farm, you
are allowed to pay high prices for SMITH'S coal or iron, but you expect
no Protection, and you've a sure thing of getting what you expect.

Of course you don't imagine that I shall explain the details of this
profound subject. There are only two men in this country who think they
can do that, and each one of those says that the other is an idiot. As a
rule, figures can't lie; but look out for the exceptions when you run
across the subject of Protection. The very same figures have an ugly way
of proving both sides of a question. You run down a fact, and think
you've got it, but, before you know it, it has slipped, like the "little
joker," over to the other side.

Personally, I am a Protectionist. Formerly I indulged in that monstrous
absurdity, Free Trade, but then I was an importer; now, being a
manufacturer, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I am of the
straitest sect a Protectionist. You can't give me too much of it. Of
course I can't see why pig-iron should be protected, and pigs not. I
think every native production should be cared for, and that there should
be an excessively high tariff on foreign food. In that case poor REVERDY
JOHNSON would have been compelled to have passed a Lenten season at
Halifax, until he had eradicated from his system the rich English
dinners, before he could have entered this favored land. And
MOTLEY--bless me, he has eaten so much that I don't believe he could get
it out of his body if he fasted for the remainder of his natural life.

I am informed, however, that Protection does us one injury. All the
_World_ says that there is a Parsee in our land, who is loaded with
rupees, but who is unable to spend them here because of our protective
system, and what all the _World_ says, you know, must be true. However,
there are 40,000,000 of us, and, if Congress will make all Americans buy
my patent door-knobs, the Parsee can go to--Hindostan.

I don't think any thing more can be said about Protection. Any body who
doesn't understand it now had better go to Washington, and listen to the
debate on scrap-iron. That will sharpen his wits. Pig-iron, of course,
is interesting, but then that's a light and airy subject. Hear the
debate on scrap-iron, by all means.

LOT.

* * * * *

A LITERARY VAMPIRE.

No greater mistake was ever made than the supposition that PUNCHINELLO
is to be assailed with impunity by rival publications. It is well known
that