ce, and the defendant was found guilty of six dollars'
damages, and ordered to treat the Court.

"Now," says the Honest Abe, with a winning smile, "I am far from
inferring, neighbor, that you have never been intoxicated; but it seems
to me, that when you say the Proclamation has had no effect at all, it
proves you can't be speaking soberly."

The profound Democratic chap came away, my boy, with a singing in his
head, and has been so tremendously confused ever since, that he asked
me this morning at Willard's, if I thought, that what we of war see is
anything like what Thaddeus of Warsaw.

On Monday, while I was on my way to the Mackerel camp, before Paris, to
be present at the usual Christmas song-singing and story-telling in the
tent of Captain Villiam Brown, I met an affable young chap, driving a
wagon, in which were some thousands of what appeared to be
newly-printed circulars. I knew that the young chap came from a large
printing-office in the lower part of the city, and says I:

"Tell me, my young Phaeton, what have we here?"

The affable young chap closed one eye waggishly at a handy young woman
who was cleaning the upper windows of a house near by, and says he:

"These here, are five thousand copies of a blank form, just printed
down at our place for the State Department. And I should think," says
the affable young chap, taking a dash at a small boy who had just "cut
behind" his cart--"I should think that pile ought to last a month, at
least, though the last one didn't."

I made bold to examine a copy of the blank form in question, my boy,
and found it to read as follows:

"CITY OF WASHINGTON, U.S.A., }
DEPARTMENT OF STATE. }

"_Dear Sir_:

"_Permit me to beg you will inform the Government of ----, so
admirably represented by you, that the Government of the United
States entirely disapproves the action of the Commander of the
----, in the matter of ---- ----, and will make whatever reparation
may be deemed adequate therefor by the Government of ----._

"_With the profoundest respect, I am your Excellency's most
obedient humble servant_, ---- ----.

"HIS EXCELLENCY ---- ----.

MINISTER FROM ----."

As I read this document, I thought to myself: Verily my distracted
country's Secretary of State wishes to save as much writing as
possible; and who knows but that he is like one of our own frontier
riflemen, who kneels only that he may take t