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280 FUNERAL-TREES OF THE INDIANS.

'To their wild wail the waves which break

Forever round that lonely lake

A solemn under-tone shall make!

'And who shall deem the spot unblessed

Where Nature's younger children rest.

Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast?'

The western tradition, when related to us on board the little 'St. Clair' steamer, while she was struggling up the rapid rushing current of the St. MARY'S, brought instantly to mind the foregoing beautiful lines; and a single pencilword, just seen on our little memoranda of some of the incidents of our last summer's memorable trip, has again brought the subject out from a back-shelf of Memory's 'catch-all.'

NUMBER THIRTEEN.

THE INEBRIATE · A WARNING: AN ORNAMENT TO

SOCIETY: ANECDOTE OF
LAST C GOOD-NIGHT': A RICH RESTAU-
NATURE: FORE-RUNNERS AND GHOSTS:

HON. THOMAS CORWIN: A CHILD'S
RANT 'CARTE': FLUCTUATIONS IN
A DREADFUL SCED'NE' IN VERSE: THE 'POOR RICH MAN': BURCHARD ON
TOBACCO THE INFIDEL'S WORLD TO COME': FOUR TO THE POUND' —
STRICT CONSTRUCTION: NEW BOTANICAL PLANTS: A RETORT COURTEOUS:
A POETICAL QUANDARY: AN IMPROMPTU 'CROW-BAR'.

W

ALKING along the Battery, on our return this

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evening from a delightful trip down the Lower Bay, in the‘Orus' steamer, we beheld a young man whom we had known many years since, but whom we had not seen for many months, zig-zag-ing along the middle walk, with a friendly supporter hold of each arm. He was 'boozy,' he was 'swipsed,' he was 'cut,' he was tight,' he was 'cizzled,' he was 'building,' he had a stone in his hat,' he was 'intoxicated' he was drunk! He glanced at us with an unrecognizing, lack-lustre eye, and shambled on - his two friends seemingly ashamed of their burthen ; an object of compassion to friends, of derision to foes; scrutinized by strangers, and stared at by fools. O! that the weak, the nervous, who 'feel a daily longing for some artificial aid to raise their spirits in society to the ordinary pitch of all around them without it,' could have seen

282

THE INEBRIATE A A WARNING.

that spectacle; could have seen that young man 'struggling with the billows that had gone over him!' Where were his pride, his self-respect, his love of the world's esteem? It has always seemed inexplicable to us, that a man with the garb and feelings of a gentleman, conscious of what belonged to the character, should go on from day to day rivetting the chains of habit, until at length he finds himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; seeing his destruction, without the power to stop it, yet feeling it all the way emanating from himself; bearing about the piteous spectacle of his own selfruin, the 'body of death, out of which he cries with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered;' until at last, forgetful of all self-respect, he falls into that taste for low society which is 'worse than pressing to death, whipping, or hanging,' and finally falls to rise no more. Wine, properly and moderately used, is a good familiar creature,' but 'every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil;' and he who cannot avoid, or finds himself in any degree approaching, the 'inordinate cup,' should eschew it utterly: for at the last it will bite like a serpent and sting like an adder!'

A FRIEND of ours, not long since in England, relates a characteristic anecdote of CHARLES LAMB, which he heard

AN ORNAMENT TO SOCIETY.

283

there, and which we think worth repeating here. At a dinner-table one evening, a sea-faring guest was describing a terrific naval engagement, of which he was a spectator, on board a British man-of-war. 'While I was watching the effects of the galling fire upon the masts and rigging,' said he, 'there came a cannon-ball, which took off both legs from a poor sailor who was in the shrouds. He fell toward the deck, but at that moment another cannon-ball whizzed over us, which, strange to say, took off both his arms, which fell upon deck, while the poor fellow's limbless trunk was carried overboard.' 'Heavens !' exclaimed LAMB; 'did n't you save him!' 'No,' replied the naval MUNCHAUSEN; he could n't swim, of course, and he sank before assistance could be rendered him.' 'It was a sad, sad loss!' said LAMB, musingly; 'if he could have been picked up, what an ornament to society he might have become!'

WE record here an anecdote of Hon. Secretary CORWIN, because it admirably illustrates the potency of forms' in political meetings, and the absence of 'entoosymussy,' as BYRON would term it, in some partizan auditories. Mr. CORWIN, in the early part of his political. career, had been addressing some ten or twelve thousand of his matter-of-fact fellow citizens, at a place called 'NewEngland Settlement,' in the Western Reserve. He never

284

ANECDOTE OF MR. CORWIN.

made a better speech, nor uttered one more impressively, in his life; but it was not interrupted during its delivery by a single encouraging word or gesture: and when it was finished, an awful pause ensued; until a tall thin Yankee, on the outskirts of the crowd, rose and said, in a thin drawling voice: 'Mr. Chairman, I move that, in consideration of the spirited and patriotic speech of Mr. CORWINE, this meeting give him three cheers!" Another awful pause followed; when a little man jumped up on the other side of the crowd, and jerked out: 'I second that motion!' The chairman rose with great deliberation and dignity: Gentlemen,' said he, 'you have heard the resolution: it is moved and seconded, that in consideration of the spirited and patriotic speech which we have heard from Mr. COR-WINE, this meeting proceed to give him three cheers!' An irregular 'Hoorah!' was returned, and then all was silence. The chairman rose again: • The resolution, it should not be forgotten,' said he, 'contemplated three cheers; you will therefore now proceed to give a second cheer;' and a second 'cheer,' such as it was, was given; and a third followed, with the same forms; and the large and enthusiastic meeting' dispersed.

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IF you are a mother or a father, reader, and hear nightly from rosy, innocent lips the prayer of childhood

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