th
my father to attend some kind of an election. One of the neighbors,
James Larkins, was there.

"Larkins was a great hand to brag on anything he owned. This time it was
his horse. He stepped up before 'Abe,' who was in a crowd, and commenced
talking to him, boasting all the while of his animal.

"'I have got the best horse in the country,' he shouted to his young
listener. 'I ran him nine miles in exactly three minutes, and he never
fetched a long breath.'

"'I presume,' said 'Abe,' rather dryly, 'he fetched a good many short
ones, though.'"

LINCOLN LUGS THE OLD MAN.

On May 3rd, 1862, "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper" printed this
cartoon, over the title of "Sandbag Lincoln and the Old Man of the Sea,
Secretary of the Navy Welles." It was intended to demonstrate that the
head of the Navy Department was incompetent to manage the affairs of the
Navy; also that the Navy was not doing as good work as it might.

When this cartoon was published, the United States Navy had cleared and
had under control the Mississippi River as far south as Memphis;
had blockaded all the cotton ports of the South; had assisted in the
reduction of a number of Confederate forts; had aided Grant at Fort
Donelson and the battle of Shiloh; the Monitor had whipped the ironclad
terror, Merrimac (the Confederates called her the Virginia); Admiral
Farragut's fleet had compelled the surrender of the city of New Orleans,
the great forts which had defended it, and the Federal Government
obtained control of the lower Mississippi.

"The Old Man of the Sea" was therefore, not a drag or a weight upon
President Lincoln, and the Navy was not so far behind in making a good
record as the picture would have the people of the world believe. It was
not long after the Monitor's victory that the United States Navy was
the finest that ever plowed the seas. The building of the Monitor also
revolutionized naval warfare.

McCLELLAN WAS "INTRENCHING."

About a week after the Chicago Convention, a gentleman from New York
called upon the President, in company with the Assistant Secretary of
War, Mr. Dana.

In the course of conversation, the gentleman said: "What do you think,
Mr. President, is the reason General McClellan does not reply to the
letter from the Chicago Convention?"

"Oh!" replied Mr. Lincoln, with a characteristic twinkle of the eye, "he
is intrenching!"

MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT, ANYWAY.

From the day of his nominat