Would not enterprise be at once directed to the
erection of the houses, factories, ships, steamers, locomotives, and
railways which our growth demands? Would not the community immediately
seek to renew their wardrobes and furniture, now worn out or exhausted
by the war? Our mutual friend Mr. Smith might then meet his friend the
coal-merchant with a smile, and cheer himself with his open fireplace,
putting away his stifling but economic stove; he might postpone his
retirement from the three-story brick to the wooden two-story in the
suburbs, eat his roast beef again on Sunday, and regale himself with
black coffee after dinner, without a thought of the slow but sagacious
Dutchman, who is transferring at his expense a national debt of
$800,000,000 from the sea-girt dikes of little Holland to the populous
and fertile isles and spice groves and coffee plantations of Sumatra and
Java.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] Report of the United States Revenue Commission to the Secretary of
the Treasury, January 29th, 1866.

[G] The annual product of lumber in Maine is rated at 1,100,000,000
feet, worth $20,000,000. By the census of 1860, the lumber produced by
all the States was valued at $95,000,000. The consumption was at least
$100,000,000, or five times the amount furnished by Maine. Canada has
287,000 square miles of pine forest on the waters of the St. Lawrence.

MEPHISTOPHELEAN.

You have been, I presume, Madam, among the crowds of young and old, to
the musical revival of the great wonder-work of the last century. You
have heard the Frenchman's musical expression of the German poet's
thought, uttered by the motley assemblage of nationalities which
constitutes an opera troupe in these latter days. You have seen the
learned Dr. Faustus's wig and gown whisked off behind his easy chair,
and the rejuvenated Doctor emerge from his antiquated apparel as fresh
and sprightly as Harlequin himself, to make love in Do-di-pettos. You
have seen the blonde young Gretchen, beauteous and pure at her
spinning-wheel, gay and frolicsome before that box looking-glass and
that kitchen table,--have heard her tender vows of affection and her
passionate outbursts of despair. You have heard the timid Siebel warble
out his adolescent longings for the gentle maid in the very scantiest of
tunics, as becomes the fair proportions of the stage girl-boy. You have
seen the respectable old Martha faint at the news of her husband's
death, and forthwith engage in