January 5, 1861 Civil War News Page 3

JANUARY 5, 1861

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

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tear Boston. Men got up and left the car one after another as they do when any thing has happened. I kept my seat until the lone women looked at each other as women do and then all rose simultaneously, and picking up their parcels, followed then. Then I thought it will be prudent for me to take a look out at any rate; so I told my little son to stay with the shawls and bag until I came for him.

"I found we were outside a large shed, which was no doubt the Boston station, and as there was too much weight for us to carry, I let myself down from the step of the car and hobbled into it through the rain. Being late, I had some difficulty in getting a carriage : before I had got one, the train with my boy had gone back—nobody to tell me where. I at length saw a man with a parcel of baggage-checks in his hand, and succeeded in arresting him. I told him my trouble. 'Your boy in it? Why didn't he get out? I can't help it ;' and he hurried away from me. I went to my driver and begged his assistance. 'I don't know any thing about it; I don't belong here.' ' But don't you know where to go to get some information about that train ?' ' No, I don't.' ' Is there no one here who can help me, or tell me something about it ?' ' I don't know ; I don't belong here.' ' Is there any one who does belong here—any agent of the Company to whom I can apply ?' ' Don't know.' ' Haven't you a police in Boston?' Yes ; but there ain't none of 'em about here.' ' Will you kindly give me your arm while I search for somebody?' ' Well, I don't want to leave my horses very long.' How-ever, he went with me, and, after searching for some time, I opened a door into what seemed a lamp closet, where were several men lounging. 'Is there any one here who has any authority in the premises, or to whom I can apply for information?' 'Yes, Sir,' answered one ; 'what do you want?' I stated what had occurred. 'Why didn't you look out better—not leave him in the cars ?' I was a little enraged at this, and replied with some obvious indignation; upon which a man got up from the floor and said he would fetch the boy. As I had told my son not to move till I came for him, I thought it necessary to go with the man: he walked rapidly, and, as my driver had gone back to his horses, I hobbled after him the best I could : first, over a couple of hundred feet of dirty rotten plank in the dingy station; then after a long step down through mud and rain, between rails on which, each way, were locomotives ringing and whistling, backing and filling, two or three hundred feet more, to a car-house where I found a man lifting my boy on his shoulders to bring him to me.

" A QUIET MAN."

FEAR.

TURNING over Hildreth's " History of the United States" the other day, the Lounger found an ex-tract from the old Aurora, which shows how high and hot party-spirit ran in the old days. They were not perfectly Millennial, even the times of Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton. It is inevitable that we should think otherwise, of course. Nothing is more natural than that we should sup-pose our own troubles to be the most annoying that ever were. But in the height of our bitter debate we may assure ourselves that we are the children of men who had a hard path to travel—who saw it, and were not afraid.

Then, under all circumstances, however sunny, it is so much better to look every thing squarely in the face than to try to forget that there is any thing to look at. If there is a frightful spectre in the path, the best way is to march straight up to it and take hold of it. Many an awful ghost turns out to be a shirt upon a clothes' line. The ostrich method of avoiding difficulties is easy for a little while, but not wise, not ultimately practicable. To drift and lurch along in a fearful uncertainty is as stupid as it is dangerous. If you believe there is a burglar in the house, either go down and dispute the spoons with him, or else turn over and go to sleep, and concede the spoons. It is infinite folly to pretend that you don't hear him, for then you are not only robbed but craven. You may wisely decide that you had rather let hint put your silver into his pocket than his lead into your body ; but then say so, frankly, and declare in the distinctest words to the partner of your slumbers, " My dear, I'd much rather lose my silver than my life."

There is no fear so abject as the fear of being afraid. Why should any man be afraid to be afraid ? Sailors, it seems, always laugh at us landsmen for puffing and swelling so tremendously about never fearing any thing. Their whole life is led upon the dizzy edge of danger. They look quietly at things that would make most of us blench and chatter. But they are not ashamed to say that they often feel afraid. They do the thing; oh! yes; but that is a very different thing. You remember the two soldiers at Waterloo. They were both standing boldly in the square upon which the fury of the battle was breaking. " Faith," says one to the other, " I believe you are afraid." " Pooh !" was the reply, " if you were half as much afraid as I am you would run away."

On the other hand, Montaigne says that the thing he is most afraid of in the world is fear. But to that there is the exquisite reply of Jean Paul in " SCHMELZE's Journey to Flaetz," " I should fear again that I did not sufficiently fear fear, but continued too dastardly." If you do not know that story, and wish to enjoy one of the bits of purest humor, find it and read it in Carlyle's translation.

For the rest, as the old essayists say, and when you have been conning them your style has their flavor, as when you come out of the spice-shop you smell of cinnamon and cloves—for the rest, nothing is more dangerous than denying danger or concealing your own cowardice. It by no means follows that you will not do your duty because you are afraid to do it. Not at all. You will simply do it with a great deal of friction. That will be just the difference between you and a hero. But then did you suppose every man was to be a hero ? If you take care to have it understood that, coward or hero, you are going to do what you think you ought to do, that is the essential point. Then every body knows what to count upon. Then the clouds clear up. Then, if there may be peace, you see it. If there must be battle, you see that.

THE GALLANT SEVENTH.

Mr. BLANCHARD JERROLD writes to the London Chronicle that Mr. Frank Bellew has just returned from New York to England, to suggest to the London Volunteers that it would be a polite and pretty

thing to invite Brother Jonathan's pet regiment to cross the sea.

It would certainly be "a big thing" for the gentlemen of the regiment to embark in an English vessel of war, and be the guests of the gentlemen volunteers of London town, who are understood to be somewhat different from the train-bands of which John Gilpin, that citizen of credit and renown, was eke Captain. It would be a charming business to arrive, say in the month of May, when the world is in town ; when the flower-shows are in full blossom ; when breakfasts, collations, matinees both musical and dancing, dinners, operas, theatres, and balls, are without end. Then the Clubs would open their doors. Mr. Jerrold writes from the Reform Club, and that fine palace would be opened for the gallant Seventh, as it was opened, some years since, for a banquet to the gallant Ibrahim Pacha.

The visit would be a feast, a triumph, an ovation. It would be an acknowledgment, doubtless, of the courteous welcome of the Prince of Wales. Perhaps—perhaps—is it too much to suspect ?—perhaps the Queen might graciously review the citizen soldiers in the Park, or invite them to a cold cut at Windsor Castle. That red-coated old buffer (not to say it irreverently), George Third, of happy memory, who always seems like a squire-captain of country militia, would have been sure to have the Seventh at Windsor—if times and things were changed a little.

But the Seventh Regiment may be very sure that if it went, well invited, it would be the inevitable lion of a season (and a London season is worth tasting, Messieurs !), as much as Jung Baha-door, the Nepaulese ambassador, who used to drive about the streets actually crusted with jewels.

True to itself, the regiment, of course, will not go without ample reflection. If the members are invited by a body of English gentlemen they will discover a new meaning in the word hospitality. For when an Englishman sincerely gives you his hand, you will probably find his heart in it.

NAPOLEON'S CROWN

ONE of the surest tests of manhood is to devote yourself to a course of public policy which seems to you right, and essential to the welfare of your nation; to seize the power to pursue that policy, and persistently to pursue it, knowing that the results can only be evolved very slowly, and that, (luring the evolution, you must submit to the Bitter, unrelenting, even bloody opposition of the friends of the same cause that you are serving and mean to serve. Cheerfully to bear the furious or broken-hearted regrets and misapprehension of friends, for years and years—is there not something heroic in that ? something that requires the truest possible temper of manhood ?

And is there not something of that heroism in Louis Napoleon ? After eight years of virtually absolute power in France, must we not honestly confess that he has seemed to consult the welfare of France as well as his own ambition? If the Assembly in '51 had sent him to Vincennes, is it likely that France would be so internally prosperous and externally honored as she is to-day ? And if not, is the glory not fairly his ?

Any friend of the Lounger who has chatted with him familiarly for two or three years upon current topics at home and abroad, will recall that Louis Napoleon has not always been honored in this particular department of the Weekly. The more liberal editorial columns at the side of these have ex-pressed greater faith from the beginning. But the process of confession upon the part of the Lounger began some months since, yes, even as far back as the Italian war. Only he then insisted that there was no especial reason for believing that the Emperor had any thing in view but the safety of his own crown and dynasty. And not very long ago he said that France seemed to have less freedom at home than she claimed for other nations abroad.

Well, Louis Napoleon has put his enemies and doubters in the wrong again. He has sketched the plan of a constitutional participation of the people in the government. He has laid the foundation of a constitutional, not a revolutionary op-position ; and in so doing, he has reproduced the essential safeguard of the British and American systems. Of course what he has done is but the beginning. But can any body study the history of his reign and not see what his object is ? When he was in London in April, 1848, he was sworn in as a special policeman to help protect the English system of government. And on the 2d of December, 1851, he swore himself in as a special officer to establish the English system of a constitutional monarchy in France. That course he has been faithfully pursuing under the incessant fire of the friends of constitutional liberty throughout the world. Without explanation, without impatience, without confusion, yes, and without sympathy from the friends of popular rights, but with plenty of suspicion from crowned heads, he has been pushing straight on. His course has been like the boring of an Artesian well, until now he begins to strike the pure waters of popular liberty.

It is all coincident with his ambition, you say ? Yes, but is it also coincident with the liberty, and dignity, and prosperity, and progress of France ? If it be, then is the achievement of such objects a mean ambition? Is the man who gives France all that, a man whom France will remember with curses or with blessings?

MOB LAW.

THERE have been some symptoms of mobs recently, and the Mayor of Mobile has wisely warned the citizens. against giving way to such a summary and foolish remedy for any grievance whatsoever as a mob. You see it works both ways. If Tom thinks twice two are five, and Ned thinks they are four, it is very easy and convenient for Tom to bring his friends and bawl Ned down, and smash the windows, and break the seats, and howl, and throw bad eggs. It is just as easy as it is for Ned

and his friends to come to-morrow and bawl you down, and smash things, and throw the eggs. A mob expresses nothing but the ungovernable rage of a few people. if, indeed, they can get such an impetus as they did seventy years ago in Paris, then you have the hideous tyranny of the reign of terror; and no conceivable Caligula or Nero is a tyrant so absolute and inhuman as a raging crowd of desperate men.

Mob rule merges in anarchy, of which the solution is a military despotism. A mob is not an exercise of the right of revolution, except that in this country every stroke at free speech is a blow at the essential substance of the Government. The right of revolution is among the most sacred rights of communities, but the right of free speech is the most sacred right of man in society. The moment it passes into action the law properly interferes, because the right of action is subject to different conditions. But whatever can not be discussed ought not to be endured. The time and the temper of discussion are matters of discretion for the speaker. If he choose a wrong time and a bad way, the results will recoil upon his cause, and alienate the public mind.

If you don't want to hear what a man has to say, you may stay at home. Your neighbor may wish to hear, and he has the same right to listen that you have not to listen. Who made you the judge of what he shall hear ? Or suppose that you think he ought not to hear. You may reason with him as much as you will ; but the moment you touch him to prevent his hearing you only invite him to prevent your hearing what you wish to, and you reduce society to chaos.

SKATING AT THE PARK.

WHETHER it was worth while to build a Park, used sometimes to be asked by the skeptical. But although the charm of a Park is naturally associated with green leaves and summer, let any doubter go to the Central Park now and be forever answered. Whether it were desirable to open the most convenient and admirably managed play-ground for children—whether it were wise to furnish the loveliest rural scenery for loiterers on foot or in the saddle—whether it were a good thing to provide gardens of health and beauty and recreation for a hard-worked city—these are the questions to which, at the present moment, the ringing mu-sic of ten thousand skates returns the rich reply.

There is one emotion which must always fill the mind of every honest New Yorker who thinks of the Central Park—" Oh, that every institution, or but a few institutions, were managed as well as that!" The Legislative Committee of inquiry re-tired before it. And why not ? It is not used for panty purposes, but for the welfare of the public. It is the property of all, most wisely administered for the benefit of all.

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

WHY is the present Lord Mayor of London smaller than Tom Thumb?—Because he is only one Cubit (18 inches), whereas Tom Thumb was 25 inches.

Unsocial old Snarl says that love is a combination of diseases—an affection of the heart, and an inflammation of the brain.

  A person having willfully put an end to his life by drowning in a canal, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of "Felo de se." Upon hearing it, a Frenchman exclaimed, " Not de sea, for he fell in de canal."

A crooked gentleman, on his arrival at Bath, was asked by another what place he had traveled from?

"I came straight from London," replied he.

"Did you so?" said the other. " Then you have been terribly warped by the way!"

A young lady who gave herself many airs, having contemplated a sojourn to France, a friend expressed a doubt whether she would condescend to talk English when she came back. "Oh," said one who knew what her powers of language were, " she'll never forget the vulgar tongue !"

During the residence of the Prince of Wales at Oxford it was not unnatural that the dons should pay him a good deal of attention, with a view to future preferment. One of them, however, who is remarkable for his independent spirit, when his turn came to preach the University sermon, chose the following for his text: "There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many ?"

During the recent meeting of the Emperors at Warsaw a ballet entitled "Robert and Bertrand, or the Two Thieves," was being performed at the theatre; but on account of the simultaneous presence of the two Emperors at the performance, the police, to show them an attention as witty as it was delicate, ordered the piece to be called on the bills, for that night only, " Robert and Bertrand," and suppressed the second half of the title, namely, The Two Thieves."

A STRANGE SALMON.—On a fishing and shooting expedition, some very strange stories were told in the evenings. Shots are made, and fishing feats performed, after dinner, occasionally of a kind seldom known at other times. On the occasion referred to the romancing had been extraordinary. A canny Scotchman in the corner was at length poked up, to know if he ever heard any thing as wonderful as the story last related, which referred to the abundance of fish in an English river. " No," said he, 'unless it was some years ago, when I was fishing in the Highlands near Loch Awe. The first thing I saw in the mornin', when I looked out o' ma bedroom window, was a salmon—I'll warrant he was fifty pounds' weight—so tame that he was gaun picken about the yard wi' the hens!"  

AN APT RETORT.—The witty Scotch advocate, Harry Erskine, was on one occasion pleading before the House of Lords. Ile had occasion to speak of certain curators, and pronounced the word, as in Scotland, with the accent on the first syllable—curators. One of the English judges, whose name I have forgotten, could not stand this, and cried out, " We are in this habit of saying curator in this country, Mr. Erskine, following the analogy of the Latin language, in which, as you are aware, the penultimate syllable is long." "I thank your lordship very much," was Erskine's reply. " We are weak enough in Scotland to think that in pronouncing the word curator we follow the analogy of the English language. But I need scarcely say that I bow with pleasure to the opinion of so learned a senator and so great an orator as your lordship."

NEVER SATISFIED.

WAITER. " Did you wish any thing else, Sir ?" TESTY OLD GENT (who has all that can be wished for). "Of course I do." WAITER. " What is it, Sir ?" OLD GENT. " My appetite."

CONSULTATION OF PHYSICIANS.

—A man much addicted to drinking being extremely ill with a fever, a consultation was held in his bedchamber by three physicians how to "cure the fever and abate the thirst." "Gentlemen," said he, "I will take half the trouble off your hands. You cure the fever, and I'll abate the thirst myself."

When the late King of Denmark was visiting England he very frequently honored Sir Thomas Robinson with his company, though the knight spoke French in a very imperfect manner, and the king had scarcely any knowledge of English. One day, when Sir Thomas was in company with the late Lord Chesterfield, he boasted much of his intimacy with the king, and added, "that he believed the monarch had a greater friendship for him than any man in England." "How report lies!" exclaimed Lord Chesterfield; "I heard no later than today that you never met but a great deal of bad language passed between you,"

A celebrated musical composer—a wag in his way—recently visited the Isle of Mallet, and, while pacing the deck during a heavy squall, was extremely annoyed to perceive that the spray had damaged the lace and other finery in which a young lady, (as he supposed) had bedizened herself. She" heeded not;" but turning to an elderly female, who proved to be her mother, exclaimed, "La! an't the waves jist like oar soap-suds ?" The mamma was wroth, and speedily doffed her gentility, by saying, "Hang it, why when you comes out a lady, can't you leave the tub at home ?"

TOAST OF A SCOTCH PEER.—Lord K—, dining at Provost S--'s, and being the only peer present, one of the company gave a toast, "The Duke of Buccleuch." So the peerage went round till it came to Lord K—, who said he would give them a, peer, which, although not toasted, was of more use than the whole. His lordship gave "The Piet of Leith."

IRIS SKILL—Droll, though not very logical or cons elusive, was the reply of the tipsy Irishman, who, as he supported himself by the iron railings of Merrion Square, was advised by a passenger to take himself home. "Ah now, be aisy; I live in the square. Isn't it going round and round, and when I see my own door conic up, won't I pop into it in a jiffy."

A BROIL.—Lord Hertford, Mr. Croker, and Mr. James Smith were at an exhibition, inspecting a picture of a husband carving a boiled leg of mutton. The orifice die. played the meat red and raw, and the husband was looking at his wife with a countenance of anger and disappoints meat. " That fellow is a fool," observed Lord Hertford; "he does not see what an excellent broil he may have."

PARLIAMENTARY REPRIMAND.—In the reign of George the Second, one Crowle, a counsel of some eminence, made some observation before an election committee which was considered to reflect on the House itself. The House accordingly summoned him to their bar, and he was forced to receive a reprimand from the Speaker on his knees. As he rose from the ground, with the utmost nonchalance he took out his handkerchief, and, wiping his knees, coolly observed, "that it was the dirtiest house he had ever been in in his life."

BREVITY.—Colonel S   , of the Royal Marines, was al-ways distinguished for the perspicuity and brevity of his speeches, of which the following, which was delivered on going into the battle of the Nile, is a specimen: Sir James Saumarez, who commanded the man-of-war to which he belonged, had, in a lengthened speech, wound up the feelings of his hearers to the highest pitch of ardor for the fight, by reminding them of the duty they owed to their king and country; and, though last, not least, he desired them to call to mind their families, their parents, and sweet-hearts, and to fight as if the battle solely depended on their individual exertions. He was answered by looks and gestures highly expressive of their determination; then, turning to our hero, he said, "Now, S—, I leave you to speak to the marines." Colonel S— immediately directed their attention to the land beyond the French fleet. "Do you see that land there?" he asked. They all shouted, "Ay, ay, Sir!" " Now, my lads, that's the land of Egypt; and if you don't fight like devils you'll soon be in the house of bondage." He was answered by a real. British yell, fore and aft.

The Duke of Wellington's saying connected with early rising was not a bad one: "Let the first turn in the morning be a turn out."

Louis XI., of France, was so fearful of death, that as often as it Came into his physician's head to threaten him with death, he put money in his hands to pacify him, Ills physician is said to have got 55,000 crowns in five months.

The Paris courts value a lady's teeth at 8000 francs. An English governess was recently knocked down by a carriage, and by the accident lost all her teeth. She brought an action of damages, and the tribunal awarded the above amount.

"Are you fond of novels, Mr. Jones ?"—" Very," responded the interrogated gentleman, who wished to be thought by the lady questioner fond of literature. " I have you" continued the holy, "ever read 'Ten Thousand a Year?' "—" No, Madam, I never read that number of novels in all my life."

"I will bet you a bottle of wine that you shall descend from that chair before I ask you twice."—''Done,'' said the gentleman, who seemed determined not to obey the summons so obediently. "Come down."—" I will not," was the reply. "Then stop up till I ask you a second time." The gentleman, having no desire to retain his position until that period, came down from the chair, and his opponent won the wager.

A gentleman was called upon to apologize for words uttered when in wine. "I beg pardon," said he, "I did net mean to say what I did; but I've had the misfortune to lose some of my front teeth, and words get out every now and then without my knowledge."

A painter, who was fond of hearing his works praised, was one day told that Judge — did not think very favor-ably of a performance of his. "Oh," said the artist to his informant, "what is his opinion worth? he isn't a judge of painting, he's a judge of probate."

Macready was a great stickler for correctness of costume in the pieces he brought out at Drury Lane. Seeing Miss Rainsforth dressed for Ophelia in a pair of white satin shoes, he thus addressed her: "My dear young lady, when you are going to play a character in a piece, the scene of which is laid in Denmark, I beg you will, in future, wear Denmark satin slippers."

A "bumptious" traveler, overtaking an old minister, whose nag was much fatigued, quizzed the old gentleman upon his "turn out." "A nice horse, yours, doctor! very—valuable beast, that; but what makes him wag his tail as, doctor?"—"Why, as you have asked me, I will tell you. It is for the same reason that your tongue wags so—a colt of natural weakness."

Two knights of the angle having been one evening glad to seek the shelter of a Ferry ale-house for the night, one questioned the other the next morning as to how he had passed the night, observing that, for his part, "he had slept like a top."—"So did I," replied his companion ; "for I was turning round all night:" thus practically proving the nonsense of the old simile for a sound sleeper.

The story of a New York paper, that the Prince gives only his left hand to ladies in the dance, reminds the Montreal Herald of the ludicrous disappointment of the countryman when the Prince's grand-uncle visited Edinburgh, in 1823

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. "Well, Jock, hao you seen the King?"

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. "Oh ay, I has seen the King; but I wadna gang the length o' the street to see him again. The King's just made like ony ither mon, and they tell't me his arms were a lion and a unicorn!"