when I got out of the hack, and paid the man five dollars for my quota of the charge. Instead of thanking me, he laughed at me. I resented the low fellow's hilarity pulled his nose and whipped out a bowie-knife. But I was whirled into the hotel, and up to a little, close room, in the garret, where I slept till dark. "I joined my gay companions at dark, and we went to the theatre to see Booth play Richard Third. Booth was under the influence of liquor ; at least the audience A HACK-NIED STORY. 53 hissed him, and said so ; but I contradicted them, de fended the actor, called them d d liars,' and exhibited my boots over the pit. There was a great row ! The lights looked so bright, though they danced a good deal, and the noise and confusion were so amusing ! But a gentleman walked up to me, tapped me on my arm, and observing that he was a friend of mine, insisted on my accompanying him home. I recollect that I conceived rather a fancy to the man, and readily consented. As we left the theatre, I asked him < to see if he could see my companions, whom I was slighting by deserting thus." Never mind,' replied my friend; < be quiet, for I am on the watch.' I stayed at his house all night ; he had numerous visitors beside myself, whom I disturbed, because I was very ill, and groaned and rolled till day light. Then I was introduced to one Mr. Caldwell, who was a dry, severe man, not like my friend. He charged me ten dollars for the introduction, too ! " Next night I repaired to a rouge et noir table, and lost two hundred dollars, by betting altogether on the red. But I had five hundred dollars left, and my letters would set me straight after I had had more fun. So I went to see a ballet. That was delightful. I was sur prised they didn't talk, they seemed on the eve of doing so all the while ; it would have been a relief to me if they had talked, for I found my face wrinkling in sym pathy with theirs, which, when I discovered it, made me feel foolish. I learned more female anatomy that night than I had ever dreamed of. My acquisition in know ledge gave me a relish for tods and oysters. Accord ingly, I had a glorious supper about midnight. Alas ! alas, for the stomach of those young days ! " From the saloon I resorted to a place which shall be nameless. There I was robbed of my remaining 54 A HACK-NIED STORY. money, and run off by a big bully, with the largest whiskers I ever saw. You may depend, after this, I felt . But I went up to my gay companions ; as usual, they invited me to drink. < Excellent friends ! I'm in luck they'll lend me funds.' They did not! When I requested them to do so, quite genteelly, just as genteelly they declined. Gradually, but genteelly, they cut my acquaintance. " I presented my letters to the merchants. I had delayed applying for the situation I sought until all had supplied themselves, save one the least prominent. He engaged me. The sum I required was half my wages. With an effort, I asked my employer for it, telling him a yarn. He hesitated he gave me the sum, and from that moment lost all confidence in me. My consciousness of this last fact rendering me unhappy, together with the strong propensity I had already ac quired, drove me to the bottle. Nominally, only, I remained with my employer during the season. I pass over my career since, cursorily.' The board ing-house keepers I deceived, until I could get credit nowhere the restaurants I officiated in, till my habits of intoxication caused my expulsion my supernume rary position on the stage, up to the period when, in the character of a rank-and-file soldier, I discharged my rammer through the book of the prompter my waiter- ship in a hotel on Front Levee street my vagabondage my numerous arrests and lodgings in the watch-house my ruralizing on the Recorder's farm my long confine ment in the Charity Hospital : I dwell not on. Did I never endeavour to reform ? What ! with my sense of degradation ? Never ! - Yes at last ; during Father Mathew's sojourn in New Orleans, I bad many Irish acquaintances in a like A IIACK-NIED STORY. 55 situation to my own many having begun life with as fine prospects as I had. Some of these, moved by that benevolent apostle's appeals, determined to do better. I united with them at their persuasion. I signed the temperance pledge and have not tasted a drop since. What was in me, you perceive, is working out of me, through my nose. " I have been getting on pretty well, lately. I own my hack and horses. I have changed my name to Snod- grass. I fear my parents died of a broken heart, and I do not wish to bring reproach upon their memory by being called after them ! Forgive the light tone in which I have told you all this." Such was his strange, eventful history. We commend it to the meditation of any unfortunate youth who may be commencing courses similar to those our quondam school-fellow portrayed to us. SCENE AT THE CEMETERY. WE were wandering, on the past Sabbath evening, in one of those enclosed cemeteries of New Orleans, which, with their tombs above ground, look like villages of death in the midst of a city of life. We were struck with the appearance of two of the visitors, and entered into conversation with a respecta ble old citizen, also a visitor, concerning them. "Only forty-five years of age!" we exclaimed, in credulously. " That is all, sir," replied the respectable old citizen. "Why, one would take him to be at least sixty." "Ah, that is true. But, then, you must consider twenty years of grief. I am sure he thinks as often of her, and sheds as many tears to her memory, now, as he did when she first died." "In 1832, you said?" "Yes." "And he never sought female society again?" "Never; only his wife's poor, afflicted sister remains at his home. She, happily, however, is removed beyond the consciousness of her situation. When young, she was very beautiful, just like her, except that she was more fragile. She was much admired then, I have been told. They say she was engaged to be married. I do not know. She was passionately attached to her elder sister, and her death was so sudden just two months after the marriage that she could not sustain the shock. She has been imbecile, ever since." (56) SCENE AT THE CEMETERY. 57' And her beauty has all faded, of course ? Twenty years" " To be sure, to be sure. Twenty years, and spasms." " Entirely fatuous ?" " Aye, sir. For certainly, she does not comprehend the meaning of her own sad cries. She is always call ing on her sister. Sister Catherine, sister Catherine. Those are the words. A little nearer, sir; you may hear her repeating them at present." True. She was idly lifting the stalk of a fallen flower growing beside her sister's tomb, and saying softly between whiles 4 'Sister Catherine! Dear sister, without doubt you are a teaze. Charles has been looking for you this half hour. Sister Catherine, I shall let your flowers pot themselves hereafter. Sister Catherine !" " How do you interpret this ?" we asked our in formant. " Sir, that twenty sorrowful years have passed away as half an hour, and that she is still a petted child play ing in her sister's garden." We looked again. She should have been in the maturity of her loveliness and womanhood. She was weary, worn and wan. Her hands were as wax, so pale, thin and transparent. Her form was slight and graceful, from the harmony of its proportions. The contour of her face was oval, and her eyes and hair were dark. But her countenance was blank as marble ; her lips moved and syllables came, but not a ray of expres sion passed over the calm, blanched features, that had once been an electric mirror of the soul. Her mind was utterly gone ; and we thought, while she babbled child-like over the fallen flower, how, even as its per fume was lost, her fine intelligence also had exhaled. 58 SCENE AT THE CEMETERY. But < Charles' ?" "Is lie. You see him, there; him we have been speaking of." A prematurely old, heart-broken man, with drooping figure, and long, silver locks, blown by the fitful breeze athwart his face. He had a restless, wistful air, as if he was ever seeking for something which he could not find. His manner towards his companion, whom he seldom regarded, but whose lightest accent escaped riot his ear, was a strange blending of hopelessness and kindness. "What is he doing?" we whispered, retiring to a distance, not to disturb him. " Renewing the chaplets of flowers, with which he is wont to deck his wife's tomb." " An appropriate, gracious custom." He has done this every Sunday evening, for twenty years. His wife was never interred beneath the soil, as many were before these Cemeteries were built. She reposes in the mausoleum first erected over her remains. If you noticed, there is a small recess or chamber in the sepulchral tenement, having a door which shuts the visitor out from the world, light entering in through the stained glass set in it. The chamber is furnished with an altar, a crucifix, images and vases, and there are two chairs for the bereaved." "The bereaved, then, are but two?" " But two. Observe, through the door that he has left ajar, he is filling the vases with water. He removes the withered wreaths from the altar, to supply it with fresh garlands. The poor lady joins him, not under standing him. < Sister Catherine!' She is calling the inattentive dead, as usual. He throws himself in a chair. < Charles has been looking for you,' she repeats. His forehead sinks upon his knees. He is weeping." SCENE AT THE CEMETERY. 59 " Let us retire yet further. Does she not recognize him?" " No, she recognizes no one ; she is an imbecile. She simply lives and reiterates the phrases we have heard." "What does he do?" Mourns, and takes care of her. She is killing him. Her blind, unwitting hand, constantly tears his wound afresh, and will not let it heal. His friends, whenever he would permit them to allude to the subject, tried to persuade him to send his demented sister-in-law to a lu natic asylum, but he would not entertain the proposal. Life was blasted to him, and there could be no comfort for him what there could be, was in her mindless society." A piercing, wild, discordant scream, at this moment issued from the chamber of the tomb. " She has a spasm," said our companion. Epilepsy ! "VVe will not describe that terrible disease. A carriage and servants were in waiting without the walls of the Cemetery, as though in readiness for some such casualty as had now happened. With the assistance of the latter, the unhappy lady was borne to the car riage ; the heart-broken widower followed, and the cor tege drove hurriedly away. THREE AT A HAUL. A REMARKABLE DEER STORY. HERE'S a bit of hunting experience, of which we will not say how much we credit. Gr is our author an attorney of a sanguine wit and temperament, and known in his region by the euphonious sobriquet of IXK- HORN, with which term he was wont to paternise certain caustic political strictures of his own legitimate beget ting. In company with L'E , a Creole friend of ours a joyous, etherial spirit, encased in a Gothic super fluity of flesh, who had been trying the frogs of North Alabama for the renovation of his health we three were busily bobbing, last summer, in the Muscle Shoals of Tennessee River. So much by way of peroration. The attorney spake : "Note yonder tall three-storied house, rising from the water's edge it is Wallace's mill. Before Alfred Matthews was old enough to be guilty of the sin of being a salamander and fire-eater, and when William Fuquai wasn't much stouter, they came one afternoon to the mill yonder. While their corn was grinding, they repaired to the river, and, furnished each with a rod and line, sat in a canoe, a-fishing. Ere they had a nib ble their attention was attracted by the music of a pack of hounds belonging to Charlie McKiernon, in full chase, evidently, of a deer. Happening to cast their eyes up stream, what was their surprise on seeing a deer swim ming for life across the river ! It was half a mile above (60) THREE AT A HAUL. 61 them, and two-thirds across ; but it was also in the swiftest part of the current, was beating down rapidly, and making little headway. " The boys dropped their rods and shoved out after it. They rowed as if the deuce was after them. The deer perceived them, and endeavored to change its course up stream, but the waves were too powerful. At length, a hundred yards this side of the shore, they came up with it. It struggled furiously to escape it bleated piteously the tears (or the spray) coursed down its cheeks. Sometimes it struck upon a rock or bar, when, in its desperation, it would leap and plunge with blind activity. Once it leaped over their heads to the other side of the canoe. Finally, Fuquai grasped it by the ear, thrusting its nostrils beneath the water ; at the same time he drew his knife and cut its throat. Air and bloody froth bubbled up to the surface the animal was violently convulsed, and floated up dead. It proved to be a doe its udder was filled with milk. " Ah ! I observed that yawn converted into a shudder, Monsieur L'E . Attendez ! " As, loaded with their victim, they were paddling slowly back towards the mill, they heard a feeble bleat away out in the river, scarcely audible in the roar of the shoals. They looked, and saw a spotted fawn, all slen der and sleek from its bath, standing knee-deep on an isolated rock. Its large eyes had a wild distressed ex pression it was seeking for its dam. " On the shore, near the mill, Charlie McKiernon had just reined up his panting steed, and his infuriated hounds were drawn up by the water, howling threaten ingly over the shoals. Matthews lifted up the deer-mother in the canoe, and imitated the maternal bleat. The fawn, with an 62 THREE AT A HAUL. impulse that you can understand, dashed at once into the unfriendly current, and swam alongside the canoe before it comprehended the danger that awaited it. Then it uttered a shrill cry of terror, and for several moments swam around in a heedless circle, as if distract ed. The hounds caught the cry, and howled more relent lessly than ever. " Matthews again imitated the mother-call ; and the fawn fond fool with a throb of its heart and whole being, leaped wildly out of the water into his arms, which hugged its reeking sides with the inexorable quick ness of a steel-trap. The poor fawn bent down its head, even while he was clasping it, and smelt of the gash in its mother's throat : when Alfred, who had been feeling the pulsations of its neck, suddenly thrust a keen blade into its jugular vein. The small deer fell down in the bottom of the boat, beside the doe, and after a few spasms, gasped its last. " I have not finished ! " It had not much more than done so, when they saw a heavy body plunge from a precipice into the stream below them. Immediately, a THIRD deer, yet larger than the others emerged, to clamber up on the remains of an old fish-trap, where it cautiously and daintily picked its way. It was a full sized buck, haply the progenitor of the fawn, aroused by the barking of the dogs, and likewise intending to cross the river. "With a shout of exultation, the boys turned their prow down stream in hot pursuit. The deer looked back once the single instance in which it ever regarded them and took at once to the centre of the river, swim ming down stream. The pursuers redoubled their eiforts, and seemed to fly along the water. They did not shun the roughest channels in their eagerness ; they shot THREE AT A HAUL. through rapids, they leaped down falls and cascades their glowing eyes fixed upon the head of the buck, the only part of it visible. Thus, for two miles, did they continue the chase, with the ardor of savages on the fresh scent of a scalp ! At last they overtook the deer still, it regarded them not, but swam deeply, silently, and perseveringly on. They struck it repeatedly over the head with their pad dles, but, apparently, with no injury to it, and every time they suspended their oars so to strike, it gained upon them. For a while longer, in this manner, they pro longed the pursuit, the boys simply oaring with all their strength the deer swimming on, swimming on, unheed ing and uncomplaining. "Fuquai, however, could not endure such resultless suspense. Pulling off his coat and boots with one hand, while the other was tugging at the oar, he armed his mouth with a big, opened knife, and jumped into the river. An extraordinary exertion bore him over the buck's back, and, throwing his arms forward under the water, he gathered the fugitive around the neck. Hold ing it there with his left hand, he sawed awhile with his invisible right, both man and animal, meantime, still swimming on. " All at once both deer and man sunk out of Matthews's view. The surface was discolored with blood ! "You deceive yourself Fuquai arose, puffing and exhausted, it is true, but unhurt, and grasping the mo tionless victim with his left hand, the fingers of which were inserted in the terrible gash which had taken the life of the magnificent stag!" "Sacre!" exclaimed L'E , revolted and indig nant ; " that amiable seeming man, the editor of the 5* 64 THREE AT A HAUL. FRANKLIN DEMOCRAT ! Fire-eater, you call him ; and that d d Fuquai, they are " " Ardent lovers of venison," we interrupted ; "besides do you not observe that Inkhorn has not shaved for a week, and the sanguinary shadow of his moustache has imparted a scarlet hue to his phrases ! Alfred is a mer ciful man, now though, like many others in these warm regions, he does prefer a diet of a high temperature ; chacun a son gout, Monsieur. 1 " A familiar face at Placide's Varieties last night re called this locally celebrated chasse de Munchausen ; we can imagine its prolongation this morning ! SKELETON OF THE GREEN MONSTER. IN Havana, the Ravel troupe made fifty-two thousand dollars, by less than thirty-five exhibitions. Nightly, in New Orleans, they draw houses of at least fourteen hundred, dollars. Such is the reward of their extraordinary activity upon the tight-rope, the tact and strength displayed in their gymnastic feats, the grace of their dances, and the admirably ingenious contrivances of their pantomimes. Of their pantomimes, the GREEN MONSTER seems to be a favorite with the public. It is now upon the boards. For the benefit of our country readers, we propose giv ing a skeleton of this pantomime. In the first place, the orchestra contributes much to the success of the piece. It performs innumerable airs during the representation, which serve to underscore those speaking gestures of the actors that are substituted for words. To proceed with the dumb-show : A young lady ap pears in a long dress, who is made love to by a gentle man in striped drawers, with spangles, a tin sword and a mask. The Tin Sword is a particular friend of a cer tain magician, who is no other than a stock actor, wrap ped in a sheet. The latter waves a painted stick, and a man in green velvet approaches, who has wings of twine, which he waves with his arms. This is no other than the Green Monster himself. While you are looking at him, he fastens a rope to his back, and an invisible Irishman in the second story, winds him up nine feet. (65) 66 SKELETON OF THE GREEN MONSTER. Now enters, clad in blanched linen, with flour on his face, the White Knight, who manifests a disposition to fight somebody. At length, an individual in red velvet accepts his challenge. They are furnished with dull swords. The trombones snort, and the combatants close, but studiously avoid clashing weapons ; which transmits a smile, like a ripple of light, over every face of the spectators. Clubs replace the swords. The clubs are composed of leather, stuffed with wool. A tall person in silver tissue, with a moustache pasted on his lip, comes forward to test the mime in flour. The mime in flour, the exact image of Dan Rice, affects to be scared. The lookers on manifest much hilarity at his cowardice they themselves being bravos for courage. Silver Tissue gets a rap on the knuckles, and claps his finger in his mouth ; which elicits cheers. Dan Rice is tapped gently on the head, and pretends to be dreadfully hurt ; which evokes a storm of applause. Tin Sword here jumps up through a trap-door in the floor, smacks everybody behind, and, while they slap their hands there, and turn around to see who threw that last brick-bat, leaps through a sham clock-face, upon a comfortable feather-bed, concealed by the scenery. At the same time, the Green Monster rolls out of a false opening at the bottom of the clock-case, and all rush off as if they had lost their wits. Dan Rice gets into a cupboard, but out of the back of it when your eyes are not about you, Tin Sword being on top of it, squeezing him into mush. A child in stuffed clothes goes into the cupboard from behind, emerges from the front of it, and declares by signs that he is the White Knight, mashed into a dumpling. Nine out of ten of the gazers believe his story, and applaud the child. The child tries to kick the tall Silver Tissue, who stands beside him to throw him into the shade ; and SKELETON OF THE GREEN MONSTER. 67 the risibility of the ladies, notwithstanding they are in tiers also, is decidedly exhilarating. The child finally wishes to be rolled out into the flour man once more, and resume his natural proportions. A doctor without a diploma is consulted, and recommends, not the pills, but the box, to cure the case of dropsy. The box is a big one, and is laid upon the fat boy, to smooth him out. The child escapes through a slit in the scenery, whereby the White Knight slips in, the box is lifted up, and, presto ! there's Dan Rice another time ! The viewers, at this, create a dust with their approbatory feet. A dun colored horse comes upon the stage, pulling a wagon. Tin Sword exchanges coats with the driver, receives his sweetheart, the lady in long skirts, as fare, (she is fair,) lets Dan Rice in behind, drives off, when the lady pulls up a rivet, the wagon breaks in two, and the White Knight would have been killed, had he not known of the accident beforehand, and caught on his hands. There is an earthquake of delight from the beholders at this upset. The flour man calls for something to eat. A table is set, having strings extending from it to the side-scenes. Dan takes up a knife to begin, and, lo ! the chicken and pig are wood, the strings are pulled, they work their wings, legs, snouts and tails, and the prompter squeals. Rice is shocked ; and the paying ladies and gentlemen ravished. The White Knight endeavors to uncork a bottle, and finds it filled with fourth-proof rope. The delirium of certain Pantagruelians, stiff drinkers and players of nine-pins, at this surprise, is edifying. Silver Tissue once more is visible, goes up to the back scene, backs against it, and some supernumeraries be hind gather up his legs, holding him up horizontally, with his face fronting you, and letting drop a pair of 68 SKELETON OF THE GREEN MONSTER. artificial legs, open like the leg-armor of the ancients. Tin Sword dances in, and with a hop, step and jump, dives through Silver Tissue's bowels, upon the feather bed, as usual. Down drop Silver Tissue's legs, into the hollow leg-cases, and he walks forward, rubbing his hands (where yours by pre-sympathy are already clawing) over his stomach, as though he had either taken the cholera, or the most drastic, expeditious pill ever sold by empiric. The house is hereby convulsed (bating the sympathetic horror), from Sol Smith, the manager, himself, down to the freshest visitor. Ha ! ha ! ha ! We shall never for get that astonished, sick look of Silver Tissue's, as he rubbed his hands There is a balloon ascension. The .balloon is a flat circle of pasteboard, and the gas a stout pulley, worked by the invisible, sweet, big Irish cherub in the second story aloft. Tin Sword and his lady-love go up four feet, to their honey-moon, wherein (last scene of all), they, and the whole of the performers, appear in one of the most magnificent tableaux we ever witnessed. But, in pantomimes as in novels, at the beginning of the honeymoon, the curtain drops. So, also, dear country readers, does our pen. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT-OWL. OUR country readers were as much enlightened as charmed by the skeleton of the Green Monster, as per formed by the celebrated Havel troupe, which we gave them, a week or so since, and have written to us " to please tell them some more." We witnessed the eighth and final performance of MAZULM, OB, THE NIGHT-OWL, and propose furnishing them with a bird's-eye view of that excellent ornitholo gical pantomime. We would prelude, that our attention is diverted by the remark of a portly, well-dressed, frank-looking stranger in the first tier, who exclaims on entering the Theatre, about the time we do, " Well, I want to see them. I have heard of them. But I want to see them. Look, look, look !" He refers to the opening scene of the comedy. A lady is suddenly and unaccountably stricken ill. Hyste rics and spasms. Very distressing. She drops upon a, chair. Her daughter (really her sister-in-law) takes on dreadfully, and sheds many mock-tears. A man in shorts, supposed to be rich (he has had many benefits), runs his hand over his face, as much as to say, " I am shaved, and adore you." The daughter glances a dis- cardal at him, through her no-tears. A commonly appareled fellow, supposed to be poor (notwithstanding the crowded houses), strokes his beard also, and the daughter presents him her hand, though she is already married, and to accept him actually, would be bigamy. (69) 70 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW or THE NIGHT-OWL. The spurious mother, a young lady in truth, about the age of her imputed daughter, expires, and is carried out on a chair. This would be tragedy, but that we see the corpse through the side-scenes afterwards, smelling a bouquet ; so it is comedy, after all. During this time the stranger in the first tier is weeping. Next, we have a moonlight cemetery, the sod being the stage, the tomb-stones paper, and the moon-light gaslight. The orchestra strikes up an air, melancholy as Old Father Grimes." Pious reminiscences recur to the stranger. The " daughter" stands drooping beside her mother's" grave. Rich man in shorts, followed by our old acquaintance, the mime in chalk, comes in, and grasps the wrists of the filial lady. Poor man in common clothes rushes in to prevent the Roman from bearing off the Sabine. Roman in shorts has a long head, and escapes with the lady. The poor fellow is left to despair. But the trombone blows a dismal blast, and the Irishman aloft lets down a small owl of gilt paper on a wire. That is the Night-Owl. A stock actor, who is Mazulm, hides behind the owl, says he's a magi cian (he lies there) and will give Poverty a magic branch. The magic branch is a piece of tin. Poverty flourishes his tin (of which, paradoxically, he has had a good deal) and the ghosts of the dead surround him. The ghosts are as plump as " the phantom of her frolic grace Fitz- Fulke," and are, indeed, lovely girls with sheets wrapped around them. They fail to inspire the stranger with awe, who is staring at their stockings. Bim ! bim ! goes the drum. Up go the sheets to the useful Irishman aloft, and, behold, the prettiest night-gowns imaginable, in the shape of ball-dresses. The cemetery is pulled right and left, and the scenery is changed to a danc- BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT-OWL. 71 ing hall. The wick of the gas-lamps is snuffed, and now there's nothing but side-couples forward and back again, chassez, cut the pidgeon wing, and lemonade all ! The stranger exclaims, " Hooray !" half rises from his seat, and sympathetically shuffles. The fiddle squeaks, and Poverty, much of his tin tinselling his clothes, like the New Orleans golden stevedore, bounces into the room for a partner also. Behold ! the lovely Sabine ! She slips out, a big doll is substituted for her, Poverty lifts up the doll in his arms, and dives with it through a split portrait, on the feather bed behind. The stranger is con vulsed by the feat, and cries at the top of his voice, " Oh-my-eyes !" like a man suffering an amputation. Between the stranger in the rear and the doll in front, the audience is crushed with enjoyment. A sham street is introduced. Shorts and Chalk come in. Chalk, going into a door, bumps his head against a Cook's coming out of the door. Cook smacks Shorts and Chalk with his ladle. Chalk seizes the ladle, and smacks Cook's caput. Stranger smiles. Chalk smacks Cook's stomach. Cruel stranger roars. Chalk smacks Cook behind. Stranger tumbles over in a fit of merri ment. Poverty passes by, and is put in a bag, like a cent in a purse. The bag is opened, and Poverty has vanished through a trap-door. Stranger is bewildered, and asks, " Whar is he !" The body of a wooden jack ass on the shoulders of two men trots forward. Shorts gets on the mane, Chalk on the crupper. Jackass breaks in two, Shorts is carried out like Munchausen, and Chalk is thrown. Chalk gathers hold of the tail, like the witch in Tarn O'Shanter, and the tail is pulled out a dirty trick. But the stranger is delighted. Chalk puts the tail to his nose, and the stranger shrieks at the nastiness. Mime in shorts and mime in chalk are supposed to be 6 72 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT-OWL. in a wood. The wood is canvass and paper, painted. There is a sign in the form of an angle, with " To Cadiz" written on both limbs, in English, for the Frenchmen. It points east, they start east. Prompter draws a string, it points west, they start west. The stranger is puzzled, but amused. Chalk takes off his hat, Poverty enters, snaps a percussion-cap, and down drops a hat on Chalk's head. The stranger is astonished, but, when the mime goes to put on his hat and finds one on, the stranger perceives , the joke, and welcomes it with a guffaw. Poverty pitches front foremost through the paper tree, and about thirty powder squibs are touched off. All the dry-land dives of Poverty tickle the stranger, who in voluntarily ducks his knowledge-box when he witnesses them. But the fire-works! His eyes brighten, though his nose suffers. He sneezes, laughs and admires laughs, admires and sneezes. Another fictitious street. Beautiful night outside, but storm inside. A negro makes it, turning the gas-cock, and shaking sheet iron. Shorts and Chalk appear, with an umbrella. They touch a spring in the handle, and the parasol swallows itself, like the Kilkenny cats. Poverty shows his face, and is chased up-stairs. Shorts and Chalk procure a ladder, said to have been enchanted by a carpenter. Shorts ascends to the top round, jerks a string and slides down. The stranger applauds. Chalk, with much ado, ascends to the top round, jerks a string, slides down, and turns a summer-sault. The stranger boisterously exults. Chalk steals a ginger cake from a confectionary. Instead of calling the police several being in the theatre the shopkeeper clamps a wooden lobster to Chalk's jacket. Chalk eats, and jumps. The stranger giggles. Chalk eats, and jumps again. The stranger snorts. Chalk eats, and jumps, BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT-OWL. 73 once more. The stranger can hold in no longer : " Oh ha ! ha ! ha ! don't you feel a slight nibble, eh ? ha ! ha f ha !" Now there's a restaurant, with five daubs ; a catamount, two dowdies, a hunter, and a gormandizer very much like the theatrical portraits of Shakspeare. Chalk and Shorts enter. The catamount raises its back and flashes its eyes, through the agency of a concealed, consumptive supernumerary, who has fifty cents a-day for his work. Chalk pretends to be surprised: the stranger is. One of the dowdies squats a court'sy to Chalk. Chalk wipes some flour off his mouth to kiss her. Bang! pops a cracker in the hunter's gun. Chalk runs off, but the other dowdy swings around on a pole to his side. Chalk winks towards the stranger, who appreciates the tempt ation, wipes more flour off his mouth, begins to kiss her, when, flip-flap ! the board on which the dowdy was daubed, flies open, and there's a raw-head-and-bloody- bones ! Ugh! exclaims the stranger; but, ashamed of his weakness, tries to recover himself by a smile the smile's a failure, or at best, a sardonic one. The gor mandizer then commences work. The arm of the picture is a man's, and the lips of it india-rubber. Gormandizer gulps the rolls like pills, rams the plates down his throat, next the table-cloth, next Chalk's cap, finally Chalk's arm. "May I," objurgates the stranger, "May I ha ! ha ! ha ! may I be for ever and ever ho ! ho ! ho ! for ever and ever, eternally he ! he ! he ! eternally" imprecated "hi ! hi ! he ! he ! ho ! ho ! ha ! ha ! if I ever saw SUCH an appetite!!" not reflecting that all the rear of the stage was Gormandizer's stomach. A gun is fired, and knocks off a leather head from a mime who has his own hidden from view. The stranger is shocked, but then you know the effect of public cap-ital 74 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE NIGHT-OWL. punishments. The stranger deliriously dances over the severed head, like a son of Herodias. There's the devil to play, next. Pandemonium is presented to us in daguerreotype. Ugly figures on cloth, illuminated by burning alcohol dashed with iodine. The stranger's pious reminiscences recur again. His physi ognomy prolongs itself. He hums, " Oh ! how happy are they, Who the good book obey bey, bey, bey ; Who, the, good, book, obey /" The last scene of this strange, eventful history, is the Abode of the Planets, or the temporary elevation of the ballet-stars. It is the most rnagnificient tableau we ever beheld, Poetry could alone have inspired it. Lovely, graceful girls ! We smile at your pantomimes, because they make us smile ; but our satire is "kin to charity." Who could look at your beautiful groupings and divine limbs, and not wish you kindly ! Note the expression on the countenance, even of that stranger you heard his uproarious mirth on Thursday night ? Positively, your last scene has refined it. He is the embodiment enchanting houris! of a Greenhorn in Paradise. Respectful, amazed, awed, rapt, he contemplated your gossamer gauzes. No more laughter no more noise he is henceforth A POET. The curtain slowly falls. "Well!" exclaimed the stranger, with a long-drawn suspiration "I had heard of 'em ; but I wanted to see 'em. Well gents, I have. I HAVE SEEN 'EM I HAVE SEEN 'EM." Do you, dear country readers, come and do likewise. THE LOST CHILD. WE first heard the drum in Mysterious street. What it meant, we did not ascertain. Perhaps some military company parading its new uniform in the sun. It is a sound common enough in New Orleans, however. In History street, we heard the drum again, several days after. A plainly clad old man, who wore a shabby white hat, and had a pair of cracked spectacles astride of his nose, was beating it. He would beat a brief roll, then three or four quick taps, and cry Lost child ! Lost child !" Men were generally away, in their offices, or upon the levee, attending to business. But women, their toddling offspring, and servants, would appear at the windows of the houses, or come to the doors, or step out on the verandas. A few would linger awhile, listening to what the old man might say, not asking any ques tions. The rest, little interested, would soon retire, or disappear. Their children were at home, or at school, well, and beautiful ! "Lost child!" cried the old man, tapping his drum with one hand and adjusting his spectacles with the other, as he turned the corner. " A very pretty boy. Eleven years old. Deaf and dumb. Sharp, bright black eyes ; and spells with his fingers. Italian. Wan dered away from Good Children street, two weeks since. Mother, a poor, lone widow. An only child, and lost ! Lost child ! Lost child !" 6* (75) 76 THE LOST CHILD. No dead march ever sounded sadder in our ears. But drays, omnibuses, cars and carriages, rushing along the thoroughfares, drowned the notes of the drum and the old man's voice. In Love street, still several days after, once more we encountered the old man. Same roll, and taps, and cry. Another man passed by, who seemed to know the drum mer. The other man looked surprised, and was smiling rather sarcastically. As we loitered, we gathered more of the story than we had yet learned. " She's a neighbor of mine, and has no acquaintances. She has just reached the United States. Her husband died at sea. They have seen better times, but he was a republican, I believe, and the French plundered him in Rome. He had to fly for his life, but died at sea. I liked the child. He was excellent in pantomime; besides, he could spell with his fingers, and I could understand him, especially his gestures. Then his sharp, bright black eyes fairly talked of themselves. He was often in my fruit store, and I was teaching him English by giving him things, after he spelled them on his fingers. I can't say which were his favorites, oranges or olives, though he was fond of figs, all Italian fruits. His fingers skipped from letter to letter when he spelled them, as if he was playing upon a piano. Oh, he was amusing to me, dear, lost Giuseppe ! Giuseppe Lioni. So he was called. More than two weeks since, he wandered away from Good Children street. I am too indigent to employ any one to search for him. My wife, who, having no child of her own, had taken as lively a fancy for Giuseppe as I, urged me to go. 'He will recognize you,' said my wife, a sensible female. She keeps shop in my absence. You havn't heard of a stray boy anywhere, have you ?" THE LOST CHILD. 77 The other man, who had ceased to smile sarcastically, shook his head. No. Then he shook the old man's hand, and walked slowly down the street. All this time a woman was standing not far off, almost piercing the two men with her dark eyes. She was dressed in mourning. The sable veil she wore was thrown aside from her face as she gazed upon the speakers, and we imagined for an instant, from her expression, that she was angry. She was distressed. The old man, noticing her look of solicitous, anxious inquiry, shook his head in his turn. The woman shrunk back with a staggering step, and the veil dropped over her pale fea tures. The old man took off his spectacles, wiped them on his sleeve, re-adjusted them, struck his drum, more carelessly, as it were, than before, and resumed the familiar cry "Lost child! Lost child! A very pretty boy. Eleven years old. Deaf and dumb. Sharp, bright black eyes, and spells with his fingers. Italian. Wandered away from Good Children street three weeks since. Mother a poor, lone widow. An only child, and lost! Lost child! Lost child!" In Painters street in Trifle street in Force street in Genius street in Music street in Morales street in Religious street in Nuns street, we heard the drum and cry. In Great Men street, we last met with the old drum mer. One month had elapsed. Nevertheless, he con tinued his kind search, the woman in mourning, her features paler than ever, following at a short distance. "Not found the little boy yet?" pausing, we asked. "Alas, no, sir," answered the old man. "I have been seeking for him over the city for a month. People told me, it was no use. But he was a very pretty boy. 78 THE LOST CHILD. Eleven years old. Deaf and dumb. And harder to find than other stray boys of course. He spelled with his fingers, but Italian words he was an Italian, sir, except oranges, olives and figs, which I taught him. He had sharp, bright black eyes. His mother is a poor lone widow, living in Good Children street. But all this fortnight she has been following me. There she is, sir. She is his mother." The woman in mourning the mother drew nearer, piercing us with her dark eyes. Tearless eyes, shining with the lustre of the despairing love of a woman, for the imperfectly endowed, but therefore doubly endeared, offspring of her womb, wandering so long, and, per chance, still wandering, bewildered, speechless, and with unheeding ears, away from the warm enfoldings of her arms. "We have concluded to search for him no more, after to-day," said the old drummer. " Dear Giuseppe ! He must have been run over, or drowned, having only his fingers to call for help, though it was a pleasant sight to see him spelling with them. If you should chance to hear of a stray boy anywhere, will you please inform me or my wife, at the fruit store on Good Children street, where we are neighbors to Giuseppe's mother ?" Neighbors, in truth and in deed. We promised. " He was moved into this ward last night, sir, as being less crowded. He was brought into the hospital, half- starved and with a burning fever, three weeks ago. He has never spoken a word. He is a pretty little boy, about eleven years of age. It seems to be a hopeless case, sir," said the nurse, yesterday, as we paid our THE LOST CHILD. 79 usual morning visit to the ward in the Charity Hospital, which the kindness of the surgeon-in-chief has assigned to our care. We approached the bedside. The sharp, bright black eyes lighting up the pinched and wasted features, and the continued peculiar motions of his fingers, confirmed our suspicion. In seasons past, we had studied the digital alphabet of the deaf and dumb. We framed his name Giuseppe ? " Si, si yes, yes !" the blanched, wan hand of the boy made quick reply. "Ho male a un lato I have such a pain in my side." We felt the pulse of the lad. It was a feeble thread, vibrating irregularly. He breathed with difficulty. He was sinking rapidly. "A chi pensa Ella whom are you thinking of, Giuseppe?" La mia madre my mother !" We complied with our promise, sending word to the fruiterer on Good Children street, that the lost Giuseppe was found. In a few minutes the child's mother came. At length tears began to flow, and exclaiming, " Mio figlio la pieta, la pieta ! My son the pity, the pity !" she pressed him to her breast. The fruiterer and his wife came also, bringing a basket filled with the child's favorite fruits. " Quanta gente how many people !" said the poor boy, looking happy, but moving his fingers more and more languidly. We touched his wrist again. The breath of life, whose gentle vibrations stir the small vessel beneath the physician's slight pressure, was fast lulling into the calm of death ; and the tiny strokes of the pulse had ceased. 80 THE LOST CHILD. Giuseppe glanced from his mother towards us. II medico," he said, slowly quanto e buono How good you are." " Abbiamo tutti da morire there is a time appointed unto us all, to die," we said. Then, in his beautiful language, whether of words or signs, he bravely replied, with a sentiment worthy of one much older often stopping, in his mechanical weariness, but looking manfully resigned out of his sharp, bright black eyes when he stopped, " Ora poiche Dio mi ha fatto tanto grazia, lo morro contento I shall be content to die" and he clasped his weeping mother's hand " since God has granted me so much grace." A moment after, returning his parent's kiss, he spelled upon his fingers the word, "Addio," at once full of human affection and expressive of reliance upon Deity ; and as he framed the last letter, expired. A Sister conducted the heart-broken mother to the apartment of the order. The corpse was not immedi ately removed, but other Sisters laid it out on clean, white linen, in the ward. The fruiterer and his wife placed an orange or two, some flowers and some twigs of arbor vitae, beside it. The neighboring patients crawled from their beds to look at it, where it lay, like an empty but beautiful casket, on the couch spread for it by Charity. Even then, the soul of Giuseppe was in Paradise, that kingdom whose inhabitants are pure as children, and where Christ, the child-lover, already had unstopped the ears which had heard no discord, to listen to the har monies of saints, and loosed the tongue which had spoken no evil, to utter forth His praise and its joy. THE DROMIO THOMPSONS: There were two of them : JACOB ^ and v Thompson. JOSEPH j They were not related had never seen each other except in the calaboose last night and were arrested under separate charges. The Tartars make their steaks by riding upon their beef, interposed saddle fashion, between their own flesh and their horse-flesh. Last night, Joseph Thompson, very much inebriated, was taken up for lying down in the meat market, of the Second District, and not riding upon a steak, but converting a piece of " roast" into a pillow. This morning, before daylight, also in the Second District, Jacob Thompson was arrested for attempting to " bag" six sacks of potatoes. And the two synonyms, Jacob and Joseph, were put together in the common lock-up, at the guardhouse. Jacob, justly apprehending that he stood an excellent chance of being sacked for his potato-theft, began to exercise his wits in devising a means of escape. Ascer taining the trifling charge preferred against his name sake, Joseph, and perceiving that Joseph had not wholly recovered from his " cups" of the night previous, the brilliant idea occurred to Jacob (a rogue since the era (81) 82 THE DROMIO THOMPSONS. of the Pharaohs), to put Joseph's cups into his sacks in plainer terms, to answer for Joseph, personify Joseph, acknowledge Joseph's minor offence, and (exquisite cli max !) DO another Joseph in the person of his honor, Recorder Joseph G-enois himself! The prisoners were brought forward, Jacoh as keen as when he diddled that stupid gourmand, Esau, and Joseph as far down in the mouth as when his brethren cast him into the well. Recorder : Joseph Thompson, step up here. Joseph pricked up his ears, but was rather too maud lin yet to comprehend, matters clearly. Jacob, the thief, however, very briskly came up in Joseph's place. Recorder : You stand charged with being drunk last night, and sleeping in the market-house. Jacob, the villain (snivelling) : Yes, your honor, I am sorry for it. Please, your honor, let me off this time, and I'll never do so no more. I'll sign the pledge, your honor. Recorder, benevolently : Well, on condition that you sign the pledge, I'll let you off. You can go, Joseph. Jacob, bowing low, exits, and when he gets to the side scenes at the door, scampers like a quarter horse. Recorder : Now for Jacob Thompson. You, man there, come up here. Joseph staggers up. Recorder, frowning parish prisons : You are charged with stealing six sacks of potatoes in the market this morning, Jacob Thompson. Joseph Thompson: "Joseph," begging your honor's pardon. Recorder : Joseph !" Joseph, only thinking he has offended his honor : THE DROMIO THOMPSONS. 83 Please, sir, I was drunk, last night, and dropped asleep in the market. Recorder, shocked at the trick he suspects : Stop ! One word. Did you steal any potatoes ? Is your name Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, Judas or what the devil is it? Were you drunk last night ? Confusion worse confounded reigns in court. At length the clerk, Mr. Bozonier, discovers the "mistake." Jacob had pretended to be Joseph! A posse of police- officers are instantly detailed, and chase the flying patriarch. An exciting pursuit and hulli-bulloo ! The wheels of the court stalled for some minutes ! Finally, Jacob is brought back again. He receives the Recorder's blessing for " uttering a forgery," and Joseph, the persecuted, " sold" Joseph, is released, with a subscription of six-pence from every compassionate functionary who attends the morning levees of his honor, Recorder Joseph Genois. THE NEW ORLEANS DUTCH GARDENS. FROGS and the rapier maybe characteristic of France, garlic and silver stirrups of Spain, figs and trills of Italy, potatoes and patriotism of Ireland, porter and conceit of England, oats and caution of Scotland but beer and the waltz reign over Germany! The Teuton believes that the world is a kreisel a whirligig and he turns with it about the sun. And the moon revolves around the earth, and Teufelsdrock revolves on his own heels. The seasons come in a round Spring with her budding breast Summer with her ripened charms, " all too full for puritanic stays" Autumn, the maternal and Win ter, a graylock crone with wheezing breath, but giddily attached to the teototum dance ; and der Herr waltzes with the circling year. Glorious waltz ! thou, like music, wast stolen from the spheres, and all nature proclaims thee! Byron, le diable boiteux, satirically sung thy praise, but the kindly, phlegmatic Dutchlander alone enjoys thee. All other nations thou dost coquet with, but on the bosom of his thou reposest like a wife ! i Such were our meditations on visiting the two German gardens on the Old Basin, beyond the cemeteries, on Sunday evening last. The " National" and the " Tivoli" are their several designations. The latter is perhaps the finer of the two, certainly the more aristocratic, as you pay a dime admission fee. Within the enclosure both are laid out alike : A large yard shaded by trees, under which are numerous little rustic tables and benches, (84) THE NEW ORLEANS DUTCH GARDENS. 85 separated by short intervals, and capable of accommoda ting two couples each ; lamp-posts interspersed ; shell- walks ; a bar with strong liquors and warm water at one extremity ; beer-men with large baskets filled with beer jugs, which pop like champagne bottles, and emit a frothy, yellow fluid, that will make you sleep before it makes you tipsy, and in the centre the dance house a circular building, the flooring surrounded by a balustrade, with a single door, and, elevated on a platform, an or chestra of a dozen brazen instruments. The stars and stripes float in the breeze, above the whole. Such is a description of the gardens. Five cents is paid by each male partner for the privi lege of one waltz, which occupies nearly ten minutes: the frauen paying nothing, heaven bless them ! Often, as many as twenty couples are whirling around at one time. Strangers, and mere spectators, crowd outside of the balustrade, gazing listlessly upon the waltzers. The Germans proper, not engaged in. the dance, are seated upon the diminutive benches under the trees, gargling gutturals and beer. The good Almains are not the slimmest people in the world, that is a fact; but their large broad features only furnish the more canvass for incomparable pictures of amiability if it is a little too sleepy-looking. They are the quietest, happiest folks in the world. How indifferent to observation they are ! You can go up and inspect them closely incapable of impertinence themselves, they never suspect you of it. It is a tribe of human beings remarkably free of tatlers, gossips and satirists, and very slightly influenced by malicious motives. Meaning no more offence than when we apply the term "Bull" to an Englishman they are the Dray-horses of mankind. It is they who do the hard work and heavy pulling in the mines of learning, as well 86 THE NEW ORLEANS DUTCH GARDENS. as in physical fields. They have the patience, slow in dustry, enduring strength, and harmless temper of that noble animal which, of course, when it does kick up, plays the devil. There is less association of improper ideas in a beer drinker's embrace than in anybody else's. Thus, you see the vrow, in the waltz, actually reposing on the breast of her partner, one hand over his shoulder, clasping the other over his waist, while his arms are hugging her as closely ; but you don't see the least harm. We noticed several pairs whose cheeks, in addition, rested against each other. This we thought to condemn, until, on clearer observation, we discovered that Mynheer was certainly asleep, and Fraulien would have been so too, for her eyes were also shut, but that the India-rubber she was chewing occasionally aroused her on the verge of strangulation ; meantime, they were waltzing instinct ively, and in perfect keeping with the music tira li la, tira li la, la, la! The temperature of the dance-house is two-fold. In that region which is occupied by the aforesaid cheeks and faces, it makes itself devilishly warm, as Monsieur says; we should put it at 96 deg. We judge from the flushed complexions and the streams of perspiration which shower from the spinning brows down on the floor. Sanctorius's scales would show that each party, after ten minutes' waltzing, had lost two pounds weight. The yellow be verage, however, is itself diaphoretic. Medical gentle men might prescribe these Sabbath potations and gym nastics in certain cases. The other latitude is the ether, or sphere, to adopt an expression of Swedenborg, in which the skirts of the petticoat revolve. There, the weather is cool, breezy, gusty, and sometimes squally. The substantial masts from which the linen fluttered THE NEW ORLEANS DUTCH GARDENS. 87 like sails in a gale, seemed sufficiently able to secure the broad bottoms from a capsize, nevertheless. When the music suddenly ceases, for a brief recess, during which the hot trombone breathes like a grampus, the waltzers stop with a stagger, look about with a be wildered air, as much as to ask " Is our five cents' worth of delirium over ?" smile, and repairing to the benches, order a glass of beer in astonishingly consonant phraseology. Ach Grott ! Prosperity to the gardens ! INTERVENTION--PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED. A EATHER finely-dressed, but awkward-looking, mild- spoken, timid young gentleman, evidently on his first visit to New Orleans, was walking along Carondelet street, late last evening, just after the breaking up of the theatres. He had stopped by the way at an oyster saloon, and braced his energies, exhausted by laughter at De Bar's drollery ; and his tacking footsteps indicated that he had washed the mollusks down with something stronger than their native fluid. Perhaps it was in the saloon that the mild young gentleman attracted the attention of the familiar, frank, respectable-looking middle-aged gentleman, who followed him at a gradually accelerated pace, until, in a quiet, lonely part of the street, the latter ranged up gently alongside of the other. There was no shock not the slightest jar not the most trivial ripple on their collision. The tyro surveyed the middle-aged, frank man dream ily, as one slowly awakening out of that heavier sort ef reverie, with which a weak stomach charged with ale, tenants the vacant chambers of a weaker brain. For several moments the twain promenaded placidly side by side. Tyro was palpably pleased by the benevolent, gentlemanly physiognomy of the middle-aged man of respectability, and his own blankish countenance involun tarily expanded into a smile. Respectability's face of frankness beamed with a reciprocal lustre. Simplicity (88) INTERVENTION. 89 chuckled, only his chuckle was converted from a tenor to a bass by the intervention of a hiccough. At length, Respectability reassured himself. " Can you tell me, esteemed sir, where Girod street is ?" he asked, gravely polite. " Why, n-no yes ! I remember. I I (hiccough) will go with you there, if you don't object," replied Sim plicity, with a tipsy good-nature that should have con ciliated his blushing guardian angel. " On the contrary, sir, your society will heighten my sense of obligation for your kindness. I am prepos sessed by you. Will you honor me by taking my arm ?" said the polished middle-aged man. The young gentleman was charmed. His verdancy deepened to an emerald intensity and transparency. He was genially loquacious. How communicative he be came ! And the other ? Oh, he waxed almost rejuve nescent. He murmered in the ear of his companion like a pleasant, fresh spring-brook, laughingly diving into a grotto. At this agreeable point of time, a well-filled pocket book, skipping along the pave, checked its revolutions between the feet of the tyro. A badly-dressed, sus picious, stupid-looking individual, running up behind them, stooped, and securing the porte monnaie, started off. Respectability nudged Simplicity's elbow. "Did you observe that dull rogue?" inquired R. " Tisn't his money the owner will never get it again, unless we interfere. Some unfortunate stranger has lost it, perhaps an acquaintance of ours. What do you say, my dear friend ?" The dirty fellow slackened his pace. "But didn't he find it?" demanded S. 90 INTERVENTION. " To be sure but we trod on it as we passed we saw it first ; and this rascal snatched it up from us !" "Dang it!" exclaimed S., the down on his oath, "let's knock him over and take it from him." "No, that would be an assault. We can get it from him with his consent. A trifle will satisfy him. We will then advertise the book, and the happy owner will doubly compensate us. Should he not turn up, the purse, which is a full one, will legitimately revert to us. Sur veying the transaction in both aspects, moral and pecuniary, I cannot withhold my approbation." Respectability said this with an air that would have perfumed Judas with sanctity. The dirty man could not resist the respectable man. He surrendered the pocket-book. The middle-aged man having unfortunately left his purse at his lodgings, the young man furnished the reward twenty dollars, and the dull rogue disappeared. And now, having reached Girod street, Respectability insisted on Simplicity's re taining possession of the treasure till morning, when they appointed to meet at the office of the most extensively advertising paper in the city, (the Delta) and, refusing to impose further upon the amiability of his young guide, bade him, with many bows and scrapes, affectionately adieu. This morning, Simplicity, who is not without his share of curiosity, opened the pocket-book to examine its con tents, and found it filled with tissue paper ! Respecta bility and Dirt were not strangers, then, and Simplicity was the unhappy victim of their combination. Should the police apprehend the delinquents, we will let our readers know. PEE-WI HO-KI, THE TAHITIAN CANNIBAL: WITH A PREFACE AND AN APPENDIX. THE truth is, 'this was the way of it : We had stopped late at Murphy's restaurant, on St. Charles street, where, in the hurry of our avocations, we sometimes dine. James Thorn, just arived from Tahiti, was with us. We had before partaken of a copious lunch in the way of fruits, and yet more copiously of champagne, on board of Thorn's ship, moored at the levee. So we had no appetite, in truth, and stopped mainly for a talk in the cool quietness of the place, where a little iced claret of a pleasant flavor is not hard to get. No one was about, to interrupt us, and the (/argons, having supplied us with the wine, left us to ourselves. Thorn's eye fell upon the bill of fare, lying upon the smooth, white linen of the table, and he sipped half the contents of his glass ere he perused it fully. Thorn, every body knows, like Burns's friend, Mathew, "is a queer man." " What would you think of a Tahitian gourmand's bill of fare, could I give you one ?" Thorn suddenly demanded. " A novel idea delighted !" we exclaimed. " Well, I will give you a few recipes, communicating the modus operandi of the cooks of a certain Tahitian chief and notable high liver, whose acquaintance I formed on my last voyage. The chief's name is Pee-wi (91) 92 PEE-WI HO-KI, THE TAHITIAN CANNIBAL. Ho-ki, and he dwells at this moment near the port of Tut-tut, in Tahiti, where we trade with the natives mostly. ^"Do you remember that when a clerical friend of the Rev. Sydney Smith departed on a missionary visit ation to New Zealand, the parson fervently prayed that his brother might not be made a pickle of by the savages ? The jest of the petition neutralized the fer vor of it; and Pee-wi Ho-ki, after patiently listening to the missionary's sermon as far as Thank you," Thorn said, politely. "Well?" 8 96 PEE-WI HO-KI, THE TAHITIAN CANNIBAL. " He offered me the whole or choice of his wives, and threw a mother-in-law into the bargain, venerable at thirty-five. I declined, on the score of my engagement to Miss Smith, of New Orleans, who had taboo'd me with regard to other women, and would kick me for the bigamy. The idea of female calcitration was ridiculed by the parson, who indulged in reflections upon Miss Smith, for which I should have kicked him, but that I respected his diaper. " That evening, Pee-wi Ho-ki and I repaired to his study, a shady thicket, and lounged upon the grass. He related to me his history, which I have hastily run through, in the drinking of half a bottle, as Sir Richard Steele used to say. I was always curious on the subject of cannibalism, having witnessed its fascination upon the uncivilized indulgers in it, eaten remarkable sau sages in civilized Paris, and expecting, some day, to be driven to the long boat, with half a dozen others, and without the cupboard aboard. Candidly, I asked him to favor me with his recipes. He did. I wrote them down. I invariably carry them in my pocket. Here they are. I will read a few." Thorn then produced a worn memorandum-book, and read, with a mincing accent, the following cannibalish recipes, viz. : ****** ** * ****** ** * WHETHER owing to the wine, our long sitting, or Thorn's spices certainly not his meats ! we both con fessed to a recurring sense of appetite, and selected a veal cutlet and coffee. We whistled for the gargons, to communicate tmr wishes to the cook. The gargons did not come. We waited. Still they did not come. We rose, and looked Pee-Wi Ho-Ki. the Tahitian Cannibal Pag-e 97, THE TAHITIAN CANNIBAL. 97 through the glass door separating the culinary from the serving saloon of the restaurant, and saw what a scene ! The cook a respectable Hibernian female who had been listening at the door in spasms ! The concerned g argons were standing around the prostrate two-thirds of Phelim Mahoney, attempting to restore her by the forced introduction of potatoes, chops, pork and beans into her mouth. But the teeth remained clenched, until Thorn, who had unconsciously taken up the coffee-pot for a water-pitcher, as he rushed to her assistance, as unconsciously spilled its boiling contents upon Bridget's pedestals, which instantly undamped her teeth and released her tongue We will not translate ! Thus, in a few words, have we explained first, the seeming row in Murphy's always quiet, genteel, well-ad ministered restaurant, on Friday evening last ; secondly, the evident falsity of the affidavit made by Bridget Ma- honey before his honor, Recorder Genois, yesterday forenoon, charging the captain of a schooner and a grave newspaper reporter, with desiring her to truss and roast human flesh, to appease their cannibal hunger ; and, thirdly, the mysterious disappearance, early this morn ing, of James Thorn and the ship Bagatelle, from their moorings at the wharf of the New Orleans levee. Diximus ! THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOYS. TOYS ! the playthings of children ! But have not grown-up people trifles also, which they dally with ? What is the golden coin to the miser, but a bauble, that he fondles as a girl fondles her doll ? The ruling pas sion has its darling idol, which, looked at narrowly, dwindles down to the significance of a penny whistle. Houses, lands, horses, fleets of ships, any, and all of these, are gew-gaws to many, who have no more real enjoyment in them than nay, we doubt if as much as the stripling in his hoop careering by his side. And a wife, that dear creature, who ought to be the associate of the heart and fellow of the spirit, what is she, too frequently, but a bon-bon, a puerile dainty wrapt in tin sel, spoiling, or that is spoilt, almost before possessed ; and how the Big Boy of Kentucky, the precocious youth of Brobdignag, with large, round eyes, stares at his saccharine Dora ! The child is father of the man," as Wordsworth avers, and the man, in his turn, can only produce children ! So it always will be ! It was in a bitter spirit Sir Thomas Brown (who married three wives) wished that the race might be perpetuated after the man ner of trees ! These reflections occurred to us, as we casually drop ped into a toy-shop yesterday, in the French portion of the city. It is in that portion of the city, by the way, that we do most prefer to stroll. The graceful carriage, the elegant toilette, and the dark eyes of the Creole (98) THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOYS. 99 ladies, are magnets that irresistibly draw us. And one thing we have observed particularly in that quarter of New Orleans, the beauty of the children one meets on the street, or sees playing on the balconies. Several of these slender, handsome little people of both sexes, we noticed in the fairy magazine, and, in truth, their arch, innocent and happy faces, more than anything else, induced us to go in. The merchant was a stout, full-faced, bearded man, more like an ogre, or a hussar, than a dealer in such tiny ware, and trafficker with such abbreviated customers. What a practical, keen reader of the fine writing of juvenile phizzes he was, to be sure ! No matter how small the mere button of a nose might be, how like a new-born moon the slim crescent of a brow, the eyes need not be of more diameter than gimlet-holes, bless you ! he would decipher the character at once, with those quick optical microscopes of his, and tell you whether that boy wanted a drum, this stripling an infant gun, that pretty girl a cradle, or this demoiselle a wax baby with ringlets and beads. We wonder if that fierce soldier of a shopman, has a heart any gentler than his looks, or his voice either ? Lord, lord, how terribly he would pronounce mon Dieu and non, nasal words ; how he dilated his mouth under his moustache when he said oui ; and as for s'ilvous plait, it sounded very much like " shiver-your-liver !" How ever, he must be a kind individual, for the children didn't seem to fear him. One easy, devil-may-care, prepossess ing-looking manikin, actually cocked his elbow on the bushy man's neck, when the bushy man stooped down to pick up an unweaned fiddle he had let fall but, then, this devil-of-a-manikin asked for a Sword ! There was a lecturer paid a hundred dollars in Boston, 8* 100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOYS. to prove that man was lorn to play. The song had it, hitherto, that man was made to mourn ; and there was a strong orthodox prejudice about labor. But they paid this play-man, the heterodox Unitarians. Old Harvard University gave play-time, in order that all might go to hear him. So the whole world is, then, a toy-shop, and everybody a child. Well, this is very like what we began with. We have jostled against the Bostonian in the variety store. But, dear sir, hang philosophy ! With Monsieur's permission merci! will you stand aside, little boy ? merci ! what do you think of this short violin ? Prut, prut, prit ! Tweedledum, tweedle- dee, dee, dee, dee ! A HEAD UP. A POLICEMAN, yesterday, walking along Bienville street, saw a little boy, named Peterkin, roll something large and round, which he beside the gutter, in playing there, had found. He came to ask the urchin, "What he had found, that was so large and smooth and round?" And Peterkin said " It is a skull!" So it was. The flesh was gone, but a few tufts of hair still remained on the sinciput, like Time's forelock. And the skull seemed to say to the policeman and Peterkin " I lived, I loved, I quaffed like ye ; I died : let earth my bones resign. Fill up you cannot injure me: the worm hath fouler lips than thine' meaning the policeman's, who was chewing tobacco. But there was nothing to fill up with, except the water in the gutter. And the policeman brought the skull to the court of Recorder Genois. And the Recorder, looking distraitly at the skull, said That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once ! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass, now" (meaning a thief beside him, whom he was trying) " o'erreaches one that would circumvent God : might it not ?" And the policeman emphatically said " It might, your honor." And the Recorder continued. " Why e'en so : and (101) 102 A HEAD UP. now my lady Worm's ; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a watchman's rattle. Here's a fine revolu tion" addressing a French lawyer, recently from Paris, " an we had the trick to see't. Yet, why may it not have been the skull of a lawyer?" (The French lawyer winced : but the Justice prolonged his musings.) " Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, his tricks ? why does he suffer this policeman to knock him about the sconce with a rattle, and will not tell him of his action of battery ? Humph ! This skull might be in 's time a great buyer of land, and negroes, and cotton, and sugar, with his statutes, his recognisances, his fines, his double vouchers Mr. Bozonier ! his re coveries : is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of coarse mud and gutter water ? will his vouchers Mr. Bozonier ! vouch him no more of his purchases and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures ? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box" boxing the skull with his hand " and must the inheritor himself have no more ? ha ?" And the policeman said, "Not a jot more, your honor." And the Recorder said, " I must speak to this little fellow," alluding to Peterkin. "Whose skull is this, sirrah?" And Peterkin, scratching his poll, said, "Mine, sir." And the Recorder said, " How absolute the knave is ! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the law, the many years that I have been Re corder, I have taken note of it ; the age has grown so picked, the toe of the thief comes so near the heel of the honest man whose pocket he is picking, that he galls his kibe. Here, turn this Peterkin loose. [ Takes the skull. ~\ Alas, poor Devil ! Where be your gibes now ? your A HEAD UP. 103 gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar ? Not one now, to mock your own grinning ? Get you to the theatre, and tell the scene painters there, let them paint an inch thick, to this favor they must come : make them laugh at that. Pr'ythee, policeman, tell me one thing." And the policeman said, "What's that, your honor?" And the Justice asked, "Dost thou think, Shocco Jones looked o' this fashion i' th' earth ?" " E'en so, your honor," replied the policeman, at a venture. " And smelt so ? pah ! [Recorder throws down the skull."] An ounce of civet, kind Apothecary." (We hand him our pouncet-box.) " But soft ! but soft ! aside. Here be batteries and larcenies which we must try." The skull was conveyed into the arrest-room, and was there stared at by scores of men, every one of whom unconsciously had skulls knobbing their own spinal col umns, not a whit prettier, though disguised with flesh for a short time yet, than the raw-head-and-bloody-bones they were so eagerly inspecting ! THE MICBOSCOPIST. is a little man, the Microscopist, who, every evening, illuminates Commercial Place. He has a soft voice, is generous, and has a touch of sentiment withal. He has five small cylinders of brass, the size of your thumb, with fairy tapers burning in them, and the tiniest of holes in the tops of them. They are fixed on five horizontal spokes jutting out from a tripod. You are desired to look into the holes of the cylinders, and see the objects magnified within them. " Just look, gentlemen !'' says the little man, " and if you are not satisfied, you can have your money back again. In the first place, you will see a drop of Missis sippi water; you will perceive that it is swarming with live creatures of every imaginable shape, frogs, alliga tors, snakes, and fish. The next object is the tail and sting of a horse-fly, showing upon an enlarged scale the apparatus with which that insect torments one of the noblest races of animals upon the habitable globe. Come up, gentlemen, I am sure you will get more than your money's worth ; it is only necessary for one to come, and every body else will follow. The third object is a piece of sugar cane ; it here appears in the form of net- work, in the cells of which that useful sap is contained which is manufactured into sugar and makes one of the great staples of our commerce. Only a dime, gentlemen ; come and look ; if you are not satisfied, you can have your money back again. The fourth object you con- (104) THE MICROSCOPIST. 105 template is that remarkable parasite which elicited a ballad and an epic from two celebrated poets, Robert Burns and Peter Pindar; in the one case- climbing on Miss Jenny's fine Lunardi bonnet, and in the other case forestalling Royal George in his own dish ; you will ob serve that it has six legs, the shell of a snapping-turtle, and the horns of an ox. Come up, gentlemen, you are sure to get your money's worth ; it is only necessary for one to come, and every body else will follow. The last object you will see is a cheese-mite ; here might-ily en larged, it is a species of armadillo, covered with hairs, and having the claws of a crab. One dime, sir ; thank you, sir ! Please to accept, sir, as a token of affection, this Fifty Dollar Bill, drawn on the Bank of True Love, in the State of Matrimony, and secured by the pledge of the whole stock of Truth, Honor and Fidelity ; remark, sir, < I promise to pay Blank Bank on acceptance tho sincere homage and never failing devotion of an affec tionate heart. Signed by the President, CUPID.' The next gentleman you will be satisfied, or get your money back again you are sure to see a dime's worth ; only ten cents, gentlemen, and a draft on the Bank of True Love !" So, with a soft voice, and a dash of sentiment withal, cries the little man of science half the night long. AN INSTANCE OF THE FORMER SANS-CU- LOTTISM OF THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR. MANY years ago, an excellent judge and man no other, in short, than the late Gov. Edward White, pre sided over one of the New Orleans courts. At the time we speak of, the sun had nearly attained its maximum degree of summer heat, and mankind and the rest of creation were duly suffering in consequence. Coups de soleil were frequent as the shafts of Apollo when he slew the Python, or the blows of Hyer when he milled Yankee Sullivan ; horses, in drays and omni buses, would suddenly stop, and drop, Death, and not the driver, drawing them up with the check rein ; and little birds, in attempting to fly over the city, would as unexpectedly clasp their wings and fall, dead, to the earth, as though New Orleans were another Sodom, which, indeed, many Puritans, of more temperate climes, asseverate that it is ! Let the imagination of the reader supply the minor notches of the thermometer, whose more glowing and important sections we have thus ruled off. The judge, who would have obstinately buttoned an overcoat about his person at the least Boreal whisper of dissuasion from the same, was "as open as day" to the sans-culottic suggestions of the ardent luminary, and at its lightest appeal peeled! It was matter of indifference to him whether he desquammated at his private office, (106) NEW ORLEANS BAR. 107 or on the public bench. Upon the latter, accordingly, at the feverish epoch we have depicted, he appeared with the smallest quantity possible of superfluous clothing. Shirt-sleeved and stocking-footed, fan in hand, and a pitcher of ice-water at his below, he conducted the trials brought before him. In England, and countries more tyrannical, they still cloak justice in voluminous robes, and hoodwink it with amplitudinous wigs of wool. And even in free America, though we have economically reduced its tailor and ha berdasher expenditures, we adhere to a useless outlay of dignity, which, sometimes, not only renders it uncom fortable, but, what is worse, positively hampers its ac tions. However, we complain in vain against deeply rooted prejudices; the good Republic will never cease to stickle for its judicial dignity. It is not, therefore, matter of surprise that the bar here doomed in addition to perform its functions in full dress should have felt itself offended and aggrieved by the easy, negligent fashion adopted by Judge White. Looks, hints, and audible murmurs were resorted to with out avail. His honor was incorrigible. At length, upon an occasion when the warmth and the neglige were both climactical, one member of the bar afterwards Judge Cannon, bolder than the rest, under took to administer a practical rebuke to the judge, which should make him ashamed, and mend his ways. In this wise The case then in course of investigation, was the cele brated assault and battery of John Doe upon the non- offending body of Richard Roe, in the course of which our amiable friend, William Patterson, received a blow from an unknown individual, whose name has not yet transpired. Mr. Cannon was engaged as counsel for 9 108 SANS CULOTTISM OF THE Roe, and requested, incidentally, to say a word or so for Patterson. The comfortable judge sat as we have painted him. On his left, in the jury box, sweltered twelve hot jurors. The partly outraged, partly envious, decidedly perspiring attorney, fixed his eye upon the judge, and began to speak. " May it please the court, and you gentlemen of the jury" Here the lawyer violently used his handker chief, and, with a long breath, threw it on the desk be side him, "this is a most aggravated case of assault and battery. Richard Roe, a harmless citizen, is ruthlessly seized by the throat. And by whom ? By John Doe ! John Doe, a notorious bully ; John Doe, a purseless gentleman of leisure a vagrant; John Doe, whom nobody respects ; John Doe" Here, de liberately, the counsel divested himself of his coat. The jurors, legal men, sheriff, clerks, and spectators, stared. But the judge only gazed at the criminal, and gently fanned himself. " And, mark !" proceeded the advocate with increasing animation; " during this assault, W. Patterson, Esquire, William Patterson Billy Patter son, we call him familiarly, is struck ! Who struck him?" and, in the vehemence of the interrogatory, off flew the vest of the pleader. " I repeat, who ?" and the orator divested himself of his shoes. Now, at last, all present, with the exception of the judge, comprehended the object of Mr. Cannon, and it was with the utmost difficulty that they suppressed their hilarity. "I do not aver that the proof shows it, sirs, but it is fair to con clude that John Doe struck Billy Patterson ! What, then, does such a criminal deserve at your hands ? Be hold him, not in borrowed plumes, but in his pure nature, deprived of the adventitious cloaks with which art has NEW ORLEANS BAR. 109 disguised him !" This burst could have been heard in the midst of Jackson Square, and, before its echoes died away, the orator had stripped himself of his breeches. The judge, meanwhile, had cocked his bootless feet on the bench, imbibed hugely from the pitcher of ice water, and was the focus of a breeze from every quarter of the compass, evoked by the magical fan he waved in his ever-busy palm. The audience could restrain them selves no longer, great eclats de rire broke from their throats. " Sheriff, keep order in the court !" thundered the judge. " Ha ! ha ! h-order ! ho ! ho ! h-order !" cried the sheriff, a cachinnatory pleurisy stitching his side. " Sir, your honor !" continued the counsel, but in a smothered voice, his head being concealed by his shirt, half off! The judge saw. In the twinkling of an eye, the fan dropped, the pitcher tumbled over, shivered into a thou sand atoms, and the judge vanished from the bench ! The yells of laughter had barely ceased, and Mr. Cannon reclothed himself, when Judge White returned to his station, with boots, woollen vest, winter cravat, and broad cloth coat on, effectually redeemed, though not disenthralled ! Every one's smiles gradually abated, and the case was resumed. How it terminated, we do not know ; but this we know, that the judge always, ever after, appeared on the bench properly dressed, and with no lack of dignity. It has been intimated to us, that for many nights even, subsequently to the scene we have narrated, he actually slept in his clothes; but this we consider a fib, a mere fancy. STATIUS HUMBRAR; OK, THE MAN OP TWO SHADOWS. A KNOT of Charlies might have been seen, about eleven o'clock last night, consulting under the veranda of a house at the corner of Canal and Rampart streets. Their eyes looked out furtively from beneath their slouched, broad-brimmed hats, and occasionally one of them pointed his rattle down Canal Street, towards the slowly retreating figure of a man, who, certainly, was conducting himself in a very singular manner. " Is he a burglar, d'ye think, Bill ?" whispered one of the watchmen. Bill shook his head, as much as to say, Can't tell you till I knows more, John." "Look look look!" muttered a third policeman. The retreating figure was violently leaping forward, and to one side, thrusting his cane right and left, stamp ing, and uttering deep-throated imprecations and threats of death ! He was acting like a madman fallen afoul of a nest of snakes, which he was determined on exter minating, or Muriden, (as described by Charles Lamb) cutting and thrusting with his own shadow ! The guardians of the city rushed incontinently to the spot where the figure Statius Humbrar, by name, who had imbibed strong drink over freely, was rehearsing a solo of quarter-staff. As they reached the place, the cane of Humbrar was striking here, there, and every where, with such miscellaneous fury, that the night-offi cers dared not venture within the sphere of its action. (110) STATIUS HUMBRAR. Ill Come, stop this here, will you?" demanded one of the municipal guards. Sh! Sh I Don't you see there are two of them? There, that long-bodied, dark-browed fellow, on the pavement, and that crooked-shanked scoundrel shrinking against the wall ! But, I'll do for them I'll fix 'em ! Have at you, villains ! Lay on, McDoodle, and blamed be he who first says Nuff ! Sessa I sessa /" and Statius plied his cane more vigorously than ever. Bill ?" said one watchman tapping his forehead significantly. "John?" said another watchman also tapping his forehead significantly. Dick ?" said a third watchman likewise tapping his forehead significantly. Then, without saying anything, but exchanging glances of intelligence, all three again tapped their foreheads significantly. Still the cane whistled in the air, right and left, forward and back, about the head of Statius Humbrar. " Ha ! I had you there, bandy-legged foot-pad !" cried Humbrar. " And you, longitudinal ruffian ! I gave it ye in your midriff, eh ? Sessa ! sessa /" his position that of a fencer cane pushed in front, left hand up, right knee bent, and body between advance and retreat. At this moment, by a concerted signal, the watchmen rushed in upon Statius, disarmed and pinioned him. Humbrar burst into tears. " Men men ! have you the heart to assist my ene mies ?" he asked, sobbing. "Henemies?" replied one of the watch. "Why, they is your shadows, you cussed fool !" " Shadows !" gloomily responded Statius Humbrar. 9* 112 STATIUS HUMBRAE. " You mean to quote the old poetical adage Alas ! what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !' Don't you?" " No, we doesn't. We means, you was shying at your own shadows, like a drunken man, or hidiot one or t'other, or both !" " Gentlemen, have you ever studied natural philoso phy ?" interrogated the arrested man. "What?" "Natural philosophy?" " No and none of your himperence, neither !" " I do not mean to insult you, gentlemen. But I have studied natural philosophy, and I know the laws of optics, and of lights, shadows, and linear perspective. I know, therefore, that you are mistaken, and that no man can cast two shadows, one on the pavement, and one on the wall at his side. No, gentlemen, those are not shadows. They are designing thieves, house-break ers, murderers ! They have dogged me ever since the gas was lighted. That fellow crawls along the pave ment before me, and that other fellow keeps at my elbow. They jump suddenly towards me from behind corners, they press between me and the wall in narrow places. They speak not, but, silent and inexorable, they track me in my wanderings, like hounds of Death ! Shadows, quotha ! No, gentlemen, by the laws of per spective, by the laws of optics " "Do you hop sticks to the watch'us, and give us no more of your perplexivies, for they doesn't enlighten us much. Come along with you !" said the watch, dragging Statius Humbrar to the watch-house. This morning, having recovered from the effect of his over-dose of strong drink, Statius Humbrar was in better condition of mind to appreciate the explanation of Be- STATIUS IIUMBRAE. 113 corder Genois, who demonstrated to him that he cer tainly did cast two shadows last night, the result of the two rows of gas-lights on the streets, a lamp behind him reflecting the image in front, and the lamp on the right depicting the daguerreotype on the wall, to his left. And, admitting that he actually did reflect the two shadows, and promising to abstain from liquor hereafter, Statius Humbrar was allowed to go in peace, and, accordingly, so departed, followed by one shadow, at which he would occasionally glance with a mixed smile and shudder, which appeared to amuse the Charlies who arrested him, and who now gazed after him until man and shadow disappeared up Chartres street. LISETTE. ONLY for nine years Lisette had breathed the air of this world. But she had grown beautiful as a flower in it. All who saw her were moved by the exceeding fair ness of one so unfortunate. Lisette was blind. But Lisette was born blind, and, with her cheerful spirits, was hardly aware of the deprivation. Others could not forget it, no matter how familiar with her, as might be perceived from their softened manner towards her. And her phrases reminded one of it, being " I see," when she put forth her hands to feel, or stopped to listen. A touching error, if, indeed, her soul did not truly see, as, we doubt not, it did. How small, gentle, and graceful did Lisette appear, playing with the children, her companions in the dusky evening. It was a delight to behold her brown hair twined about the fingers of the sportful breeze. The crimson animation of her cheeks will often be recalled by memories which embalm pretty pictures. She had a smile bright and pleasant as the early glances of Day, while her prattle was gay and harmonious as the matins of the lark that awakes its eyes. Eyes. Alas, that Lisette's should have been clouded by so thick a drop serene. The pale-blue iris danced restlessly, as if in search of light; but the pupils re mained closed, shutting it out. An atmosphere of innocence, cheerfulness, and love, dwelt around Lisette, that atmosphere which, when children's spirits depart from us, being called of GOD, (114) LISETTE. 115 becomes visible, and is the shining halo of cherubim and angels. Lisette is an angel now. Her wings were expanding when parents and friends were not dreaming of it. Naturally, they were gazing outwardly and afar on a roseate path of happiness, predestinated to her feet. Happiness was decreed her ; but the path to it, smooth and pleasing as they might have hoped it, was not traced on the Earth. Her path lay, like a ray of light, in the azure air. Her wings, and not her feet, were to bear her along it. Happiness was appointed her, in Heaven. We say this so confidently, because Lisette was such a good and pious child. Daily, Lisette was wont to visit the Church, dip her hand in holy water, sprinkle her forehead with it, and laying a votive offering of lilies near the image of the Virgin, implore Her intercession and protection. The priests, at first, used to lead the blind child to the proper place to pay her devotions, but she soon came to know the way, and where to kneel, and never made a mistake. The worthy fathers always welcomed her, however, by name, said some words of kindness to her, and gave her their benediction when she went away. " If a great many people in New Orleans, who have perfect eyes, and go to look at scene after scene of sin, would but come to our Church here, and look once at this little, sightless girl, dedicating lilies to the Blessed Mary, and praying at the altar, to Her Son, what an excellent homily it would be to them," mused the worthy fathers as Lisette went away. One day, as Lisette went away, a sudden, heavy rain fell, drowning the streets in a very brief time. The servant who accompanied Lisette, tried to hurry home, and avoid the rain ; but Lisette, on account of her blind- 116 LISETTE. ness, could not walk fast, and so was thoroughly drenched by the storm. How many citizens rejoiced at the rain. It assuaged the sultriness of the weather; and when the water flowed off the streets, they reappeared with a clean and refreshed aspect, that was agreeable to everybody, that is to say, who was not blind, like Lisette. The flowers in the windows brightened up at the shower, and, as the poor, wet, drooping, sightless child passed along the streaming pavement underneath them, seemed to speak blithely to her: "Why, Lisette, Lisette, if our leaves were as well sprent with spray as your curls, we should brighten up the more merrily." But Lisette could not see the blithe brightness of the flowers. Somewhat further on she slowly dragged herself, till her strength failed, and she was carried home in the servant's arms. Directly, the sun shone out, warmly and radiantly ; but before its beams had evaporated the globes of spray on the flower-leaves, Lisette had a fever. A hot, raging fever, of torturing thirsts, and throbbings of the brain, and achings of the bones, which violently shook the frame of the submissive, uncomplaining child. For days and days the fever wrapped her in its sheet of flame, like a youthful martyr consuming at the stake. When, at last, it subsided, and left her, she began to sink. Plants, excluded from the light, do not thrive, their verdant foliage blanching in the dark, and the stems turning to wax. So, too, the blind have delicate bodies, shallow veins, and indifferent health. And thus, Lisette never being strong or robust, when the fever left her, her cheeks grew white as alabaster, her temples hollow, her hands thin and transparent, and she began to sink. Dimlier, every hour, burned the taper of Lisette's LISETTE. 117 life, its golden arrows quenched in the narrowing horizon. As Lisette lay upon the pillow scarcely yielding to the slight pressure of her head, her curls spread out on it, her eyes dancing more restlessly than ever from weakness, the slender cross on her breast weighing down her short breath, and her whispered syllables barely audible, no wonder the tears of parents and friends, standing around her bed, fell, profusely as the fatal rain. Lisette, feeling their tears dropping like blood upon her face, besought them not to weep so bitterly. It had been the Saviour's wish, that her life should be a Night, filled with voices as with dreams ; whereas, by anointing her eyes even with clay, He might have let the sunlight dawn into them. Nevertheless, she had been cheerful and contented, knowing it was best that the night should continue, and that saintly guides directed her footsteps in the darkness. And now that Death was at the door, she would not draw back her hand from his, though the touch of it was cold, but would receive him as a messen ger, clear sighted, and come to lead her to Paradise. Lifting up her visionless orbs, and locking her wan fingers together, she prayed, "Not my will be done, but Thine." And, again, she besought the weepers, not to weep so bitterly. Children, Lisette's playmates and companions, hearing that she was dying, came to bid her farewell. They were not restrained. One by one, they approached her. She clasped their faces between her hands, then threw her arms around their necks, kissed them, and bade each of them good-by. When the mourning children had gone, Lisette, who was getting feebler and feebler, took leave of the nearer 118 LISETTE. and dearer inmates of her home. We have not the heart to dwell upon that painful scene. The sun had set, and the moon and evening star arisen. Lisette, white as a ghost, lay speechless, and just breath ing. The slender cross was scarcely moved by her al most quiescent breast, being still, like an anchor fixed on Faith. The arteries of her wrist and temple stirred not. Only her eyes were open, and the pale-blue iris danced more restlessly than ever before. Lisette aroused herself. "I see," she said. " What, my dear daughter ?" her Mother asked, think ing to supply some last want. But Lisette wanted nothing ; she was absorbed by a Vision. "I see Our Lady," she said, "and the Saviour, and Heaven." Like the Apostle Stephen. They looked upon her face ; there was rapture there. But Lisette was dead ; yet, blind no more, blind no more. CAMILLE BRUSHE, THE PORTRAIT PAINTER. A TALE OF THE FINE AETS. " There is a pleasure in painting which only painters know." CAMILLE BRUSHE, come here, sir !" said Recorder Genois, yesterday morning, addressing one of a crowd of prisoners seated on a bench before him. An individual dressed in the flashy style of Robert Macaire, as that type usually figures in the play or bal let, arose from the bench, and stood up before his honor. Recorder What do you do for a living ? Camille Sir, I am an artist. [ We translate Camille' s excellent and fluent French into indifferent English.] Painting is my vocation. I delineate the human form divine. For the larger-sized portraits I demand only twenty-five dollars : while I execute the smaller sorts magnified miniatures for the insignificant sum of nine dollars and a quarter. Would your honor like to sit for me ? Recorder I am sitting for you now ! You are charged in the affidavit beside me, with painting the face of Roger Bontemps, on yesterday afternoon. What have you to say ? Camille (smiling and shrugging his shoulders) Only of Roger Bontemps ? I have painted the faces of thou sands ! Gentlemen and ladies of the first circle of soci ety, distinguished foreigners visiting our city, celebrated actors and actresses in every variety of cos 10 (119) 120 CAMILLE BRUSHE, THE aboriginal chieftains and their picturesque squaws, all have had their faces painted by me. I have been re puted to possess the sublimity of Angelo, the beauty of RafFael, the exquisite tints of Titian, the softness of Lorraine, the Recorder But, in the case of Roger Bontemps, in stead of taking his likeness, he deposes that you black ened his physiognomy like a Moor. Confine yourself to the allegation. Camille (recollecting himself) Ah ! A thousand par dons. Will your honor hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear ? Recorder Provided you're neither noisy nor tedious. Camille (adjusting his dilapidated finery) Thanks ! The facts are these : Roger Bontemps repaired to my studio. "Are you the eminent Camille Brushe?"he inquired. " The last," was my modest rejoinder. " Paint me," said he, " as I am with these brandy-blossoms on my nose." He threw himself in the chair. I prepared the canvass, the colours, the pencils. I was inspired. Momently his counterfeit presentment grew beneath my touch. The resemblance was perfect. Intimate acquaint ances dropping in, bowed to the picture, and compli mented me as the creator of Bontemps himself. The very musquitoes ceased to torment the original, and buzzed round the copy. Incidentally, I mentioned to Bontemps the price of the portrait twenty-five dollars. " I shall pay you," said Bontemps, " next year." Sir, I require for my existence, food, drink, clothing, and a cigar. Unhappily, money is necessary to procure these indispensable trifles. I looked at Bontemps, my brush held out at the extremity of one hand, my palette at that of the other vermillion and gamboge running together in my confusion. " Sir, you must pay me to- PORTRAIT PAINTER. 121 clay : now, or never !" I responded. Calmly, your honor; calmly, though firmly. "Dauber!" exclaimed Bonternps. Your honor is listening dauber! And to me, who have been reputed to possess the sublimity of Angelo, the beauty of Raffael, the exquisite tints of Titian, the softness of Lorraine, the Recorder Never mind the catalogue. Proceed proceed. Camille I proceed! "Dauber," exclaimed Bon- temps, I shall not pay you at all. Keep your vile caricature, and hang it up like a weasel before a grange !" Conceive my fury at this insult ! Should I cut the throat of the swindler and false connoisseur ? Red visions haunted my imagination, till I thought of the strict Larue, and spectres in white usurped their place. "No," I reflected, " I will not guillotine him with a razor, ,but I will draw the black features of his soul upon his turgid countenance !" I mixed a gallipot of india-ink; in it I clipped my heaviest brush ; I seized the abusive Bontemps by the neck ; and I painted him, as your honour avers, like a blackamoor. This is the head and front of my offending. I have finished." The Recorder declared that the case was an odd one, to say the least, and thought it best, as neither of the parties was over respectable, to bind them to keep the peace for the present, and concluded by saying that he should be more severe upon them the next time, should they be brought before him again. Roger Bontemps, who had not gotten altogether clear of the ink, went off with rather a dark expression on his visnomy, and Camille Brushe with very much the air of Robert Macaire, triumphant in his roguery. A TOUCHING STORY. " She stept aside 'Twas partly love, and partly shame, And partly 'twas a bashful art." Coleridge. WHEN Miss Harriet Martineau, some years ago, visited New Orleans, among other places in the United States, it was well known here that she laid regular siege to Col. Grymes, a gentleman of the Bar, as distinguished for his eloquence and success in practice, as for his extensive erudition, both professional and general. Now, with all his eloquence and learning, the Colonel was ever a lover of a good jest, and a wonderful quiz, a character which he has not abandoned with advancing years. On a certain occasion, the deaf old bas-bleu, cheek by jowl with the Colonel, thought fit to utter a eulogy upon the ladies of the South. They were so beautiful, so graceful, so elevated in their sentiments, so "But, my dear Miss Martineau," interrupted the Colonel, "they have one grand fault," and the eyes of the lawyer twinkled with mischief. "A fault! Have they a fault? Pray, what is it?" demanded the blue-stocking, producing her tablets with eagerness. " Too fond of drink !" whispered the Colonel, mali ciously. " Nine-tenths of the young ladies of the South, whether owing to the climate, or sectional manners, (122) A TOUCHING STORY. 123 retire nightly to their couches IN A STATE OF ABSOLUTE INTOXICATION !" Miss Martineau's big blue orbs almost dropped from their sockets with amazement, and the hyperbolical slander may be found to-day so recorded in her " Travels in America !" The poor dame was as badly hoaxed as Captain Marryatt was in Louisville, relative to the gambling propensities of the young men of the southern portion of the Republic. Apropos of the foregoing veracious anecdote, listen to the following, none the less credible : An acquaintance of ours, who shall be nameless, an elegant gentleman, and as susceptible as he was a chival rous admirer of the sex, the other day, was comfortably lounging in his office, and looking out upon Camp street, when his attention was attracted by the splendid dress", superb carriage, and superlative loveliness of a lady passing down the street, on whom his regards at once became riveted. Instantly he satisfied himself that she was a belle, the daughter or wife of some one of our wealthiest citizens, " the glass of fashion, and the mould of form." Never did Eastern devotee gaze with more ardent adoration upon the shrine of his divinity, than did our friend upon the attractive vision all beauty compassed in a female form, passing by the window of his office. But, see, she hesitates in her promenade she pauses she turns into a quiet and retired alley ! What can be her object, going thus where no lady was ever seen to go before ? Heavens ! can so magnificent a creature be engaged in an intrigue ? No, it is some divine mission of charity which diverts her steps from the ordinary thoroughfare. Yet, it cannot be, for why does she look around so suspiciously ? Mon Dieu ! who is the 10* 124 A TOUCHING STORY. happy man she seeks ! For observe she raises her hand, withdrawing it from her bosom ! Our friend leans from out of the window yes, it is the signal ! How his heart beats with the excitement of a mingled curiosity and envy ! Is she not producing a billet-doux ? To be sure, to be sure ! Ha ! What ? Oh, countrymen ! what a fall was there ! It is not a signal she is making it is not a love epistle she is producing ! She has drawn from her bosom where it rose and fell, " like a light barge, safe- moored," a bottle! SHE STEPPED ASIDE TO TAKE A DRINK ! Our friend withdrew his gaze, and became a hardened and inexorable misogynist ! JAQUES PASSE, THE MESMERIC PICKPOCKET. JAQUES PASSE was produced in the Recorder's Court yesterday, in consequence of an affidavit made against htm, charging him with having that day picked the pockets of Mr. Michael Slowman, a stranger, temporarily visiting the city. Mr. Slowman was present during the trial, and was evidently a plain, good-natured, unsuspecting man, who, if he had had his own way, would have forgiven the culprit, and presented him, besides, with several small, untcchnical treatises on larceny, of the American Tract Society, gratis. Unhappily, he did not have his own way. The peculiarity of Mr. Passe is his head. Its shape is an elongated oval, the exact duplicate of a goose-egg, with the smaller end representing the occipital boss, and a contracted, comical phiz, very much wrinkled, the nose a pug, and the eyes inverted crescents, carved on the big, obtuse end. What adds to the singularity of the creature's top-knot, is the fact, that two-thirds of it and they the posterior part are absolutely destitute of hair, leaving a few thin tufts above his forehead, which he combs straightforward and down, until they mingle with his eye-brows as though Time, slipping up behind Jaques, had made a sudden scythe-reap at his caput, but succeeded only in mowing his rear-locks ! In other physical respects, Passe is quite like the Courteous Reader, except that he is not commonly so well dressed. (125) 126 JAQUES PASSE, THE " Jaques Passe," said the Recorder, "you are cited before me, in this affidavit, for picking the pockets of the gentleman near you, Mr. Michael Slowman." Mr. Slowman blushed benevolently, as much as to say : "I dislike this matter, I regret it with my whole heart. The man is poor, necessity goaded him into crime. Let us forgive him, and thereby put a coal of fire on his extremely odd head." Jaques winked one of his crescents towards Mr. Slow man, looking, for the nonce, very much like Jupiter snuffing the moon. The rapping of the Recorder's knuckles interrupted the ocular eclipse. "Are you guilty, or not guilty, Mr. Passe?" asked his honor. " The question is brief and concise," responded Mr. Passe. "One, two, three, four, five, six; six words. Upon the faith of a chevalier, I cannot answer under under two hundred and fifty !" " Come, sir, you can reply yes or no ; can you not ?" the Recorder demanded, a good deal amused by the other's eccentricity. " To the satisfaction of my conscience, I could ; but, I fear, not; to the conviction of your honor's judgment, or that of my amiable neighbor, Mr. Bowman" "Miserable being, Slowman," corrected that in dividual. "I accept the amendment," said Jaques, with alder- manic urbanity* " You're forgetting the main question, however," the Recorder suggested. Mr. Passe bowed. "In two hundred and fifty words, then, I am a native of France, and the last scion of a noble family. At tached to the ancien regime, revolution deprived me of MESMERIC PICKPOCKET. '127 my title, and political proscription of my estates. Still, means enough had been invested in foreign funds by my paternal predecessor, to enable me to complete my colle giate career with distinction. But, in revolutionary and democratic France, what public avenue was left open to me, born an aristocrat, and if I may proclaim it in a Republic an aristocrat in sentiment ? None, positively none ! Yet, with a mind, an esprit, and a name culti vated as mine had been, could I remain inactive, idle, plunged in oisivete' ? Never, never ! I returned to my studies. Books were my companions. I explored the labyrinths of learning, I researched among the arcana of life. At this era this crisis of my existence, I made the acquaintance of Mesmerism. Cieux ! what a wonder ful science ! It was what I had desiderated in philosophy. It was the sine qua non, the dolce far niente, the je ne sais quoi, the what's-name ! How charmant ! I was pleased, raised, refined, ravi ! What to me now were revolutions and proscriptions ? Go thy ways, Old World ! cry Vive la Republique ! Royaume ! Empire ! Napoleon Oncle ! Napoleon Neveu ! Sic transit gloria mundi, sages have ever said of thee. For me, I was planted on the Pou Sto of that eminent bore, Archimedes, and with his screw was opening an artesian well through thy myste ries. What exclaims the pious monk in the solitude of his cell? Rot kikiper kikipot put paase malf. Ncc petotin petetac tic torche lorgne." The Recorder, becoming impatient here, said, " Mr. Passe, 'a little learning is a dangerous thing.' I fear you have intoxicated yourself with shallow draughts." The policeman who superintends the lock-up, inter rupted his honor, to answer solemnly, that Mr. Passe 128" JAQIIES PASSE, THE hadn't had a drap since he was tuk, butwas a nat'ral- born fool." " Hem. Hashchehawksash," expectorated Mr. Passe, coolly. " In the outset, I remarked that I must be al lowed latitude of language to exonerate myself from the foul charge alleged against me. But it is of no moment, n'importe. I submit. I am content, however afflige', to be a martyr. Galileo was a victim. Galileo was called a fool. Jaques Passe, ci-devant Chevalier, Comte, et cetera, is proud to walk in the footsteps of Galileo !" Mr. Slowman, who was as much pleased as confounded by the erudition of Passe, and who now undoubtedly regarded him as a great Professor, not as a 'thief, im plored the Recorder to " permit the gentleman to pro ceed;" which request his honor granted. " I emigrated to America," proceeded Passe more, I confess, in search of subjects, which I expected to find in the Republic, than liberty, which I did not expect to find. (Par parenthese, do you call my appearance HERE, liberty ?) I learned your strange language, in a manner, I practised my favorite art, pursued my favorite science, with success, I omit particulars till the day before yesterday. Walking, then, thoughtfully along one of your thoroughfares, I encountered the generous and pure-hearted Slowman. Instantly I recognized hi^n as a subject. It was noon in the public street, a skepti cal world around me. Now for iny grand test, my miraculous proof!' said I. 'I will, as it were, pick the pockets of Slowman, thus openly, and I send forth the o'ermastering volition that lie shall not knoiv it.' A few passes a strong effort of the concentrated will the pockets were emptied of their treasures, and My dear Mr. Slowman ! did you know anything of the circum stance ?" triumphantly demanded M. Jaques Passe. MESMERIC PICKPOCKET. 129 " No, not till the watchman took you up, and gave mo my purse back again," replied the victimized subject, in tones of ravished conviction. "Just so!" said the experimenter, both crescents again going into eclipse. "The vraisemblance between a scientific feat and a common trick of the thief, was so perfect as to deceive an agent of the police, as acute as Vidocq. Ha ! ha ! I have excelled the painter who delineated grapes that attracted birds, or him who por trayed a fly that confounded his rival. I am willing to be incarcerated now, your honor ! J'ai fini." In spite of the urgent remonstrances of Slowman, converted from a prosecutor to an advocate, the Recorder did commit Mr. Jaques Passe, who was proved to be no Frenchman, but a quondam school-master, fallen into vicious habits, to the Workhouse for thirty days, at hard labor. However, Mr. Slowman has repeatedly applied, though in vain, to see the Professor, in order to hear him discourse upon Mesmerism, and persuade him to impart to his admirer a few more practical lessons. The fascination of some men, and the simplicity of others ! PICTURE FRAMERS' SHOPS, AND THOSE WHO PATRONISE THEM. PICTURE-FKAMERS' shops, and generally on Royal and Chartres streets, are among our most frequent places of resort. We prefer those shops where the gender of the clerks is feminine, perhaps because we perceive that we are regarded as a connoisseur by the quick sloe-eyes which hang modesty ! sparkle none the less brightly on our entrance. We believe, also, that we are looked upon as a Distinguished Legal Gentleman (coming as we do from the police courts), and the flattering unction, laid to our hearts, relieves that pedestrian pleurisy which so many reporters die of. The number of old men one meets in these shops, is note-worthy. More often than not, you will see a head bald as an egg, spectacled eyes, and a wrinkled face, immediately opposite some highly colored engraving or mezzotint, representing Beauty Bathing ; or, Pleasant Dreams a lovely virgin asleep, careless ofmusquitoes; or, The Way they Study Medicine in France being a sketch of an eighth story garret in Paris, with bottles, pipes, skulls, romances, half a dozen tipsy young men, and as many plump spirits of nuns come to reproach them for their idleness. One design, however, painted in oil, and which really possesses no little artistic grace, always excites the enthusiasm of the smooth-pated octo genarians. You may see it on the thoroughfare we have first named ; and do. It is the studio of an artist; busts, (130) PICTURE-FRAMERS' SHOPS. 131 half-finished portraits and landscapes, gallipots and a liberty-cap on the shelf, the figure of the painter himself, palette in hand, dimly traced in the back-ground, and, in the fore-ground, the grand attraction a lady of rank in the act of assuming the pose of Venus, before she disembarked from the shell that bore her to the shore of her natal sea. The egg-headed old men that are addled by the charming neglige of that beautiful lady of rank! Less venerable visitors, of our rude sex, are encounter ed, not seldom, in the picture-framers' shops. Such is their inherent slavery to the influence of the fair, most "unadorned," most fair, such their Alexandrine twist of the neck, adapting it so well to stooping beneath the yoke of female loveliness, that even those more youthful and unspectacled eyes will, likewise, cast many an ad miring glance towards the unspiritual ideals we have mentioned. But if the young lip, too, has a brow, is wreathed with a moustache, you may behold the eyes glitter and the lip tremble with delight, before dramatic views of the Napoleon Campaigns. Glory is the rival of Woman, with young men, particularly if of Gallic origin, and, as was the case with the great, incomparable Soldier himself, in many instances, the triumphant rival. While, however, the parded lip quivers in the presence of a scenic Marengo or Austerlitz, others more juvenile or unsophisticate guiltless of the razor, that have never felt the dewfall pressure of a kiss, or framed the bluif oaths invented in Flanders, others grow bloodless in presence of the frightful etching of A Tiger's Attack, the Wreck of a Vessel, or an Indian Massacre. And female dilettanti abstain not from the picture framers' shops. The elder sort (read, 0, Conscript Fathers! and weep at the contrast!) the more aged 11 132 PICTURE-FRAMERS' SHOPS. females invariably stop to survey, or to "buy," a Saint. Those mild-countenanced dove-eyed Purities, with long brown curls, or snowy hoods, and heads ever meekly drooped, hung up in her chamber, console the widow who has survived her girlhood's love, the mother whose children have wandered from her, like birds of summer, or the spinster, with unmelodious voice, sharp, querulous features, and lean body prominent with bony angles, like little arms stuck a-kimbo, who, for many years before she relapsed into a zealot, was wont to exclaim, touch- ingly, " I never loved a tree or flower, To glad me with his soft dark eye, But when she came to know me well, And love me, it was shure to die!" In this last category of the patrons of the picture- framers' shops, and deserving a special paragraph, ob serve, if you please, that splendid Vision of Beauty ! A Human Flower, blooming in the golden sunniness of the South ! Those dark-lined, but slightly-touched, high- arched brows like slimmest young moons draped in clouds those deep ebon-eyes, wells of languor and ten derness those cheeks enamelled with the rosy tints of sea-shells that deer-like form superb, moved by muscles of steel cased in velvet that presence of grace, and holiness, and all heavenly charms ! What does she come to see ? What else, than that most gorgeous and most precious picture in the shop framed within that large, gilt mirror there, HERSELF ! And, with the same picture Daguerreotyped on some of the more sensitive leaves of our heart, we hurry from the frame manufacturer's, office-ward. COMPARATIVE ANATOMY EXEMPLIFIED. SERVED Bullfinch right, for selling them this time o* year ! was the exclamation of everybody who witnessed, or subsequently heard of the circumstance. What circumstance, in the name of ! Stop stop ; no swearing ! Why this to be sure : Bullfinch, who keeps a restaurant on Poydras street, yesterday had the hardihood to import a lot of fresh oysters and offer them for sale. Fortunately, Teddy O'Bryan, a smart fellow, who used to attend the dis secting-room of the Medical School here, and is an ac quaintance, though a slight one, of Bullfinch's, happened to drop in the restaurant. Teddy hadn't a dime to save him, but instantly conceived a "longing," which he afterwards explained obstetrically, for a taste of the unseasonable mollusks. " Did ye know them oysters had an anatomy !" in quired Teddy of Bullfinch. "A what?" said Bullfinch, who don't understand your inkhorn words, albeit he rather likes the sound of them. "Anatomy. Like that the Professor that cuts up folks at the College, explains to the students, darling," said O'Bryan. " No, indeed !" cried Bullfinch, all curiosity. Well, it is thrue what I am telling you. Split one of them oysters open, ma vourneen, and I'll demonsthrate (133) 134 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY EXEMPLIFIED. it to you better than Doctor Stone could do it for you !" vowed our Irish Agassiz. So Bullfinch, he opened a very plump oyster for Teddy. Will you drap a bit of salt on him, jist to make him lively and kick out his legs? Bah, but it's too late now. Bad luck to my tongue, it was pepper, I meant. Stop Stop man ! It's too much pepper you've put on him. I'll e'en swallow this fellow, and you must open another, if you want to see the purtiest glutceus maximus ye ever heard tell on." So Bullfinch, he opened another very plump oyster for Teddy. But O'Bryan always found some excuse to have now a little salt, now a little pepper, now a little vinegar, and now a little mustard, sprinkled over the ugly-shelled tendernesses, and to swallow them down severally with great gusto. Bullfinch, he began to stare to hesitate, to object ; but Teddy coaxed him on with a ductus corn- munis, or a pectoralis major, or an encephalon, or a Museums ANGULI oms ALJEQUE NASI, precisely dear Doctor ! as two-thirds of the sick Bullfinches are carried away by the biggest talking medical men, you know. At length, Teddy's organ of digestion was crammed with about a dozen and a half of Bullfinch's fattest Crustacea, and Teddy's muscles of locomotion were bearing him to the door, when the restaurateur cried out Hello ! Here, you ! Come back and pay me for my oysters!" Teddy returned. " You're an honest man, ar'nt you ?" he demanded, gravely. COMPARATIVE ANATOMY EXEMPLIFIED. 135 " Yes ! But that's more than I can say for you !" responded Bullfinch. "St! st!" hissed O'Bryan, admonishingly. "You work for your living, such as it is don't you ?" " Yes ! Confound you !" "You're not very well off? And you've a large family of young Bullfinches ? And you don't want to befoul your own nest ? You want to be as provident a father as possible, I suppose ?" " Yes ! What the devil do you mean ?" "I thought so," said Teddy, with a benevolent smile irradiating his features, the utter hypocrisy of which was enough to make his guardian angel swear. " I thought so, I thought so. I am rarely desaved. Bullfinch, my innocent bird, I charge you nothing for demonstrating to you the anatomy of oysters ! God bless you. Good day t'ye ;" and Teddy O'Bryan disappeared through the door. Such a laugh ! Such a laugh ! However, served Bullfinch right for selling them this time o'year ! was the exclamation of everybody who witnessed, or subsequently heard of the circumstance. 11* THE FRUIT-SHOPS. WE are under obligations to the fruiterers, the keep ers of the fruit-shops. If Washington is " the city of magnificent distances," emphatically New Orleans is the city of villanous smells. We do not speak, as the traveller in Salmagundi, of "getting to windward of Tukey Squash," whom Professor Horner has demon strated to possess a peculiar glandular apparatus analo gous to the civet-cat's. But our streets literally reek with the most horrible odors, invariably remarked by strangers, and the causes of which are obvious enough to all who will employ their vision. Hence it is, that here there are more flowers sold than in any other city of the Ptepublic! Every populous thoroughfare, the doors of every house resorted to for amusement, are thronged with nosegay-venders. But, when the heat of summer beams upon us, blight ing the flowers, next, in fragrance and in beauty, are the tastefully arranged rows, festoons, and heaps of tropical fruits, so abundant in New Orleans. Generally, a Spaniard is as sure to be the seller of these accomplished promises of departed blooms, as a perfumer is to be a Frenchman, a book-keeper or policeman an Irishman, or a contractor" and office-holder a Yankee. Passing by any of these magazines of Pomona, while the eye is pleased with every hue of the spectrum, and every variety of sphere and oval, and wonders at the presence of the dark brown, bandit-looking descendant of Cortez, what a delicious, seducing aroma hovers around the stall, (130) THE FRUIT-SHOPS. 137 sweetening the breath of the street, and suggesting, to the sensuous imagination, orchards in lovely islands, where the foot of Tyranny, sandalled or booted, never intrudes, and you, dear reader, lord of the rich planta tion encompassing you, sit beneath the cool, shadowy, teeming groves, " with one fair minister" at your side, the song of the mocking-bird and the lightning-glancing wings of the paroquet overhead, and, in the remote dis tance, the whispering murmurs of the subdued Atlantic's coral kissing waves ! For all this appreciable pleasure and intangible, air- wrought Cuban Farm touch your sombrero thankfully to the bandit-looking, melancholy melon-merchant. A Catholic Irishman must doff his beaver to that Orange man, if he has a bit of poetry in him Poetry ! the Blarney of the Muses ! Don't, some days hereafter, turn up your sensitive nose at the insignificant dash of mouldy musk you detect in the aforementioned aromal emanations consider it as the lavender of the fruiterer's shelves or, hoary and old Epicurean, with senses still unblunted ! remember that all things must fade, and wither, and decay even as your Araminta, whose peach- like cheeks, cherry lips, bust of apples, and kisses (0, vanished youth !) and kisses acrid-sweet, like the juice of the pineapple even as these charms you beheld blanch in the chill of sorrow, and now know they are mouldering in the grave ! All honor, then, to the fruiterers ! and here reader ! share with us these newly-bought, newly-gathered, mellow, and succulent bananas ! AUGUSTUS DORMOUSE; AN affidavit was made by Augustus Dormouse yester day afternoon, against Clarence Fitz-Butter, for burning him with a burning-glass. Augustus Dormouse, being sworn by the Recorder, deposed : Time of the alleged offence was about two o'clock, p. M., on Tuesday afternoon. Place, shade of a tree, on the Neutral Ground. Deponent was asleep ; was oppressed by the sultriness of the weather, and wished for a little repose. Is in the habit of reposing in sultry weather generally in the shade of a tree, in Canal or Rampart street. Finds the repose conducive to his health. Prefers the street, on account of the breeze. Is not disturbed by dreams. Was quite sound asleep when accused came across him. Felt something sting him behind on the back, between the shoulders. Had no jacket on. Shirt slightly torn. Sensation like the bite of a chigre. Pain increased till it felt like a coal of fire. Screamed, and awoke. Saw accused draw back a burning-glass, and slip it in his pocket. Could not be mistaken in accused. Identifies him now by a strawberry mark under left ear. Complained to police, and caused accused to be arrested. Cross-examined : Does not consider himself a va grant. Is of a poetical temperament, and likes the look of green things. Has no particular residence. Does small chores for a living. Native of Indiana of (138) AUGUSTUS DORMOUSE. 139 highly respectable family. Can read, when it does not hurt his eyes. Yes, commonly hurts his eyes. Has no grudge against accused, except for latter's burning him. Certain was burnt on the back between the shoulders. Could not say positively that the nape of his neck was not scorched some. Cannot see behind. Firmly be lieves accused entertained incendiary designs. Clarence Fitz-Butter, a quizzical-looking vagabond, who was much better dressed than the plaintiff, and carried several stumps of cigars in his pockets, very offensive to the smell, and an incongruous assortment of burning, mostly spectacle, glasses, here begged the Re- corder to allow him to explain. The Recorder granted the request of the prisoner. " I am a philosopher," observed Fitz-Butter, " and am peculiarly inclined to the investigation of light. I have perused the works of Herschel, Davy, Daguerre, Fara day and Draper. My vest-pocket is a laboratory. In it I constantly keep a supply of sun-glasses. I make it a point to draw a focus as often as possible. I wish not to allow a ray to pass me. Every beam I subject to my glass. Sir, this is necessary, with my theory of nature. I am of the opinion that everything in nature is combus tible, or it is not combustible. How simple an arrange ment ! how concise a method ! Combustible non-com bustible. With my illuminated foci, I explore the hidden arcana of nature. I carry the torch into her darkest labyrinths. I apply a match to her, and she reports, or she does not report. I have, in my busy and devoted life, accumulated a great store of facts. I will give your honor a list of the combustible objects in nature a list" I will not listen!" said the Justice. "What have you to observe relative to burning Augustus Dormouse ?" 140 AUGUSTUS DORMOUSE. " This," resumed Fitz-Butter. Accidentally, I en countered the prone body of the individual responding to the appellation of Augustus Dormouse. Him I had never seen before, and therefore not examined. Now, was the sleeper combustible, or was he not ? Is he a sala mander^ and can stand fire ? With the thought, instantly I produce my sun-glass. His back is exposed his shirt being torn between the shoulders ; I draw a focus on the exposed skin. I lay my tablets on the grass, in readiness to record any important and wonderful dis covery I may make. But the sleeper stirs in his sleep he is combustible he wakes, and stares with bestial rage upon me. Upon me a philosopher ! Nay, more ; he complains to the police, he causes my arrest, he heaps upon me the disgrace of a public exhibition and a penal trial ! What does he not deserve ? I appeal to your honor, what does he not deserve? Punish the Vandal, Recorder, to the utmost extent the laws of the country and your official oath will permit?" A policeman, here, who was standing beside the prisoner, but glancing off at the crowd of spectators that usually throng the Recorder's court, rested his hand on the railing near Fitz-Butter. The latter, avail ing himself of a strong glare of light shining through the window, took out a sun-glass from his vest pocket, and produced upon the policeman's hand a small, bril liant, concentrated spot of light and heat, which in a few seconds swinged the aforesaid rattle-grasper, like a drop of melted lead. " Hello ! What 're you about ?" demanded that en raged and indignant functionary. You are a combustible," remarked the mono- ideal philosopher, with infinite complacency. The policeman considered himself insulted. AUGUSTUS DQRMOUSE. 141 "You're another! Dog my cats!" replied the furi ous Charley, whom respect for the court alone restrained from following the recrimination with a blow. "Pshaw! pshaw!" said the Recorder, "this whole affair is extremely ridiculous. Deprive Eitz-Butter of his sun-glasses ; and sir ! keep your light dark, or, in the event of a second complaint against you, I shall send you to prison. And you, Dormouse, if I hear of you sleeping under the trees of the street again, I shall transfer you to the Work-house as a vagrant." This case being disposed of, the court proceeded to its ordinary business. BONY PYBAS, THE GREAT NEWSBOY- THE edible frog grenouille is a small animal, but what a big voice it has ! The roar of the lean kine of Bashan, lowing for husks ! Young Pybas is small quite small ; but what an enormous vocality he possesses ! It is his "cries" which have dilated his larynx to a goiterous amplitude. " Pic-a-yune and Del-ta ! Pic-a- yune and Del-ta !" those not rythmless iterations some times fairly as in the case of overjoyed crickets lifting him off those mere curved pegs, his legs. Bony Pybas is a Newsboy. The most active, perhaps, of the profession. He is the avant courier of the Cock, and his thunderous halloo awakes the Watchdog's morning bark. Yonder Charlie, sleeping on his post, starts from his guilty slumber, like the overcome and dreaming sentinel roused by the foe- man's gun, shot within the lines ! With a shout, and long before the lazy sun is up, Bony rises from his bed of straw. He gropes through his mother's darkened room steps over a prostrate sister reclined upon the floor dips his foot into a wash- tub kisses the waked and crowing baby receives his widowed parent's hearty blessing slakes his healthy thirst at the uniced cistern-spigot in the yard, regardless of wiggletails and, with shining, unwashed face emerges into the silent and deserted area of Love street. Not a shoe is on his feet, and one buckskin suspender upholds his humble pants, newly patched behind by the girl scarce larger than himself, whom he daily dwarfs (142) Bony Pyb;is. the gresil N:\vsboy. F"v 1 I- BONY PYBAS, THE GREAT NEWSBOY. 143 by stepping athwart her recumbent form. Jacketless, and all but hatless, yet swiftly he moves, his head meditatively turned aside, pondering the speculation of the day. Ever and anon he clubs his hands in the fashion of sea-shell, and applying them to his mouth, blows shrilly, like a " tiger" of Neptune tooting up his dolphins from seaweed pastures. Before the steam-engine which strikes off the morning edition has ceased to clatter and cough, Bony has reached the printing office. Editors are smiling in the arms of Morpheus, at pleasant visions of the eclat of their leaders ; weary reporters, often, with closed eyes, are screaming inarticu lately at an incubus of a Surgeon, sitting upon their cracker-crammed stomachs, and leisurely sawing off their lower extremities ; while reposing typemen, from fore man to devil, are wandering, in spirit, through rural fairy lands, bibbing at mossy springs, and kidnapping "Ethiops sweet" from clustering blackberry bushes. Only the dusky engineer and his two assistants are up, in the gas-lighted press-room, and hard at work. Forward to their midst, boldly, and like a man of intelli gence, steps Bony Pybas, the small newsboy, so small, he seems a dot under the tall engineer, and makes with, him an exclamation point ! Bony is a favourite, on account of his industry, and always going at once to business. So, salutations passed, he inquires, in his sepulchral tones which sound, rising up from him, like the bass buzz of a humble-bee bur rowed in the earth what are the contents of the morn ing paper ? at each answer calculating the probable sale he may effect before noon. Somewhat thus : " Anything odd about Scott and Pierce ? Is more said about improving the mouth of the Mississippi river ? 12 144 BONY PYBAS, THE GREAT NEWSBOY. Or concerning the policy of Mexico ? Nothing in rela tion to capital punishment, eh ? The explosion of the St. James, ha ? The robbery of the dead, hum ? Have you another witty divorce case ? Did Mr. Pipps drop in yesterday, and say anything queer and jocose ? Got a literary article full of poetical figures ; or one of those so-so-ish sketches by the new chap ? Have those friends of mine, the reporters, had another good dinner lately ? Did the Councils meet last night, so that I may go by their houses ? for Aldermen never buy a paper, unless it contains a report of their proceedings." To which, and many more such interrogatories, the engineer with a stick, between whiles, touching off experimental squibs of steam good-naturedly replies. "Well, Bony," he adds, handing him a bundle of moist, sweet-smelling, fresh and neatly folded papers, the cream of the impression " here's the Butcher's File ; and good luck to you to-day, my little Man !" "Pic-a-yune and Del-ta !" in the big voice of the small newsboy, half opens the sleep-oppressed eyelids of the snoozing sun, which lights young Bony to the Market-houses. There's a stir among the beef-men they recognise the drum-notes of the paper-vender, and (startling sight !) with cleavers, and saws, and whittles, and long, sharp-pointed files, and aprons spotted with blood, the plethoric dealers in flesh surround the tiny news-seller ! But there is no danger to him from those gory instru ments. His bullock's throat may be tempting, but his cherub's form is his protection. In his morsels of hands, and standing on tip-toe heedless of knives he uplifts the mollifying Cerberus-sops, the wished-for papers Picayune, or Delta and so, dexterously diverts the armed butcher-men towards the editors' columns. 145 But what is Bony doing now ? One paper he lays upon a stall-block, and the butchers still the butchers ! kindly lay upon it, one a slice of beef, another a chop of mutton, another a bit of pork, and a coffee-dealer a large roll of bread. " Our good will," say the Market-men, " for coming before the customers, so that we can read the papers. It's only what you merits, Mr. Pybas !" What an absurd prejudice that was originating with some dyspeptic, rice-eating legislators which excludes butchers from the jury box ! Already, before any of his professional brethren have risen from their trundle-beds, has Bony disposed of thirty or more of the city papers. But, before he revisits the printing-office, he carries the presents of the marketers to his home, in Love street. His widowed mother is now laundressing in the tub, the baby more awake and inclined to crow than ever, and the little girl, his sister, who will never grow any more because he stepped over her body, is busily patch ing another pair of Bony's pants. They all welcome " Mr. Pybas" with smiles. Again he slakes his thirst at the cistern-spigot, swallowing swarms of wiggletails, and says to the stout dame, his mother : " Let's have a Stake and Onions for dinner to-day. At four o'clock. Business will keep me till then." And back he hurries to the office for more papers. Dear reader, if you would patronize a Man, buy your papers of Bony Pybas ! SUMMER. MOST of our merchants and temporary residents, who are in the habit of leaving New Orleans every summer, and ungratefully spending elsewhere the rich rewards of their industry here, have already gone. Favorite resorts are now thinly attended ; the bar-rooms of the Yeranda, the City Hotel, and the St. Louis are rarely crowded at lunch-time, as it was their wont to be a few weeks ago. The Post-office is not the hot, densely-packed place it was some days back, and you no longer have to await your turn for hours at the delivery boxes. At Morgan's, Norman's, Steel's, or White's, only intel lectual reporters, and an occasional lawyer, doctor, or lovely Creole young lady inquiring for the last maga zine or popular novel, can be seen at present. Innumer able houses you observe to have their doors and windows closed, with the scrolls "To Let," and "ALouer," scored in chalk or pasted on a placard on not a few of them. Meantime, the sun shines down hotly upon your head the water in the gutter waxes green, or dries up gaunt dogs prowl at large through the streets, and the Recorders drone over rare cases of drunkenness, assault and battery, and petit larceny. The Theatres are shut up ; occasionally you meet an actor, left behind, and wrecked in the heat, at whom you stare as at a fish out of water. The Churches are too uncomfortable in the sultry weather to be much visited ; the organ thunders with a slim choral accompaniment, and scattered voices, " few and far between," respond to the minister. For- (146) SUMMLR. 147 tunately for us, there is little sickness, and if you en counter a physician in his buggy, you know at once that he is driving out for "buncomb." On the Levee there are not many barrels of sugar or bacon ; the diminished corps of picturesquely clad sailors lounge in the cheap cafes, while the vessels and steamers, anchored at the wharves, look like the sun-stricken ghosts of their for mer selves. During the oppressive nights, thousands of musquitoes swarm about your ears, which the fitful sea-breeze strives in vain to disperse. You cannot sleep ! You wander with a friend to the Canal Basins, to Esplanade street, around Lafayette or Jackson square, or to the river's side. Perhaps you pause at some spirit-reeking coffee house, where squads of politicians are sweating and organizing, but you have no patience for their oratory in such a season as has now revolved upon us. The papers alone, in the cool of the morning, afford any relief, and before you issue from your bed, you order the Delta, in the hope which is seldom disappointed of reading something spirited, graphic, or humorous. But, its columns hastily glanced over, you relapse into the ennui of the high temperature. Cock-tails, cobblers, juleps, cold punches and lemonades are a mere moment ary relief. Gossip the great city narrowing by depo pulation, into the limits and customs of a village is voted inane and a bore. You gasp like a trout on the creek-bank. You perspire till the dust of the banquette is laid as by a shower. In a word, the New Orleans summer HAS FULLY COME ! 12* POETRY AND JUVENILITY AT THE LAKE. LAST Sunday, at the Lake, we strolled through the public garden encompassing the Washington Hotel. We were struck therein with the delicacy and taste of the proprietors, who, in requesting visitors not to molest the shrubbery, sent for a Muse from Olympus to convey the warning. For example, you may have noticed these warnings : LADIES ! Beauteous as the budding rose, our Botanical Laws you'll please not oppose ! Again : - Strangers ! - You are welcome as the morn ; But touch not the flowers, for fear of SCORN ! All which we admired exceedingly, having a weakness for poetry. Going out of the front gate, among other things, we saw a clever-looking, well-dressed lad of about fourteen years, and speaking fluently three languages English, French and Spanish who was occupied in watching a board, having a square filled with knives, the blades open, and sticking perpendicularly in the wood ; the lad offering the spectator so many iron rings of an inch in radius, which, on paying a dime, he had a right to toss up, and in case any of them fell over and engirdled any of the knives, the spectator was to have the same. After a while, two or three other lads, acquaintances of the little trickster, came up, and saluting him, said (148) POETRY AND JUVENILITY AT THE LAKE. 149 " How much a day do they give you, Gustave, for watching these knives ?" "Fifty cents," said Gustave. " Law ! I wouldn't stay here all Sunday for fifty cents," said another boy. " Shucks !" said the interrogator. "But how much have you made for your boss to-day, eh ?" "Five dollars," replied the incipient gambler. "Well, all I can say is, that it's a poor job you have of it," observed the curious chap. "Gustave," said a very small boy, about as high as our waistband, " don't you want to know where you can get a DOLLAR a Sunday?" "Yes, I do, Willie!" "Well, in there selling sodawater /" added Willie, his eyes, while he capped the juvenile climax, dilating to the large roundness of a quarter. " And nothing else ?" asked Gustave. " Because I tried to sell liquor once, and the smell made me tight !" "Nothing else," assured Willie, earnestly, " and you can drink the leavings in the tumblers, Gus." " Then why ain't you there now ?" Gustave demanded, in a temporary fit of skepticism. " Because I wan't quite tall enough, or I would be, my Man ! But, Gus, the cream of it is, you needn't come to the Lake TILL AFTER SUNDAY-SCHOOL'S OUT." This is a literal report of a conversation we heard, as stated. The last idea set us a-thinking ; and, indeed, the perilous position of those yet innocent little fellows was sufficient to make one meditate, without the demon stration of their confused notion of the fitness of things. THE COTTON AND SUGAR THIEF. A SMALL, vicious-looking girl, named Mary Lockhart, apparently about eleven years of age, with one ragged garment on, bare-footed, bare-headed, with long, tangled, yellow hair, and a hardened, incorrigible expression in delibly stamped upon her minute and ill-favored features, was arraigned before the Recorder, on a charge of stealing cotton and sugar, and being an idle, confirmed vagrant and vagabond. This mere child in years, but old offender against the law, when questioned by the Justice, responded very clearly and intelligibly. Q. Where are your parents, Mary ? A. I havn't got any, sir. Q. Are they dead ? A. I don't know, sir. I never saw them. Q. You have always lived in New Orleans ? A. Yes. Q. Why are you called Mary Lockhart? A. That's only one of my names. Mrs. Susan called me that. Miss Peridore calls me Lisette. Sometimes I'm called Jane, and sometimes Josephine. Q. Who are Mrs. Susan and Miss Peridore ? A. They are my mistresses. I'm working for them now. I have worked for Mr. Ephraim, on Burgundy street, but he whipped me once because I didn't bring (150) THE COTTON AND SUGAR THIEF. 151 to the shop as much as Pauline Troudeaux, who's one year older than me. So I quit him. Q. You say you work for Mrs. Susan and Miss Peri- dore. Do you mean to say you steal cotton and sugar for them ? Where do they live ? And what do they give you ? A. Yes, sir. I steal the cotton and sugar for them. They live on Greatmen and Craps streets. They give me my clothes and my supper, and let me sleep along with the rest. Q. Who are the rest ? A. The boys and girls that works for them, sir. We all sleep in one room, on the straw. Q Black and white, boys and girls, together ? A. Oh, yes, sir. Q. What is done with the cotton and sugar, after you carry them to your mistresses ? A. Well, sir, I believe they sells 'em to the mattress- makers and the candy-women. Q. Did you not know it was wrong to steal, Mary, and that the law would punish you if you did ? A. (sobbing.') No, sir. I get my living by it. Q. Are your mistresses kind to you ? A. When we work hard, they give us some coffee. Q. What do you generally get for supper ? A. Bread and cheese, and sweetened water. Q. How many girls and boys do Mrs. Susan and Miss Peridore employ ? A. A heap. Twenty, I reckon. Q. Can you read? A. No, sir. Q. Were you ever in a church ? A. I've been on the steps, sir. 152 THE COTTON AND SUGAR THIEF. Q. Do you know there is a God, who is offended with wicked children ? A. A what, sir ? Q._AGod? A. I doesn't understand you, sir. Q. You have heard of the Workhouse ? A. Yes, sir. It's a nice place, my Tommy told me. He's been there. It's pleasanter than Mrs. Susan's or Miss Peridore's. Q. And would you thank me for sending you there ? A I would indeed, sir. Q. What will you do to thank me if I send you to this nice Workhouse ? A. (In a whisper, and confidentially.) I'll get you a heap of cotton and sugar, sir, and Tommy '11 help me. Q. This Tommy, who is he ? A. My Man, sir. He's to marry me, when we're bigger. Recorder. Well, well ! Mary, you are a bad, very bad child. You deserve to be both punished and pitied. If you were to die now, I can't say what would become of you. It is a wicked thing to steal cotton and sugar, and the Workhouse is a disgraceful prison, not the pleasant, nice place, Master Thomas says it is. You will have to work hard there, and you will wish to get out of it, but you won't be able to do so, and will have to stay in there. Go away from here, you little, bad girl, who steal cotton and sugar. Nobody cares any thing for a little girl who is a thief. Take her to the unpleasant Workhouse ! The small, vicious-looking, ragged child, was taken out of the Court room, crying, and somewhat scared by THE COTTON AND SUGAR THIEF. 153 the Recorder's reproaches, adapted to her capacity, but, of course, little appreciating her criminality. There are hundreds of such children in New Orleans, and girls, too, who have no separate House of Correc tion, in which, if proper attention was paid to them while their young minds are yet impressible, some of them, perhaps, might be reclaimed. AN EGG-CITEMENT. PERCY SHELLEY not a relative, though a namesake, of the great po'et was drawn up in criminal array, be fore the Recorder, this morning, under charge of having stolen some eggs from a grocer, at the corner of Royal and Duane streets. Recorder : Mr. Shelley Prisoner : Yes, sir. Recorder : You are accused of having stolen eggs last evening Prisoner : Your honor, those eggs were addled. They were offensive spheroids, unworthy the vending of an honest tradesman. Exposed to the brooding heat of the sun, already embryotic chicken-life had begun to develop itself in several of them. I happened to pass by the grocery at this juncture ; and the impression upon my olfactories recalled a Shaksperian excerpt to memory, relative to decay in Denmark. I, sir, have travelled in Spain ; I have made one in a pilgrimage to Compostella, celebrated for its sacred Cock and Hen, perfumed with sanctity. In a locket suspended to my neck, I carry about with me some of their miraculous feathers. With a mind absorbed by these literary and pious reminis cences, unconsciously to myself, and utterly without re ference to nog, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, fricassee, fried, or omelette, I put the eggs in my pocket. I designed no theft. It was a fit of absence of mind. Had I really desired the eggs, I should have " shelled out" for them. I cracked them, it is true, and they being in the spoiled (154) AN EGG-CITEMENT. 155 state I have alluded to, the transaction was very analo gous to cracking a joke. I demonstrated them, "by cracking, to be not what they were cracked up to be. Wherefore, where is the necessity oT this egg-citement on the part of the grocer ? Why should he eggsact my public exposure ? " Well, sir," said the Recorder, " it is fair to conclude that he who steals eggs would likely enough rob a hen roost, which is a grave offence. I shall send you to the Parish Prison for two months, Mr. Shelley, where I trust you will learn to view morality in a different light. Take him out !" 13 THE OLD MEN OF NEW ORLEANS. HAWTHORNE'S Twice-Told Tales" we have read twice rather good allegories. The " Snow Image" is a frail, cold story. We have seen ladies perusing with crimson cheeks the heart-red pages of " The Scarlet Letter" and heard them vote the long preface to that memoir of an amorous parson, a bore. Here we make an issue with them, and arrive at our point. The parson is a bore, and the preface is the best thing Hawthorne ever wrote. You remember it ? If not, you can procure the book at Steel's. The preface is descriptive of Customhouse life, at Salem. It is impossible ever to forget those old sinecurists tilted back in their rusty chairs against the idle walls their hats pulled over their eyes yawning and lazily flapping the flies from their pimply noses ! There is a class of just such old men, whom we observe every day in our perambulations through New Orleans. Observe with reverence, be it noted, for sacred to us alike are bald heads and gray hairs. We meet them about nine of the clock in the morning, sitting in cer tain cool, not noisy alleys, and in certain quiet, sandy- floored cafes, whither riotous youth never resort. Those haunts we visit on account of a sluggish, old-fogy vein in us, which we would no more suffer to be phlebotomized by the prickings of new notions and new men, than we would suffer our grandsire's jugular to be opened. This by the way. The old men we speak of, are mostly native Orleanians, of French and American extract. You dis- (156) THE OLD MEN OF NEW ORLEANS. 157 tinguish their origin by the latter being fairer, feebler, and blunter the former sallower, brisker, politer. That is, if they are not engaged in their favorite occupation reading the morning papers when there is no differ ence. They never tilt their chairs back, nor cross their legs. But spectacles and hat-brim tangent, they sit as uprightly as their bowed shoulders permit, the papers held close before them, silent, abstracted, and out of the way. There may be a dozen in the alley or the cafe, yet they never seem to incommode any one. Here, too even as they are withdrawn from the affairs of the world they have an air of being laid on the shelf. Their serenity is remarkable. We don't think they read the exciting editorials, or the interesting reports of the sub alterns of the press. The scissors-man is their servitor, and the Mayor in his publications of contracts. Adver tisements are not slighted by them. But, whatever they read, slowly and painstakingly, for the vision is dimmed by years, and the brain shakes as the hand it is as if they were dreaming. We question if the contents of the papers do not slip through their worn-out memories, as through a sieve. They are never surprised or excited, apparently, by the most highly colored snipping or ad vertisement. Their old city has gone on improving from what it was in their day thanks to steam, and railroads, and tele graphs mysteries, however, which it is too late, at their time of life, for them to attempt to unravel ; and so, with the wisdom of age, they do not bother themselves therewith. Yet, notwithstanding the general progress, they remain as they were. The places they frequented in their prime of manhood, if not swept away by the progress, they frequent still. You encounter them hob bling slowly homeward the papers read at half-past 158 THE OLD MEN OF NEW ORLEANS. ten or eleven, oftener in the second district than else where. They notice nothing on their walk, except where to plant their trembling canes. An old Frenchman may chance to catch you looking at him, and, if he does, he will be sure to say "Monsieur," politely, before you sa lute him. The old American passes melancholy on, like one going to the grave, which indeed he is. You may see the wives of these old men, as the doors of their homes are opened to receive them. Yellow, thin, their faces masked in wrinkles, their hair white as frost, tottering and palsy-shaken, you cannot realize that they were once as beautiful as the graceful, dark- eyed Creole girls their grand-daughters whom you lost your heart in looking at, on Chartres street. Yet they were ! And young Jackson, and his younger aids, when stationed in New Orleans during the last British war, used to swear, "by the eternal," that there were no lovelier ladies in the woild ! These old people have survived the most terrible epi demics, and have rarely been ill. Their pulses gradually run down, and .they die " of old age." They wear out, by degrees, serenely, without a shock, and altogether painlessly. We remarked, in the list of deaths for the city last week, five who deceased from old age. One of the five we knew. He daily visited a French cafe not far from the courts, and dropping his spectacles upon an occasion when reading the Delta having himself previously dropped asleep we remember vividly that, as we handed him his glasses, we discovered he had, for once, essayed to read a lively sketch so we considered it of our own! We were sorry at this discovery not on our own account, but on his; for we felt that, when ever one fails to appreciate us, he is in a "bad way." THE OLD MEN OF NEW ORLEANS. 159 The old man died, in fulfilment of our prediction. Re- quiescat in pace ! The pen of Hawthorne alone could paint the portraits of these old men distinctly enough. They contrast so palpably with the bustle and rush of life, ordinarily, in New Orleans, that those who are carried on by the cur rent may have failed to note them. We call them to the attention of the thoughtful, as a theme both sad and pleasing sad, because they remind us of the wasting away of spirits, strength, and mind ; and pleasing, be cause of the sweet serenity with which Providence soothes their losses, and the gently-sloping, placid pathway it opens before them to the tomb. May the reader live as long, and die as calmly, as these Old Men of New Or leans ! 13* A CUPPING GLASS. A MAN at least a human being of the name of Glass was up before the Recorder last evening, on the charge of "violating the peace," by taking a wee drop too much. "You are Thomas Glass, are you not?" asked his honor. "What have you to say for yourself?" "I am Thomas Glass," replied the man or human being; " and I have much to say. The time was when I was < the glass of fashion and the mould of form'. But pecuniary misfortunes put me out of fashion, and time has marred my form. Years, your honor, are footed, as birds, and drinking the lustre of the eyes, they leave their foot-prints crow tracks in the corners thereof. My glass says to me, < Glass, you're getting old.' And thereupon, the additional reflection occurs to me, What is life ? It is nothing a bubble a vapor. Why should we husband it with so much care? The hour glass tells me, < Glass, your sands are numbered.' Sir, such thoughts as these are the saddest stones melancholy can fling at a man ! What consolation is left me ? To what can poor Glass resort for comfort ? Only the glass ! My friends admonish me. They inquire, < Glass, why do you get drunk ?' not mincing words. And does your honor make the like demand ? Why, oh why do thousands intoxicate themselves ? I will tell you the truth be cause I like to get drunk because thousands like it I There is a pleasure in getting drunk, which none but (160) A CUPPING GLASS. 161 drunkards know. I so love the taste of some stimulating preparations, vended at a dime a glass, that I have fre quently vented the desire, Oh that my neck was a mile long, and crooked as a corkscrew ! Then I delight in the effects of these nectarian draughts. They infuse courage into cowards, magnanimity into the envious, generosity into misers; they give content to the dis turbed; they bestow happiness upon the wretched !' " But, Mr. Glass, you 're charged here with disturbing the peace," said the magistrate. Whose peace ? Not mine own I was in an ecstacy. No, I indulged a musical propensity, merely. I sang a song. The notes, however unharmonious, welled forth from a joyful heart. I was willing to bury all differences with the world, I was anxious to embrace it and the < rest of mankind.' I imagined myself but emulating the sweet songstress of Sweden, in conferring charity con certs upon the passengers in the street. If I was guilty of an error, it leaned to virtue's side. Consider the benevolence of my motive, the philanthropy, the hu manity " " Well, sir," replied the justice. I think I shall be equally benevolent, philanthropic and humane, if I con sign you to the Workhouse for thirty days. There you may reflect, Glass, at your leisure, and perhaps, when the term expires, you may be a wiser, if not a better man. Take him out," added the Recorder, to an officia ting policeman ; and Thomas Glass was withdrawn from the court-room. THE CASE SO MUCH TALKED OF YESTERDAY. THE parties in the case so much talked of yesterday, were Miss Parkerina Pugh and Timothy Grass. Parkerina wore shortish skirts, to make her look a little more juvenile. She had on a small chip of a straw bonnet, with an immense veil, which served to keep her blushes from the sun, and her modesty from the wind for Parkerina was very modest, and, as she averred, cared for no mortal beneath the skies, but her Ma. She was afraid of men wished there were none in the world and would shriek and run away if one came near her, she was so modest. Quite chap-fallen, plunged in grief, standing near her, and endeavoring in vain to catch a glimpse of her eyes in order to implore her mercy, the shadow of her tremu lous chip of a bonnet playing over his face, Timothy Grass quite a fac-simile of the Reader rapidly wither ed in the wrath, and the rear, of Parkerina. They were in the Recorder's Court. Parkerina, apparently oblivious of the presence of Timothy, casting a hurried glance around her, and slightly elevating her veil, made bold to address the magistrate. Am I speaking to the honorable the Recorder of this District ?" inquired Miss Pugh. " Y-a-a-s, in course you is," said a policeman, on her right. Oh ! merciful fathers ! Oh ! oh !" exclaimed Parkerina, (162) THE CASE SO MUCH TALKED OF YESTERDAY. 163 as if frightened out of her soul, and jumping to her left. "Hello! What's the row?" said another policeman, on her left, having caught her in his brawny arms. Parkerina exclaimed again, worse than ever, and jumped towards the Recorder. The clerk, however, interposed in that direction, and she swerved diagonally forward. But, there, we were sitting, sketching her portrait and the spectators, at the same time, beginning to snigger, there was nothing left for her to do, but to stand still, which she did, wildly and rigidly the green veil, which had popped like a whip-cracker in her modest cavortings, gradually settling against her prim figure, like a flag at half-mast in lulling weather. " What is the matter, Miss " the Justice did not complete the sentence. " Miss Parkerina Pugh," interrupted the lady. " I am quite a bashful, timid creature, honorable Recorder. Allow me a few sighs to recover my dejected spirits. Heigh-ho. Heigh-ho. Could not the honorable Re corder dismiss all these frightful men, who destroy my nerves, and hear me alone ? Oh ! merciful fathers ! Oh ! oh ! No no no ! Don't ! It would be so im proper that I should speak with you alone ! Oh ! oh ! One or two more sighs, if you please, honorable " " Take all of them at once, then ! There. Now. Tell me what you have to say relative to Timothy Grass," said the Recorder, smiling in spite of himself at his eccentric plaintiff. May I request a favor of the honorable Recorder ?" asked Miss Parkerina. What is it ?" " That your honorable Justice would be so kind as not to name that name again on account of my nerves. 164 THE CASE SO MUCH TALKED OF YESTERDAY. Heigh-ho ! Call the name ( that individual/ if your honorable Justice would be so good." Well, well ; what have you to allege relative to that individual ?" " Thank you," replied Miss Pugh, sighing, and lifting up her veil partially from her face, so as to expose the sharp, red point of her nose and a piercing, little, grey eye, more like a peep out of doors through a gimlet-hole than a real orb of vision. "On yesterday afternoon, returning home to my Ma, with some worsted goods which I had purchased for the use of my Ma, the individual encountered me, coming down the street in the oppo site direction. The individual was looking hardly at me. I did not look at the individual, but I felt that the indi vidual was looking at me. I moved to this side, as it were, of the payment. So, your honorable Justice. The individual moved to the same side. Confused, hu miliated, and with a heart bleeding at the idea of my Ma seeing my predicament, I moved to that side, as it were, of the payment. So, your honorable Justice. The individual moved to that side, also. I moved to this side once more, once more to that side ; and still the individual confronted me. I burst into tears.