can history its first creation of knighthood,
under the title of Sir Render. The Sword of '76 would have refused the
accolade; but that of '63 is of a milder temper.

On Wednesday, as I strolled lazily along the shore of Awlkuyet River,
listlessly tossing pebbles into the placid stream, and paying no
attention to any visible object save the severed branches of trees and
broken fragments of artillery-wheels which occasionally barred my
progress, a Mackerel picket suddenly touched me on the shoulder, and
says he, in a whisper,--

"You mustn't be chucking stones into that air water, or you'll wake up
the Captain which is asleep."

I glanced askance at him from under my vizor, and says I, "What
Captain, my trooper?"

"Why," says he, "the Captain of the Blockade, over yonder."

I looked in the direction indicated by his finger, my boy, and beheld
the sloop-of-war Morpheus at anchor near a small inlet leading to the
river from the up-country.

"Why, my Union champion," says I, wonderingly, "I should like to know
at what time the Captain makes it a practice to retire?"

"Ah!" says the Mackerel picket, leaning upon his musket, and looking
dreamily over the water, "he's all the time retiring--he's been put
upon the 'Retired' list."

Here was a man, my boy, an American, like you or me, brought up in a
country where education is free to all, and yet he had no clearer idea
of the functions of our Naval Retiring Board than such as happened to
be suggested to his instinct by what he could see of the national
blockade service!

Yours, amazedly,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER XCVII.

INTRODUCING THE GREAT MORAL EXHIBITION OF THE "EFFIGYNIA," GLANCING
AT A FOURTH NEW MACKEREL GENERAL, AND SHOWING HOW THE PRESIDENT'S
DRAFT ON ACCOMAC WAS PROTESTED AT SIGHT.

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10th, 1863.

As I wax numerous in exciting years, my boy, and observe more and more
of the long-headed and strategic manner in which our wealthy but
distracted country prosecutes the Restoration of the Union, the
stronger grows my belief that, inasmuch as the way of the transgressor
is hard, the way of the well-doer is inexpressibly "soft." Each day of
the present national crisis brings fresh evidence of the exceedingly
soft character of the policy by which our upright government would turn
to nought the wrathful devices of its enemies, and further demonstrates
the vast difference existing between everything upright and anythin