Chapter II: The Chinese Discoverers of Mexico in the Fifth Century (7)

In view of the facts, it is preposterous to admit that this assumption is even plausible. He must be ignorant indeed of our political history during the past twenty years, or strangely blind to its results, who has not learned that a belief that the North is ever anxious to concede for the sake of its 'interests' has been the great stimulus to the arrogance of the South. While the principles of the abolitionists have been the shallow _pretence_, the craven cowardice of such men as BUCHANAN and CUSHING has been the _real_ incitement to the South to pour insult and wrong on the North. Concession has been our bane. It was paltering and concession that palsied the strong will and ready act which should have prevented this war; for had it not been for such men as the traitors who are now crying out for Southern rights, the rebellion would have been far more limited in its area, and long since crushed out. No cruelties on our part, no threats to carry all to the bitter end, would so encourage the South at present, as this offer to shake hands ere the fight be half over.

When the time comes for amnesty and 'Southern Rights,' we trust that they will be considered in a spirit of justice and mercy. Till it comes let there be no word spoken of them. The South has, to its own detriment and to ours, firmly and faithfully _believed_ that Northern men are cowards, misers, men sneaking through life in all dishonor and baseness. When millions believe such intolerable falsehoods of other millions of their fellow-citizens, they must be taught the truth, no matter what the lesson costs. Even now the Southern press asserts that our victories were merely the results of overwhelming majorities, and that the Yankees are becoming frightened at their own successes. There is not one of these traitorous, dough-face meetings of which the details are not promptly sent--probably by the men who organize them--all over the South to inspire faith in a falling cause. When the rebels shall have learned that these traitors have positively _no_ influence here,--and the sooner they learn it the better,--when they realize that the people of the North are as determined as themselves, and their equals in all noble qualities, then, and not till then, will it be time to talk of those concessions which now strike every one as smacking of meanness and cowardice.

The day has come for a new order of things. The South must learn--and show by its acts that it has been convinced--that the North is its equal in those virtues which it claims to monopolize. But this it will only learn from the young and vigorous minds of the new school,--from its _enemies_,--and not from the trembling old-fashioned traitors, who have been so long at its feet that they shiver and are bewildered, now that they are fairly isolated, by the tide of war, from their former ruler. Politicians of this stamp, who have grown old while prating of Southern rights, can not, do not, and never will _realize_ but that, some day or other, all will be restored in _statu quo ante bellum_. They expect Union victories, but somehow believe that their old king will enjoy his own again--that there will be a morning when the South will rule as before. It is this which inspires their craven timidity. They cry out against emancipation in every form,--blind to the onward and inevitable changes which are going on,--so that when the South comes in again they may point to their record and say, '_We_ were ever true to you. We, indeed, urged the war, for we were compelled by you to fight, but we were always true to your main principles.' They have wasted time and trouble sadly--it will all be of no avail. Be it by the war, be it by what means it may, the social system and political rule of the South are irrevocably doomed. It may, from time to time, have its convulsive recoveries, but it is doomed. The demands of free labor for a wider area will make themselves felt, and the black will give way to the white, as in the West the buffalo vanishes before the bee.

We are willing that the question of emancipation should have the widest scope, and, if expediency shall so dictate, that it should be realized in the most gradual manner. We believe that, owing to the experiences of the past year, more than one slave State will, ere long, contain a majority of clear-headed, patriotic men, who will be willing to legalize the freedom of all blacks born within their limits, after a certain time; and if this time be placed ten years or even fifteen hence, it will make no material difference. By that time the pressure of free labor, and the increase of manufacturing, will have rendered some such step a necessity. Should the payment of all loyal slave-holders, in the border States, for their chattels, prove a better plan,--and it could hardly fail to promptly reduce the rebellious circle to a narrow and uninfluential body,--let it be tried. If any of the arguments thus far adduced in favor of assuming slavery to be an institution which is _never_ to be changed, and which _must_ be immutably fixed in the North American Union, can be proved to be true, we would say, then let emancipation be forever forgotten--for the stability of the Union must take precedence of everything. But we can not see it in this light. We can not see that peace and Union can exist while the slave-holder continues to increase in arrogance in the South, and while the abolitionists every day gather strength in the North. Every day of this war has seen the enemies of slavery increase in number and in power, until to expect them to lose power and influence is as preposterous as to hope to see the course of nature change. Should a peace be now patched up on the basis of _immutable_ slavery, we should, to judge from every appearance, simply prolong the war to an infinitely more disastrous end than it now threatens to assume. We should incur debts which would crush our prosperity; we should bequeath a heritage of woe to our children, which would prove their ruin. While the great cause of all this dissension lies legalized and untouched, there will continue to be a party which will never cease to strive to destroy it. The question simply is, whether we will be wounded now, or utterly slain by and by.

Meanwhile let us, before all things, push on with the war! It is by our victories that slavery will be in the beginning most thoroughly attacked. If the South, as it professes, means to fight to the last ditch, and to the black flag, all discussion of emancipation is needless; for in the track of our armies the contraband assumes freedom without further formula. But we are by no means convinced that such will be the case. The _first_ ditches have, as yet, been by no means filled with martyrs to secession,--armistices are already subjects of rumor,--and it should not be forgotten that the Union men of the South are powerful enough to afford efficient aid in placing the question of ultimate emancipation on a basis suitable to all interests.

All that the rational emancipationist requires is a _legal beginning_. We have no desire to see it advance more rapidly than the development of the country requires--in short, what is really needed is simply the assurance that by war or by peace _some_ basis shall be found for ultimately carrying out the views of the fathers of the American Union, and rendering this great nation harmonious and happy. Every day brings us nearer the great issue,--not of slavery and anti-slavery,--but whether slavery is to be assumed as an immutable element in America, or whether government will bring such influences to bear as will lead the way to peace and the rights of free labor. Every step is leading us to

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

O Lord, look kindly on this work for thee!
Yes, smile upon the side that's for the right!
To them O grant the glorious arm of might,
And in the end give them the victory!
Free principles are rushing like the sea
Which opened for the fleeing Israelite,--
Free principles, to test their worth in fight,--
And woe to them that 'twixt the surges be!
And as, O Lord, thou then did'st show thy care,
And mad'st a grave to drink thy enemy,
So now, O Father, sink him in despair--
The only blight we own--cursed Slavery.
O then will end the conflict! Yes, God, then
We'll be indeed a nation of FREE MEN!

* * * * *

The N.O. _Delta_ is full of indignation at the Southern men who are alarmed for their property, and betrays, in its anger, the fact that these disaffected persons are not few in the Pelican State. But, plucking up courage, it declares that--

Our people will retire into the interior, and in their mountains
and swamps they will maintain a warfare which must ultimately
prove successful.

Doubtful--very. In the first place, 'our people' can not very well swamp it like runaway negroes, and, secondly, they will encounter, in the mountains, the Union men of the South. Give us the cities and the level country for a short time, and we shall very soon find the Pelicandidates for comfortable quarters rolling back, by thousands, into Unionism.

* * * * *

As we write, there is a panic in Richmond, caused by the discovery that there is a large body of Union men in the city itself, headed by JOHN MINOR BOTTS, who seems to have determined to 'head off' the secession party in its stronghold, 'or die'--he having, since the decease of JOHN TYLER, turned his 'heading off' abilities against JEFF DAVIS. The _Examiner_ mentions, in terror, the confession of the Union prisoners, that there are in Richmond 'thousands of arms concealed, and men enrolled, who would use them on the first approach of the Yankee army.' One of the arrested, a Mr. STEARNS, when led to the prison, surveyed it in a most contemptuous manner, remarking 'If you are going to imprison all the Union men in Richmond, you will have to provide a much larger jail than this.'

It is the German residents of Richmond who are said to constitute the majority of these Union men. All honor to our German friends of the South! They have received, thus far, too little credit for their staunch adherence to the principles of freedom. Let them take courage; a day is coming when we shall all be free--free from _every_ form of slavery! _Noch ist die Freiheit nicht verloren_!--'Freedom is not lost as yet.' Some of them remember _that_ song of old.

* * * * *

A paragraph has recently gone the rounds, which impudently assures the friends of Emancipation that, unless they promptly desist from further interference or agitation, they will speedily build up a Southern party in the North, which will seriously interfere with the prosecution of the war!

That is to say, that the majority of the people of the North fully acquiesce in the justice of the main principles held by the South--the only difference of opinion being whether these slavery and slavery-extension doctrines can be practically developed under our federal Union! Yet we, knowing, seeing, feeling, in this war, the enormously evil effects of the slave system on the free men among whom it exists, are expected to endure and legalize _the cause_ which stirred it up! Either the South is right or wrong--there is no escaping the dilemma. Either it was or was not justly goaded by 'abolition' into secession. If the South is _quite_ right in wishing to preserve slavery intact forever, surely those are in the wrong who would make war on it for wishing to secede from a government which tolerates attacks on legalized institutions! What a precious paradox have we here? Yet these virtual justifiers of the South in the great cause of the war, claim to be zealous and forward in punishing that secession which, according to their own views, is constitutional and right!

If slavery be right, then the South is right. No impartial foreigner could fail to draw this conclusion under the circumstances of this war. But _is_ it right; we do not say as a thing of the past, and of a rapidly vanishing serf-system, but as an institution of the progressive present? Witness the words of G. BATELLE, a member of the Western Virginia Constitutional Convention,--as we write, in session at Wheeling,--and who has published an address to that body on the question of Emancipation, from which we extract the following:--

The injuries which slavery inflicts upon our own people are
manifold and obvious. It practically aims to enslave not merely
another race, but our own race. It inserts in its bill of rights
some very high-sounding phrases securing freedom of speech; and
then practically and in detail puts a lock on every man's mouth,
and a seal on every man's lips, who will not shout for and swear
by the divinity of the system. It amuses the popular fancy with
a few glittering generalities in the fundamental law about the
liberty of the press, and forthwith usurps authority, even in
times of peace, to send out its edict to every postmaster,
whether in the village or at the cross-roads, clothing him with
a despotic and absolute censorship over one of the dearest
rights of the citizen. It degrades labor by giving it the badge
of servility, and it impedes enterprise by withholding its
proper rewards. It alone has claimed exemption from the rule of
uniform taxation, and then demanded and received the largest
share of the proceeds of that taxation. Is it any wonder, in
such a state of facts, that there are this day, of those who
have been driven from Virginia mainly by this system, men
enough, with their descendents, and means and energy, scattered
through the West, of themselves to make no mean State?...

It has been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a
fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my
judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed. We
have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too
successfully, a reign of terror in times of profound peace, of
which Austria might be ashamed. We have seen it year by year
driving out from our genial climate, and fruitful soil, and
exhaustless natural resources, some of the men of the very best
energy, talent and skill among our population. We have seen
also, in times of peace, the liberty of speech taken away, the
freedom of the press abolished, and the willing minions of this
system, in hunting down their victims, spare from degradation
and insult neither the young, nor the gray-haired veteran of
seventy winters, whose every thought was as free from offense
against society as is that of the infant of days.

When an evil attains this extent, he is a poor citizen, a poor cowardly dallier with opinions, whatever his fighting mark may be, who can make up his mind to calmly acquiesce in establishing its permanence, or to stiffly oppose every movement and every suggestion tending in the least towards its abrogation.

* * * * *

In the present number of the CONTINENTAL will be found an article on General LYON, in which reference is made to the generally credited assertion, that the deceased hero was not reinforced as he desired during the campaign in Missouri. This is one of the questions which time alone will properly answer. In accordance with the principles involved in _audi alteram partem_, we give on this subject the following abridgment of a portion of General FREMONT'S defense, published in the New York _Tribune_ of March 6:--

Lyon's and Prentiss's troops were nearly all three months men,
whose term of enlistment was about expiring. Arms and money were
wanted, but men offered in abundance. The three months men had
not been paid. The Home Guards were willing to remain in the
service, but their families were destitute. Gen. Fremont wrote
to the President, stating his difficulties, and informing him
that he should peremptorily order the United States Treasurer
there to pay over to his paymaster-general the money in his
possession, sending a force at the same time to take the money.
He received no reply, and assumed that his purpose was approved.

Five days after he arrived at St. Louis he went to Cairo, taking
three thousand eight hundred men for its reinforcement. He says
that Springfield was a week's march, and before he could have
reached it, Cairo would have been taken by the rebels, and
perhaps St. Louis. He returned to St. Louis on the 4th of
August, having in the meantime ordered two regiments to the
relief of Gen. Lyon, and set himself to work at St. Louis to
provide further reinforcements for him; but he claims that
Lyon's defeat can not be charged to his administration, and
quotes from a letter from General Lyon, dated on the 9th of
August, expressing the belief that he would be compelled to
retire; also, from a letter written by Lyon's adjutant general,
in which he says 'General Fremont was not inattentive to the
situation of General Lyon's column.'

* * * * *

A daily cotemporary, in an onslaught on Emancipation, contains the following:--

Delaware has recently had a proposition before the legislature
to abolish the scarcely more than nominal slavery still existing
in it; but the legislature adjourned without even listening to
it, though it contemplated full pecuniary compensation.

Yes; and the legislature of Delaware, a few years ago, legalized lotteries,--one of the greatest social curses of the country,--and made itself a hissing and a by-word to all decent men by sanctioning the most widely-destructive method of gambling known. The Delaware legislature indeed!

* * * * *

We are indebted to a friend for the following paragraph:--

It is deeply significant that since the late Federal victories, the Southern press, even in Richmond itself, speaks nervously and angrily of the Union men among them, and of their increasing boldness in openly manifesting their sentiments. A few months since, this belief in Union men in the South was abundantly ridiculed by those who believed that all the slave-holding States were unanimous in rebellion, and that therefore it would be preposterous to hope to reconcile them to emancipation. Now that the Union strength in that region is beginning to manifest itself, we are informed that we shall lose it if we do aught contrary to Southern rights. And this too, although the Southern Union men have never been spoken of by their rebel neighbors as aught save 'the abolitionists in our midst!'

* * * * *

The following communication from a well-known financier and writer on currency can not fail to be read with interest by all:--

THE SINEWS OF WAR.

These are, men and money, but especially MONEY, for on the money depends the men. In a good cause, with an educated, intelligent people, every man able to discern for himself the right side of the question presented, there is no difficulty about men; the state has only to say how many are needed, and the want will be promptly supplied. The experience of the last six months gives us evidence sufficient on this point: an army of six hundred thousand men drawn together without an effort, every man a volunteer,--a spectacle never before exhibited to the world,--puts at rest all doubt upon it; and not only that, it settles beyond all cavil the superiority of self-government, based on the broadest principles of freedom and the broadest system of education, over any other form which has ever been adopted. Passing from this, however, as a fact which needs no argument or illustration, we come to the more difficult question of how to raise the other sinew--money.

In calling for men the state relies upon the intelligence and patriotism of its citizens; upon their intelligence to understand the cause, on their patriotism to respond to its call. It offers them no inducements in the shape of pay, nothing more than to feed and clothe them, to aid them hereafter if wounded, to keep their families from starvation if they are killed. This is all; and this is enough. But these assumed obligations of the state must be sacredly and promptly kept. Our noble volunteers must be fed, and clothed, and cared for, and to this end the state must have the requisite means. And to obtain the needed supply without oppressive taxation on the one hand, or placing a load on posterity too heavy to be borne on the other hand, is a question of difficult solution; and yet we shall see that there is in the present administration the ability and the will to solve it.

It is said that our expenditures in this great struggle will, by the first of June, amount to the enormous sum of $600,000,000. It is said by the arch traitor at the head of the rebels that under this load of debt we shall sink. It is said by the leading papers of England that we have no money, have exhausted our credit, must disband our armies, and make the best terms we can with rebellion. Doubtless, our credit in Europe is at a low ebb just now, and we are thrown upon our own resources, and on these we must swim or sink. There is nothing to reject in this. We have shown the world how a free state can raise troops and create a navy out of its own materials; and now we will show the world how a free state can maintain its army and navy out of its own resources; and if the result proves--as it will prove--that our free institutions are the safest, strongest, and best for the people in war as well as in peace, then the great struggle we are now going through with will be worth more to the true interests of humanity everywhere than all the battles which have been fought since the dawn of the present century. For a hundred years, openly or covertly, but without intermission, has war been going on between despotism and freedom, with varied success, but on the whole with a steady gain for freedom; and now here, on the same field where it originated, is the long strife to be finally settled. On these same fields the same freedom is to culminate in unquenchable splendor, or to set forever, leaving mankind to grope in darkness and ignorance under the misrule of despotic tyranny. We are in arms not only to suppress an odious uprising of despotism against freedom within our own borders, but to show by our example, to all the nations of the earth, what freedom is and what freedom means.

In seeking aid of the money power, we go beyond the line where patriotism gives us all we need, promptly and liberally, into the cold region of selfishness, whose people are too much absorbed in adding to and counting up their gains to be able to spare much time or thought on country or freedom. No voluntary sacrifices to be expected here. What we want we must buy, and pay for; it is only to see that we do not pay too much for it. Selfish, timid, grasping, these people are a skittish set to deal with. Nobody understands better the game of 'the spider and the fly,' and they are as ready to play it with the state as with smaller opponents, if the state will but let them. From his first visit to this region, to the present time, our able Secretary of the Treasury was, and continues to be, '_master of the position_.'

When the Secretary held his first sociable with the representatives of the money power, neither he nor they had a very keen perception of what they wanted of each other; the rebellion was not then developed in the gigantic proportions it has since assumed; and it was hoped and expected, with some show of reason, that two or three hundred millions would be enough to put it down. This amount the power could and would willingly furnish for a 'consideration,' the half presently, on condition that it should be allowed the refusal of the other half when it should be wanted; and so a bargain was quickly struck, to the mutual content of both parties. But, as the thunder grew louder and the storm fiercer, it became evident that our wants would soon be doubled, at least. The money power hung back; the 7-3/10 remained in the banks. The representatives said they were only agents, the agents stopped payment, and the whole circulation of gold fell to the ground at once, not only putting a sudden check upon all business operations, but leaving the Treasury without any sort of currency to pay out: a sad state of things enough. The money power drew in its head, pretending not to see anything, waiting for propositions, expecting to reap a rich harvest out of the state's necessities, by making its own terms. How could it be otherwise? must not the state have several hundred millions? must not the astute Secretary sell the state's promises to pay, _secured by a first mortgage on all Uncle Sam's vast possessions_, on their own terms?

It was not a pleasant predicament for a nervous or a faint-hearted man to be placed in. But then Mr. Chase is neither nervous nor faint-hearted, and when Congress came together he not only told his wants frankly, but proposed a neat little plan for supplying them without selling notes at fifty per cent. discount. Taking into view the want of a sound currency for business purposes, and the want of some currency to pay out from the Treasury instead of the gold which had disappeared and left a vacuum, he proposed to borrow $150,000,000, by issuing Treasury Notes, payable on demand, without interest, and making them a _legal tender for the payment of all debts_, with a proviso that any parties who should at any time have more on hand than they wanted should be allowed to invest them in bonds bearing six per cent interest. It was a very simple proposition--almost sublime for its simplicity; there was no mystery about it; and yet it was the very turning point of the ways and means of crushing the rebellion, without being ourselves crushed under an unbearable burden of debt. The money power stood aghast, and hardly recovered breath in time to oppose its passage through Congress; but the common sense of the people hailed Mr. Chase as a deliverer, and Congress endorsed common sense. Seriously, this splendid invention of the Secretary has given a new face to our financial affairs by placing the money power where it always should be,--in subservience to the people,--instead of allowing it to become a grinding task-master. The importance of this measure can hardly be appreciated yet. A member of Congress, himself a merchant, and an able financier, says:

'My theory in regard to it is, that as the currency is increased by the addition of these notes to its volume, prices generally will rise, including the price of U.S. bonds, until they reach par; at that point, these notes, being convertible into bonds, the rise in the price of bonds will stop, because further additions to the currency, whether of these notes, bank notes, or coin, will only stimulate the conversion of notes into bonds; and that conversion will check the increase of currency. The _excess_ of notes will then be gradually withdrawn from circulation for conversion,--leaving only such an amount in circulation as a healthy and natural condition of the currency will require.'

A theory in which we fully concur. We see growing out of it a restoration of business: government creditors paid in a currency equal to gold; low prices for all government contracts; a consequent diminished expenditure for supplies, and an annual payment for interest on the debt we shall owe, which can be easily met without heavy taxation. However it may turn out in the conduct of the war,--and we have full faith in that also,--it is very certain that in the conduct of the finances we have found the man for the times. The whole country feels this, and breathes easier for it. The arch rebel, in a recent address to his satellites, admits that he altogether underestimated the patriotism and loyalty of the men of the North, but takes fresh courage from the certainty that we shall shortly back down under our load of debt. A little further on and he will find that he has just as much mistaken our power in that respect,--that as his own worthless promises, based upon nothing, fall to nothing, the notes of the Union will stand as firm and as fair in the money market as her banner will on the battle-field.

Men and money are the sinews of war. In our first trial, patriotism has furnished the men, and the presiding genius of the Treasury has clearly pointed out the means for obtaining the money. _Laus Deo_!

* * * * *

Note.--For the benefit of those of our readers who do not understand currency facts and theories, we make the following explanation. The relation of currency, or circulation medium, to the industry and business of the state, is similar to that of steam in an engine: a certain amount is required to keep up a regular and natural movement; an excessive amount causes too rapid motion, and a deficiency the reverse. Currency is made up of several things. Bank deposits, circulating by checks, bank notes, and coin, are the most important and best understood. The aggregate amount of these three items before the suspension of specie payments was above $450,000,000; and this sum is required to give a healthy movement to business affairs. Take away any portion of it, and prices fall and labor languishes, because the motion from it is too small for the work required; add considerably to it, and prices rise, because the motive power, being superabundant, is too freely used. When specie payment was suspended this motive power was reduced; the circulating medium fell from four hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty millions, perhaps less; and unless this loss is replaced it is quite clear that prices must fall and the employment of labor be curtailed. The issue of treasury notes will fill the gap, making the business motive power of the same strength and ability as before. Thus it will be seen that the emission of treasury notes plays an important part upon the industry and business of the state, which, under existing circumstances, can hardly be over-valued, as well as in the national finances.

* * * * *

The Darwin-development theory has of late attracted no little attention. One of our contributors favors us with _his_ views in the following 'wild-verse,' which is itself rather of the transition order:--

MODERN ANSWERS TO ANCIENT RIDDLES.

'Whar did ye come from? Who d'ye belong to!'--_Ethiops_.

Philosophers say, deny it who may,
That the man who stands upright so bravely to-day,
Once crawled as a reptile with nose to the sod,
His grandfather Monad a bit of a clod.

To be sure, man's descent is not made out quite plain,
But one or two _guesses_ might piece out the chain;
If the chain is quite long a few links won't be missed;
Or, if you must join it, _just give it a twist_.

A bold Boston doctor, by stride superhuman,
Makes only a step from a snake to a woman;
Or, inspect your best friends by Granville's good glass,
And the difference's as small 'twixt a man and an ass.

'From the company he keeps we may learn a man's nature;'
If he will play with monkey, dog, cat, or such creature,
The schoolmen will say, as a matter of course,
'Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.' Notice its force!

If with doubts you're still puzzled, and wonder who can
Answer all your objections, why Darwin's your man.
He can bridge o'er a chasm both broad and profound;
The last thing he needs for a theory is _ground_.

Bring your queries and facts, no matter how tough;
Development doctrine makes light of such stuff.
One example of these will perhaps be enough:--
'These crawlers,' for instance, 'should they be still here,'
'Not yet become bipeds?' The answer is clear:

In our strangely unequal organic advance,
He is the most forward who has the best chance.
By braving the weather and struggling with brother,
The one who survives it all gains upon t'other.

The old Bible 'myth,' now, of Jacob and Esau,
Is the struggle 'twixt species, the monkey and man law;
One hairy, one handsome, one favored, one cursed;
And sometimes the last one turns out to be first.

Still, through cycles enough let the laggard persist,
Let the weak be suppressed since he can not resist,
And, proceeding by logic which none may dispute,
Can't we safely infer there's an end to the brute?

You may, if you please, supersede Revelation,
By wholly new methods of ratiocination;
Though, since head and heart _need be_ in contradiction,
Why should reason hold faith under any restriction?
Shut your eyes, and guess down heaven's good pious fiction.[P]

Noah's ark was superfluous. Where were his brains,
For those beasts and those sons to provide with such pains,
When they might to a deluge cry Fiddle di dee,
And sprout fins and scales, if they took to the sea?

Well, perhaps in those days they had not yet known
That _by need of new functions new organs are grown_.
Those drowned chaps were sure a 'degenerate' crew,
Or else, on their plunge into element new,
Some 'law of selection' had rescued a few.
And, 'if wishes were fishes' I think one or two
Would have _wished_, and swam out of their scrape, do not you?
Can it be that those 'Fish Tales' of mermen are true?

No wonder that racing was always in fashion,--
All orders of beings were born with the passion--
But it seems that at length Genus Man will be winner.
You cry 'Lucky dog!' But what now about dinner?

No oysters, no turtle, fresh salmon, fried sole,
No canvas duck nor fowl casserole.
All these he has seen disappear from the stage,
A sacrifice vast growing age after age.

Their successive growth upward he's watched with dismay;
They have come to be men, having all had their day!
Though he took, while its lord, quite a taste of the creature,
By rule Epicurean 'dum vivim.,' etcetera.

In Paradise, Adam and Eve, to be sure,
Since they didn't have flesh, ate their onion sauce pure,
But, as our old friend John P. Robinson he
Said, 'they didn't know everything down in Judee.'

Now the better taught modern he very well knows
What to beef and to mutton society owes.
What are homes without hearths? What's a hearth without roasts?
Or a grand public dinner with _nothing_ but toasts?

Yet, what government measure, or scheme philanthropic,
Or learned convention in hall philosophic,
But is mainly sustained upon leasts and collations?
At least, it is so in all civilized nations.

Here's a fix! Yet indeed, soon or late, the whole race
Must the problem decide on, with good or ill grace.
We cannot go hungry; what are we to do?
Shall we pulse it, like Daniel, that knowing young Jew?
Letting Grahamite doctors our diet appoint,
Eat our very plain pudding without any joint?

Or, shall we the bloody alternative take,
And cannibal meals of our relatives make,
Put aside ancient scruples (for what's in a name?)
And shake hands with the dainty New Zealander dame,
Who thought that she really might relish a bit
Of broiled missionary brought fresh from the spit?

'Twere surely most cruel in Nature our nurse,
Man's march of improvement so quick to reverse.
Will she offer a choice which we may not refuse,
When we're sure to turn savage however we choose?

We may slowly creep up to a lofty position,
Then go back at one leap to the lower condition.
Even so, my good friend, in a circle he goes,
Who would follow such theories on to their close.
If you've started with Darwin, as sure as you're born,
You're in a dilemma; pray take either horn.

T.

* * * * *

Who has not belonged in his time to a debating society? What youth ambitious of becoming 'a perfect _Hercules_ behind the bar?'--as a well meaning but unfortunate Philadelphian once said in a funeral eulogy over a deceased legal friend--has not 'debated' in a club 'formed for purposes of mutual _and_ literary improvement of the mind?' All who have will read with pleasure the following letter from one who has most certainly been there:--

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

I am a man that rides around over the 'kedn'try.' In the little
village where I am now tarrying, the school-house bell is
ringing to call together the members of that ancient institution
peculiar to villages, the debating society. A friend informs me
that the time-honored questions--Should capital punishment be
abolished?--Did Columbus deserve more praise than
Washington?--Is art more pleasing to the eye than nature?--have
each had their turn in their regular rotation, and that the
question for to-night is--as you might suppose--Has the Indian
suffered greater wrongs at the hands of the White man than the
Negro? As I have a distinct recollection of having thoroughly
investigated and zealously declaimed on each of the above topics
in days lang syne, I shall excuse myself from attendance this
evening, on the ground that I am already extensively informed on
the subject in hand, and my mind is fully made up. But I hereby
acknowledge my indebtedness to the good fellow who told me the
object of the ringing of the bell--for he has unconsciously
started up some of the most amusing recollections of my life.
Sitting here alone in my room, I have just taken a hearty laugh
over a circumstance that had well-nigh given me the slip. The
question was the same Negro-Indian-White-man affair. One of the
orators, having, a long time previously, seen a picture in an
old 'jography' of some Indians making a hubbub on board certain
vessels, and reading under it, _Destruction of Tea in Boston
Harbor_, brought up the circumstance, and insisting with great
earnestness that the white man had received burning wrongs at
the hands of the Indian, and that the latter had _no reason at
all to complain_, dwelt with great emphasis on the ruthless
destruction of the white man's tea in Boston Harbor by the
latter, in proof of his 'point.'

I remember also a debating society in the little village of
R----, which numbered some really very worthy and intelligent
members, but of course included some that were otherwise, among
whom was a silly young fellow, who had mistaken his proper
calling--(he should have been a wood-chopper), and was suffering
under an attack _at_ medicine. The question for debate on one
occasion was--Is conscience an infallible guide? Being expected
to take part in the discussion, he was bent on thorough
preparation, and ransacked his preceptor's professional
library--(almost as poor a place as a lawyer's) for a work on
_conscience_. He found abundance of matter, however, for a
lengthy chapter on the subject, as he supposed, occurring in
several of the dusty octavos, and he thumbed the leaves with
most patient assiduity. He had misspelled the word however, and
was reading all the while on _consciousness_--a subject which
would very naturally occur in some departments of medicine. But
it was all one to him, he didn't see the difference, and the
ridiculous display he made to us of his 'cramming' on
consciousness can be better imagined than described.

Years after found me inside college walls--but colleges in the
West, be it remembered, sometimes include preparatory
departments, into which, by the courtesy of the teachers, many
young men are admitted who would hardly make a respectable
figure in the poorest country school, but who by dint of honest
toil finally do themselves great credit.

I 'happened in' on a number of such, one evening, whose
affinities had drawn them together with a view to forming a
debating society, to be made exclusively of their own kind. I
listened with much interest and pleasure to the preliminaries of
organization, and smiled, when they were about to 'choose a
question,' to see them bring out the same old coaches mentioned
in the beginning of this article; when one of their number
arose, evidently dissatisfied with the old beaten track, and
seemed bent on opening a new vein. He was a good, honest,
patient fellow, but his weakness in expressing himself was,
that, although his delivery was very slow, he didn't know how he
was going to end his sentences when he began them. 'Mr.
President,' said he, 'how would this do? Suppose a punkin seed
sprouts in one man's garden, and the vine grows through the
fence, and bears a punkin on another man's ground--now--(a long
pause)--the question is--whose punkin--_does it belong to?_' The
poor fellow subsided, as might be supposed, amid a roar of
voices and a crash of boots.

There is a legal axiom which would settle the pumpkin-vine query--that of _cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum_--'ownership in the soil confers possession of everything even as high as heaven.' Our friends in Dixie seem determined to prove that they have also fee simple in their soil downwards as far as the other place, and by the last advices were digging their own graves to an extent which will soon bring them to the utmost limit of their property!

* * * * *

Does the reader remember Poor Pillicoddy, and the mariner who was ever expected to turn up again? Not less eccentric, as it seems to us, is the re-apparition chronicled in the following story by a friend:--

TURNING UP AGAIN!

'You were all through that Mexican war, and out with Walker in
Niggerawger.--Well, what do you think 'bout Niggerawger? Kind of
a cuss'd 'skeeter hole, ain't it?'

'Tain't so much 'skeeters as 'tis snaiks, scorpiums and the
like,' answered the gray-moustached corporal. 'It's hot in them
countries as a Dutch oven on a big bake; and going through them
parts, man's got to move purty d----d lively to git ahead of the
yaller fever; it's right onto his tracks the hull time.'

'Did you git that gash over your nose out there?'

'Yes, I got that in a small scrimmage under old GRAY EYES. 'Twas
next day _after a fight_ though, cum to think on it. We'd been
up there and took a small odobe hole called Santa Sumthin', and
had spasificated the poperlashun, when I went to git a gold
cross off an old woman, and she up frying-pan of _frijoles_ and
hit me, so!' Here the corporal aimed a blow with his pipe at the
face of the high private he was talking with;--the latter dodged
it.

'That was a big thing, that fight at Santa Sumthin'; the way we
went over them mud walls, and wiped out the Greasers, was a
cortion. I rac'lect when we was drawed up company front, afore
we made the charge, there was a feller next me in the ranks--I
didn't know him from an old shoe, 'cause he'd ben drafted that
morning into us from another company. Says he,--

'We're going into hair and cats' claws 'fore long, and as I'm
unbeknownst amongst you fellers, I'd like to make a bargain with
you.'

'Go it,' says I; 'I'm on hand for ennything.'

'Well,' says he, 'witchever one of us gits knocked over, the
tother feller 'll look out for him, and if he ain't a goner 'll
haul him out, so the doctor can work onto him.'

'Good,' says I, 'you may count me in there; mind you look after
ME!'

The fight began, and when we charged, the fust thing I knowed
the feller next me, wot made the bargain, he went head over
heels backwards; and to tell the honest trooth, I was just that
powerful egsited I never minded him a smite, but went right
ahead after plunder and the Greasers, over mud walls and along
alleys, till I got, bang in, where I found something worth
fighting about it. 'Bout dusk, when we was all purty full of
_agwadenty_, they sent us out to bury our fellers as was killed
in the scrimmage; and as we hadn't much time to spare, we didn't
dig a hole more'n a foot or two deep, and put all our fellers
in, in a hurry. Next morning airly, as I was just coming out of
a church where I'd ben surveyin' some candle-stix with a
jack-knife to see ef they were silver, [witch they were
not,--hang em!]--as I was coming out of the church I felt a
feller punch me in the back--so I turned round to hit him back,
when I see the feller, as had stood by me in the ranks the day
before, all covered over with dirt, and mad as a ringtail
hornet.

'Hello!' said I.

'Hello! yourself,' said he. 'I want ter know what yer went and
berried me for, afore I was killed for?'

I never was so put to for a answer afore in all my life, 'cause
I wanted to spasificate the feller, so I kind of hemmed, and
says I--'Hm! the fact was, this dirty little hole of a town was
_rayther_ crowded last night, and I--just to please you, yer
know--I lodged you out there; but I swear I was this minute
going out there to dig you up for breakfuss!'

'If that's so,' said he, 'we won't say no more 'bout it; but the
next time you do it, don't put a feller in so deep; for I had a
oncommon hard scratch turning up again!'

H.P.L.

We are indebted to the same writer for the following Oriental market-picture--we might say scene in a proverb:

PROVERBIALLY WISE.

ACHMET sat in the bazaar, calmly smoking: he had said to himself
in the early morning,--'When I shall have made a hundred
piastres I will shut up shop for the day, and go home and take
it easy, _al'hamdu lillah_!' Now a hundred piastres in the land
of the faithful, where the sand is and the palms grow, is equal
to a dollar in the land of Jonathan: and the expression he
concluded his sentence with is equivalent to--Praise be to
Allah!

Along came a blind fakir begging; then ACHMET gave him five
paras, although his charity was unseen; neither did he want it
to be seen, for he said to himself,--

'Do good and throw it into the sea--if the fishes don't know it,
God will.'

And as he handed the poor blind fakir the small coin, he said to
him, in a soothing voice,--

'_Fa'keer_' (which in the Arabic means poor fellow), 'the nest
of a blind bird is made by Allah.'

Then along came SULIMAN BEY, who was high in office in the land
of Egypt, and was wealthy, and powerful, and very much hated and
feared. And ACHMET bowed down before him, and performed
obeisance in the manner of the Turks, touching his own hand to
his lips, his breast, his head:--and the SULIMAN BEY went
proudly on. Then ACHMET smiled, and YUSEF, who had a stall in
the bazaar opposite to him, winked to ACHMET, saying, in a low
voice,--

'Kiss ardently the hands which you can not cut off:'--

and they smiled grimly one unto the other.

'Did you hear the music in the Esbekieh garden yesterday?' asked
YUSEF of ACHMET. 'I think it was horrible.'

'It cost nothing to hear it,' quoth ACHMET: 'there was no charge
made.'

'_Aio_! true,' answered YUSEF; 'but there were too many drums; I
wouldn't have one if I were Pacha.'

'Welcome even pitch, if it is gratis.'

'Wanting to make the eyebrows right, pull out the eyes,' said
ACHMET, contentedly. 'And as for your disliking the music,--A
cucumber being given to a poor man, he did not accept it because
it was crooked!'--'Come, let us shut up shop and go to the
mosque. It is fated that we sell no goods to-day. _Wajadna
bira'hmat allah ra'hah_--By the grace of Allah we have found
repose!'

* * * * *

Our correspondent gives us a pun in our last number over again. It is none the worse, however, for its new coat, as set forth in

GETTING AHEAD OF TIME.

'Well now, I declare, this is too bad. Here it is five minutes
past ten and BUDDEN ain't here. Did anybody ever know that man
to keep an engagement?'

'Yes,' replied the Doctor to the Squire, 'I knew him to keep
one.'

'Let it out,' said the Squire.

'An engagement to get married.'

'Hm!' replied the Squire, looking over his spectacles with the
air of one who had been deceived. At this moment JERRY BUDDEN, a
jolly-looking, fat, middle-aged man entered the office quietly
and coolly, having all the air of one who arrived half an hour
before the appointed time of meeting.

'Got ahead of time this morning, any way,' said Jerry.

'The devil you did!' spoke the Squire, testily; 'you are seven
minutes behind time this morning; you would be behindhand
to-morrow and next day, and so on as long as you live. Confound
it, Jerry, you make me mad with your laziness and coolness.
Ahead of time! why look at that watch!'--Here the Squire,
pulling out a plethoric-looking, smooth gold watch, about the
size of a bran biscuit, held it affectionately in the palm of
his right hand. 'Look at _that_ watch!'

'Nice watch,' said Jerry, 'very nice watch. The best of watches
will sometimes get out of order though. How long since you had
it cleaned?'

The Squire looked indignant, and broke out, 'I've carried that
watch more'n thirty year; I have it cleaned regularly, and it is
always right to a minute, always! It's _you_ that want
regulating.'

'Can't help it,' spoke Jerry; 'I got ahead of time this
morning.'

'Bet you a hat on it,' said the Squire.

'Done!' answered Jerry. And, putting his hand in his pocket, he
deliberately produced the torn page of an old almanac, and,
pointing to part of an engraving of the man with an hour-glass,
said to the Squire,--

'Hain't I got a Head of Time--this morning?'

Jerry now wears a new hat!

* * * * *

'What poor slaves are the American people!' says the Times' own RUSSELL. 'They may abjure kings and princes, but they are ruled by hotel-keepers and waiters.' The following translation from the Persian shows, however, that a man may be a king or a prince and a hotel-keeper at the same time.

A ROYAL HOTEL-KEEPER.

FROM THE PERSIAN. BY HENRY P. LELAND.

IBRAM BEN ADHAM at his palace gate,
Sits, while in line his pages round him wait;
When a poor dervish, staff and sack in hand,
Straight would have entered IBRAM'S palace grand.
'Old man,' the pages asked, 'where goest thou now?'
'In that hotel,' he answered, with a bow.
The pages said,--'Ha! dare you call hotel
A palace, where the King of Balkh doth dwell?'
IBRAM the King next to the dervish spoke:
'My palace a hotel? Pray, where's the joke?'
'Who,' asked the dervish, 'owned this palace first?'
'My grandsire,' IBRAM said, while wrath he nursed.
'Who was the next proprietor?' please say.
'My father:' thus the king replied straightway.
'Who hired it then upon your father's death?'
'I did,' King IBRAM answered, out of breath.
'When you shall die, who shall within it dwell?'
'My son,' the King replied. 'Why ask'st thou? Tell!'
'IBRAM!' then spoke the dervish to him straight,
'I'll answer thee, nor longer make thee wait.
The place where travelers come, and go as well,
Is, really, not a palace, but--hotel!'

Yea, friends; and, as another genial poet has discovered, life itself is but a hostelrie or tavern, where some get the highest rooms, while others, of greater social weight, gravitate downwards into the first story, sinking like gold to the bottom of the hotel pan,--that is O.W. HOLMES', his idea, reader, not ours. _Apropos_ of HOLMES and kings--his thousands of reader friends have ere this seen with pleasure that the Emperor of all the French was not unmindful of one of his brother-potentates,--in the world of song,--when he paid OLIVER WENDELL the courteous compliment which has of late gone the rounds, and which conferred as much honor on the giver as the taker thereof.

* * * * *

The Spring poems have begun. _Vide licet_.

TO AN EARLY BIRD.

In homely phrase we oft are told
'Tis early birds that catch the worms;
But certainly that Spring bird there
Don't half believe the aforesaid terms.

He's sorry that he hither flew,
In hopes a forward March to find,
And towards warm climates, whence he came,
To backward march is sore inclined.

Lured by one ray of sunlight, he
Flew northward to our land of snow;
And now, with frozen toes, he stands
On frozen earth:--the worms--below!