t, you know,'--for, by a strange superstition, it is
assumed that when the cork is correct the wine is not less so; a theory
which is exploded by a revelation in the following by no means
Bacchanalian lyric:--

BOGUS CHAMPAGNE.

Fill up your glass with turnip-juice,
And let us swindled be;
Except in England's cloudy clime
Such trash you may not see.
With marble-dust and vitriol,
'Twill sparkle bright and foam,--
Who will not pledge me in a cup
Of champagne--made at home?

We do not heed the label fair
That's stuck upon the glass;
It's counterfeit,--an ugly cheat,
That takes in many an ass.
The cork is branded right, and we
Know that it once corked wine;
They give the hotel-waiters tin
To save the genuine!

Think of this when you next 'wish you had given the price of that last
bottle of champagne to the Tract Society,' as _Cecil Dreeme_ hath it.

* * * * *

One of the best repartees on record is that of WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
who, having been reproached with inconsistency for having taken from his
journal the old motto, 'The Constitution is a league with Death and a
covenant with Hell,' replied that 'when he hoisted that motto, he had no
idea _that either death or hell intended to secede_. Circumstances alter
cases, and definitions modify both. Slavery, it now appears, is death,
as every political economist claims, while the South is--the other
place.

* * * * *

The following is from one who was not 'well off for soap:'--

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

It was my fortune, some time ago, while traveling through the New
England States, to lose my trunk, on my way to a very thriving
manufacturing village. Arrived at the principal hotel a few
minutes before the dinner hour, I was shown up to my room, every
article of furniture in which sparkled with newness,--its carpet
shining like fireworks, curtains painfully stiff, and the air
redolent of novelty.

One article of furniture, which I took to be a cottage piano or
melodeon, turned out, on raising the lid, to be a wash-stand,
amply munitioned with water, towels, and a new piece of soap.
Having noticed that the article had never been used, and my own
being lost with my trunk, I determined to put it to its legitimate
destination.

I commenced rubbing it between my hands, immersing it in water,