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Mr. N. In that case I shall lose on my fusees, and gain on my banker's book. Ha! ha!

Mrs. N. You are easily pleased.

Mr. N. Then you must reproach yourself with not oftener trying what is so easy. Come, I was only joking.

Mrs. N. I am glad you mention it. I did not see the joke. Such things are not much in your way.

Mr. N. (icily). If you have done with the paper, I shall be obliged by it.

Mrs. N. There it is. I see old Mr. Bloker is gone at last. She will be well off, wont she?

Mr. N. What, John Bloker! Dear me, I am shocked.

Mrs. N. Well, I don't know what about. It must be a happy release for himself and his friends. Mrs. Bloker will marry again,

Mr. N. (furious). A course of novels I dare say. makes us critical as well as polite.

Mrs. N. Oh, there! I didn't say it. I'm sorry I spoke. I know that you are the wit of the "Flips" Club, only don't bring your wit to me, bucause I am unfortunately too stupid to be a good judge of that article.

Mr. N. Or of any other-potted beef included. This is the worst I ever ate.

Mrs. N. Here is the paper dear (takes it in at the window). Perhaps somebody else's ideas may be more amusing than your own. Just let me see who is married.

Mr. N. Inhuman satisfaction!

Mrs. N. (scorning to notice such used-up rubbish, and reading). Ah! Helen Sanderson's wedding at last! Alfred has got his step, then. What a happy wife she will be. Mr. N. Yes, and will deserve her happiness. I do not know any one with such a sweet temper. She is always cheerful; always tries to make the pleasantest answer that can be made, and looks happiest when she has done any one a kind turn.

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Mr. N. Why, she's as old as you are. Marry again, indeed! However, as there's no saying what folly a woman may commit, I make no doubt that John Bloker has taken care to fortify her weak resolution by some anti-matrimonial suggestions in his will. Goose as she may be, she is hardly goose enough to suppose that anybody would think of her except in connection with his savings. What do you think? (The above charming speech delivered slowly, and as matter long since pondered.)

Mrs. N. (with a curious effort). Perhaps you are right, Henry. Indeed, I have no doubt that you are. I spoke hastily when I said—my dear Henry! Your meerschaum is nearly out. I'll get you a match. But wont you come and smoke on the beach?— I don't mean about the smell in the curtains, dear, because I rather like that,-it seems so domestic-but it is so much pleasanter to have you with me, and you can read your Times just as well in the shade of the bathing machines. Come, I wont be a minute putting on my hat, and as we go down, we'll

Mrs. N. And she marries a man who can appreciate those qualities, and who is worth pleasing. And how handsome Alfred Crow-call at Pickleton and Larder's for a moment, hurst is. He looks like a gentleman.

Mr. N. Yes, it is a very good imitation. Mrs. N. There, now, that is just like you. So spiteful. As if anybody complained of you for being only five feet four, and being obliged to wear a wig. Do allow good looks to other persons.

as I told them to get something which I think you'll like for breakfast-you don't half take care of yourself, and I believe I am wrong in leaving you to yourself so much, only you always afraid to interfere. There-now you are so decided and imperious, dear, that I am have a capital fire, and I wont be a minute.

[Exit.

Mr. N. (smiling to himself). I believe that she cares about me a great deal, and that the thought of Mrs. Bloker's bereavement touched her feelings. She's not a bad sort of woman, though nothing like Mrs. Naggle

Mr. N. (solemnly). I have told you repeatedly, Mrs. Naggleton, that I am five feet six-not, of course-ha, ha-that it signifies; but it argues a determination to be disrespectful when a person continues to re-ton No. 1. peat what is not truth.

Mrs. N. Well, you shall be six feet if you like, dear. As you say, what does it signify? And your wig's your own hair; and is there any other truth that you would like me to admit, while I am about it?

[Exit to wait at street-door.

Scene in another apartment. MRS. NAGGLE-
TON before the looking-glass.
Mrs. N. If he has! And he is quite ca-
pable of it. As old as I am, indeed! Well,
it's no use talking, but-

Scene closes.

THE FROG IN THE BLOCK OF COAL.-OLD KING COAL. 327

From Punch.

THE FROG IN THE BLOCK OF COAL.

IT is not generally known that the Frog, whose untimely decease the Commissioners of the International Exhibition are now

mourning, continued up to the day of its death to express itself in the Welsh tongue, with a degree of fluency the more extraordinary when we consider the very lengthened period of its incarceration. The public is aware that on its first liberation from the block of coal, it made a communication in Welsh, supposed to relate to the cause of its being so immured, but in consequence of no person present understanding that language, this interesting piece of antediluvian history was lost, for since then the Frog exhibited an evident repugnance to touch upon the topic, which may, we therefore suppose, have been a tender one. As soon as it became known that the language it spoke was Welsh, an interpreter, one David ap Morgan ap Rees, gratuitously offered his services, and it is from him that we have learnt the following interesting particulars.

David ap Rees informs us that the Frog from the first displayed a great desire to ascertain the public opinion concerning itself, and on hearing that some sceptics deemed it an imposture, it swelled visibly, foamed at the mouth, and exclaimed in a most excited state, "cwmddrwellydd llanwrst y dwyhdeswrt," which, our informant tells us, is a malediction of most fearful import. A few days later it introduced the subject again, and on Rees telling it that public opinion had changed, and now inclined to consider it the identical Frog who was swallowed up by the lily-white duck, it appeared very uneasy, but assuming an air of nonchalance, it said the report was a canard. Rees judging from the agitation of the Frog when it heard of its brother's tragical end, and the concern and dejection depicted on its countenance, as it was told the nature of his ill-fated journey, says he considers the Frog had been crossed in love, and that that had something to do with the abnormal position in which it was found. This, however, is merely a conjecture.

The Frog was visited during its short sojourn in the International Exhibition by several distinguished men of science, among others, by Sir Roderick Murchison, who, after a careful inspection of the block of coal, and its late tenant, went away as much a disbeliever as he came, for he was heard

to exclaim, with great emphasis, "Blue lias," alluding, we suppose, in a somewhat hasty manner to the exhibitors of the Frog and Coal. Not so Mr. Max Muller, who held a lengthened conversation with the Frog, and pronounced it to be of the Aryan family, and a disciple of Zoroaster.

About a week before its death, Mr. Buckland, the naturalist, hearing that it was ailing, sent a messenger to inquire whether, in the event of its decease, it would wish to be stuffed, or preserved in spirits; offering in Frog returned no answer; but became from either case to perform the operation. The that period very nervous and hypochondriacal, took to feeling its pulse, changed color when a Frenchman passed, and showed every sign of a confirmed croaker; and shortly after, to the deep regret of Her Majesty's Commissioners and the public generally, it breathed its last.

OLD KING COAL.

"On, who is this toad in a hole,

With face so expressively dark,
Who spends all his life in a coal,
And only comes out for a lark?
"It's clear he was famous of yore,

For his quarters are vert piqué noir,
His blood is the sangre azul;
And his arms hoppant à la Grenouille!
From Grub Street to Bridgewater Place
This Opéra Comique's all the go;
Where Buckland does alto and bass,

"

And Brown, Jones, and Scroggins Buffo.
Then what awe must each bosom o'erspread
As we gaze on that petrified bark;
On the bust of this quaint figure-head

That has yachted with Noah in the ark:
When we think that these somnolent eyes

With morning primeval awoke,-
That this solo (though sweet for its size)
Preluded Lab'rinthodon's croak!
Come Mammoth and Mastodon back,
Iguanodon, Suarian grim-
You may rattle your bones till they crack,
But you can't hold a candle to him:
Trap, oölite, granite, and gneiss-

Here's a stratum will give you a hint ;
Azoics, you're shelved in a trice,

Sand, lias, stalactite, and flint.
Hence, Ammonites! yield to your fate-
You are gravelled for many a year;-
Quartz, silica, porph'ry, and slate,

Walk your chalks! you've no chance with what's here.

For there's nothing in bone or in shell

So ancient the savants can show;
As the Restes of this black little swell-

As the Case of poor Johnny Crapaud! *The Living Age supposes this to be the very old French pronunciation.

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To the Editor of the Anti-Slavery Advocate :— MY DEAR SIR: I have read the article in the Leicestershire Mercury, and freely acknowledge the fair and truthful spirit in which it is written; nevertheless, it appears to me to be open, both in its reasoning and conclusions, to grave exception.

The writer represents the estrangement between the North and Great Britain as occasioned exclusively by Northern faults and shortcomings. The people of this country were, he tells us, originally favorable to the North, and desired its success, but they have been alienated by the unreasonable violence and scurrility of the Northern press. I confess I think this account of the matter at once unfair and superficial; unfair, because it leaves wholly out of sight the provocation given on our side; and superficial, because it does not touch the more fundamental causes of the prevailing feeling. I will say a few words on both these points.

It is, perhaps, true that at a very early stage of the business the majority of people in this country, so far as they had formed any opinion on the subject (which was to a very slight extent) were favorable to the North; but, on the other hand, there was always a considerable minority which hailed with eagerness the prospect of a dissolution of the Union; and there was this difference between these two parties, that, while with the former the feeling was languid and found no distinct expression, with the latter it was energetic, and was pronounced with unmistakable emphasis.

The writers of the Times and the Saturday Review, so early as April, 1861, were anything but friendly towards the North, or favorable to a restoration of the Union. I was not then in the habit of seeing the Tory prints, but, judging from the line they have since taken, I cannot doubt that they were still more decidedly anti-Northern. Therefore it is not true, as the writer represents, that the Northern press turned upon us with no other provocation than our declaration of neutrality. Before that declaration had appeared the press of this country had very freely expressed its opinion on the inevita

bleness and desirableness of a separation; and this being so, it was not unnatural that the Northern people should see in the declaration of neutrality (however reasonable that measure was in itself)—a foregone conclusion unfavorable to them-a determination on the part of the Government to sustain the views expressed by the press.

The writer in the Mercury complains that "without waiting to ascertain the grounds of international law" on which the English Government acted, the Northern people raised a cry of bitter anger. This was, doubtless, very unreasonable, but I think some allowance might be made for a nation in the throes of a great civil contest, by those who here in the midst of prosperity and peace criticise its conduct. Extreme sensitiveness to foreign opinion was, under such circumstances, not unnatural, more especially when it was known that this opinion was a main element in the calculation of the rebelswhen the belief of the South that King Cotton would speedily bring English and French assistance had been loudly proclaimed. England, moreover, had been known as par excellence the law-loving and slavery-hating nation; and if it was natural for the South to count upon the support of England on the score of cotton, it was not less natural— though perhaps somewhat more honorable to both parties—that the North should reckon on the good-will of England when engaged in the task of putting down a rebellion of slaveholders.

It should be remembered, also, that the Anti-British feeling of which the Mercury speaks was almost confined, at least in its most violent and scurrilous form, to a few Northern papers which were well known to be pro-slavery and Southern in their politics; a fact, which the leaders of the British press, instead of recognizing and putting clearly before their readers (as the interests of truth required), deliberately and systematically kept out of sight. I would ask those who charge the whole Northern people with unprovoked hostility to Great Britain to reflect on the reception which, less than a twelvemonth before the civil war broke out, had been given to the Prince of Wales by the Northern States-a reception which drew from the Times correspondent the observation that the one sentiment in which Americans were united was that of loyalty to Queen

ESTRANGEMENT BETWEEN U. S. AND GREAT BRITAIN. 329

Victoria. This, however, it was not now convenient to remember. It was resolved that the Union should be broken up; it was necessary for this end that the South should be encouraged and the North brought into odium; and accordingly the papers which were selected and placed before the English people as the true exponents of Northern views were the New York Herald and the Journal of Commerce. Worse than thisputting out of sight the fact that the previous Governments of the United States were composed for a long series of years of Southern men, those who favor the slave party in this country have endeavored (and they have succeeded in their endeavor) to make capital for the South out of the very repugnance and soreness which its own prolonged insolence towards this country had excited, turning against the North that feeling on which it had naturally counted as a bond of amity. For these reasons I think the comments of the Mercury essentially unfair, but I also think them superficial; for does the writer really think that the feeling which prevails in this country on the American contest is sufficiently accounted for by exasperation produced by the sarcasms of the New York Herald and a few more papers? Had I no knowledge whatever of the facts, my opinion of English sense and temper would prevent me for a moment from giving credit to such a notion. If the writer in the Mercury would only read carefully a few of the diatribes in the Times, the Morning Post, the Saturday Review, and, above all, those of the Tory press, I can hardly doubt that he will discover a far deeper chord of sympathy with Southern aims than that which a common hatred could furnish. Mere exasperation at low ribaldry never produced such unflagging energy of captious and trenchant criticism, such a sustained torrent of fierce, unsparing denunciation, as those papers have now for more than a twelvemonth poured forth.

ous (though, as I believe, quite unnecessary) apprehension of the growing might of the gigantic Federation; and, lastly, it is (I fear to no inconsiderable extent) to be found in real liking for the social system of the South, or, if this be too strong a statement, at least in preference for it as an alternative to that of the Northern States; for I am by no means of the opinion of the writer in the Mercury, that the sympathy manifested in this country for the South is free from all taint of pro-slavery feeling. If the writer thinks so, let him look to the speeches and publications of Mr. Beresford Hope, to the articles in the Times (and if he wishes for an example, I would refer him to the leader of Friday last denouncing a policy of emancipation), or, still better, to the work of Mr. Spence, a work which has gone through four editions, and has been received with extraordinary approbation. He will find that Mr. Spence, while, in deference to the conventionalities of English society, he pronounces slavery to be wrong, is yet in perfect accord with the most advanced slaveholders as to the grounds on which slavery is maintained. Mr. Spence, for example, holds that white labor is unsuited to Southern climes, that negroes will not work without compulsion, and that as a race they are so essentially inferior to the whites as to be incapable of taking an equal part with them in the business of civil life.

These are the premises of slaveholders all the world over, and if Mr. Spence does not draw from them the slaveholders' conclusion, it is simply because he lives in Liverpool and not in Charleston. These are the views of Mr. Spence, and these views have been accepted, assimilated, and enforced by the leading organs of public opinion in England, with a few noble exceptions. With these facts before me, I am quite unable to concur in the Mercury's absolute acquittal of the English people of any complicity with pro-slavery feeling. The mass of the people are, I believe, still free from it, but the leaders are not, and it is the leaders which determine our policy.

No, the real cause lies deeper than this. It is to be found in the distaste for American institutions which has always inspired an influential portion of English society, but which Mr. Bright's unmerited abuse of the Eng- Great as is the length to which my letter lish aristocracy, and equally unmerited has run, I must say a few words more. eulogy of the model republic, had, just be-"The great principle that slavery is per se fore the American civil war broke out, an evil," says the Mercury, "is with the brought to the point of positive disgust and North, subordinate to the political compact hatred. It is to be found, again, in the seri- of the Union; " he infers this, and very just

ly, from the conduct of Mr. Lincoln; and nance a slave confederacy till a nation can concludes that "the last claim which the be formed which is prepared to put down North could fairly urge on the sympathies slavery on principles of pure philanthropy? of England-its firm resolve to do justice to | If so, and if this is what abolitionism the colored men and favor emancipation-it means, the Confederacy may look forward has officially removed." Yet the writer com- to a long tenure of power. The truth is, menced his article by saying that "the elec- the world has not yet reached that point at tion of Mr. Lincoln gave genuine satisfac- which devotion to a high principle is to be tion to this country," because we regarded expected from great masses of men. Engthe event as an indication that a limit was lishmen once, no doubt, paid twenty milto be placed on the further extension of lions down to be rid of slavery; that they slavery. Now, if this was a just ground of would incur a like sacrifice now for the same satisfaction (as the writer seems to hold) I object is what I desire to believe; but there think Mr. Lincoln and the North may fairly is a wide difference between twenty millions ask him what has since occurred in the con- sterling, and a war a l'outrance against the duct of the Federal Government to diminish slave power. To this result the North has the satisfaction which was then felt? Is it been led by industrial, social, and political the abolition of slavery in Columbia, or the causes, and why should we not wish it sucmeasure for its exclusion from the territories, cess? Grant that it is not inspired by phior the slave trade treaty with Great Britain?lanthropic motives,-it is doing the work of Has anything occurred to show that the philanthropy: it is fighting the battle of civRepublican party are prepared to sanction ilization. At all events, even though it the extension of slavery, and, if not, why should have no higher end in view than the should England withdraw her sympathies restoration of the national integrity, will from the party to which, on the ground assigned, she gave them? But we are told Mr. Lincoln will not declare that" slavery is per se an evil," and proceed at once to legislate on this basis. But the Republican party never made this declaration, never proposed to interfere with slavery in the existing Slave States. They proposed merely to limit slavery—to put down slavery so far as that could be done consistently with maintaining the existing Constitution; that was their position from the start; and if that was a sufficient reason for giving them our moral support at the presidential election, surely, the reasons for this are not diminished when a firm adherence to their principle has drawn upon them the terrible calamity of civil war. In short, it comes to this is the Mercury prepared to counte

it be said that this is not a better ground for our sympathy than the attempt to establish an empire on the corner-stone of slavery?

I agree with the writer that "England as well as America is on her trial," and, as one proud of his connection with England — proud of her history, proud of her literature, proud of her generous and ennobling traditions, proud above all of that purest ray of her glory-that she has been known as the champion of the slave and the terror of the oppressor to the farthest ends of the earth, I deplore in my deepest heart the course which she is now following-a course which I cannot but think must degrade her from the high and conspicuous place among the benefactors of the human race which she has hitherto maintained. Ever yours,

J. E. CAIRNES.

ILLINOIS COTTON.-The experimental cotton | acre, so far as is known, exceeds that of the crop of Illinois is gathering. It is estimated cotton-growing districts further south. The unthat the State will produce twenty thousand bales for export this season. The variety grown is the upland, principally from seed procured in Tennessee. The quality (says a correspondent) is excellent, and the quantity per

certainty of procuring seed in the early part of the season prevented many from planting; but the result of this year's experiment is highly encouraging. Illinois could grow five hundred thousand bales profitably.

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