any how, though perhaps no better than anybody's
else. Thus--from a daily paper:

"The Hon. MONTGOMERY BLAIR recently said in a private
conversation, that the present war would probably end in
victory for the Prussians, and the overthrow of Napoleon."

Supposing he did? I heard JOHN SMITH say the same thing in an eating
saloon over a month ago, and out of twenty gentlemen present, four were
reporters, but they didn't take out their note books in breathless haste
and put down the Hon. JOHN SMITH'S opinion, how Mr. SMITH looked when he
said it, and if he said it as though he really meant it, and in a manner
that thrilled his listeners.

But JOHN hasn't any popularity, you see, and the Hon. MONTGOMERY
has--though it may be a little mildewed.

Soon after the war, I wrote an article on the Alabama Claims. It was a
masterly effort, and cost me a month's salary to get it inserted in a
popular magazine. If that article had proved a success, I could easily
have gulled the public all my life on the popularity thus achieved.

But I made a wretched mistake to start with. Instead of heading it "The
Alabama Claims," "By CHARLES SUMNER," or "HORACE GREELEY." I said "By
MOSE SKINNER."

I will not dwell on the result. Suffice it to say that I soon after
retired from literature, a changed being, utterly devoid of hope.

MORAL SUASION.

A friend of mine, an eminent New York philanthropist, relates the
following interview with a condemned criminal. The crime for which this
wretched man was hung is still fresh in our memories. One morning at
breakfast his tripe didn't suit him, and he immediately brained his wife
and children and set the house on fire, varying the monotony of the
scene by pitching his mother-in-law down the well, having previously,
with great consideration, touched her heart with a cheese knife.

I will now quote my friends' own words:

"He was pronounced a hard case, manifesting no sorrow for his act, and
utterly indifferent to his approaching doom. A score of good people had
visited him with the kindest intentions, but without making the smallest
impression upon him.

"Without boasting, I wish to say that I knew I could touch this man's
heart. I saw a play once in which the most blood-thirsty and brutal
ruffian that ever existed was melted to tears at the mention of his
mother's name, and childhood's happy hours, and everybody knows that
what happens on the stage happens just the same in real life