the American Beaver, who didn't care a pinch of
snuff about color, (black is not a color, you know,) but who went in for
faithful and persistent work. One beautiful Twelfth of July, the Lily
arose very early in the morning, and, shaking out her orange leaves,
defied the Shamrock to "come on." The Shamrock came on. There was a
vegetable howl, and clash, and clangor in the air, and the Lily, having
knocked off several of the Shamrocks' greenest leaves, went to its
friend, the American Beaver, for comfort and support. But the American
Beaver, instead of countenancing the Lily, said: "Look here, Lily, I
guess you are about the greatest fool I ever _did_ see, except, perhaps,
the Shamrock. As long as you two stick to your work, instead of sticking
out your colors and sticking your knives into each other, I am very glad
to have you for neighbors, but now that you have shown yourselves to be
jack-asses instead of vegetables, I would not give an American Beaver
dam for the two of you."

* * * * *

CONDENSED CONGRESS.

SENATE.

A pleasant philosopher tells us that blessings brighten as they take
their flight. The flight of Congress may be regarded as a blessing. But
Congressmen do not brighten. PUNCHINELLO listens in vain for the swan
song of SUMNER, and looks longingly, without being gratified by the
spectacle of the oratorical funeral pyre of NYE. Almost the only gleam
of humor he discerns in his weekly wading through the watery and windy
wastes of the Congressional Globe is a comic coruscation by Mr. CAMERON.

Mr. McCREERY had had the abominable impudence to introduce
a bill relieving the disabilities of a few friends of his in Kentucky.
Mr. CAMERON objected upon the ground that one of these persons was named
SMITH, and used to be a New York Street Commissioner. Any man who had
been a New York Street Commissioner ought to be hanged as soon as any
decent pretext could be found for hanging him. (Murmurs of approbation
from the New York reporters.) Still this was not his main objection to
SMITH. The SMITH family had furnished more aid and comfort to the rebel
army than any other family in the South. No SMITH should, with his
consent, be permitted to participate in the conduct of a Government
which so many SMITHS had conspired to overthrow. Moreover, this was an
incorrigible SMITH. It was an undisputed fact that SMITH had given up a
lucrative office to follow his political convictions. Such a m