paid by an
especial tax on these mines, thus"--

"Killing the goose which lays the golden egg," broke in an aged
Treasury Clerk standing near, whose countenance possessed all the
oppressive respectability that large spectacles and a pimple on the
nose can possibly bestow.

The Venerable Gammon was hereupon seized with such a violent fit of
coughing that farther argument was impracticable; and it is not decided
to this day whether it would be in keeping with the eternal fitness of
things to tax the miners to pay the majors.

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER CI.

EXPLAINING THE WELL-MEANT DUPLICITY OF THE JOURNALS OF THE
OPPOSITION; AFFORDING ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF THE IRREPRESSIBLE
CONSERVATIVE SENTIMENT; AND SHOWING HOW THANKSGIVING DAY WAS KEPT
BY THE MACKERELS.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 10th, 1864.

Thanksgiving Day, my boy, is an able-bodied national festival which has
dwelt unctuously in all my less spiritual annual reminiscences, since
that poetical and beautiful time of life when the touching innocence of
childhood tempted me to surreptitiously pick a chicken-leg while my
good grandfather was asking a blessing; and to receive therefor that
wholesome box of the ears, which not unfrequently imparts a temporary
and excessive warmth to the brain of virtuous boyhood. 'Tis sweet to
remember that old-fashioned Thanksgiving Eve, my boy, when the
venerable and widowed Mrs. McShane, our cook, would renew her annual
custom of inveigling us children into the kitchen on pretence of
admiring our new shoes; and then proceed, by divers artful and
melancholy phrases, to darken our little souls with a heart-sickening
conviction of her utter failure to procure, in her recent trip to
market, that long-anticipated Turkey! 'Tis pleasant to recollect how
entirely we were cast down thereat, and how rigidly we refrained from
so much as a single glance toward the old "Dresser," whereon stood the
well-known market-basket of Mrs. McShane, with the plump legs of the
choicest of gobblers protruding very obviously therefrom! 'Tis joyous
to recall how we stared mercilessly at every possible thing in the
kitchen except that "Dresser;" and how desolately we received certain
sadly-philosophical remarks from Mrs. McShane, as to the unspeakable
admiration assuredly merited by those "rale good childers," who could,
for one Thanksgiving Day, endure starvation without tears.

The little deception was most tenderly and kindly meant,