PRISON - MONROE EDWARDS: NARCOTIC INFLUENCE · - A 'REGULAR BU'ST': GEOFFREY CRAYON AND OLD KNICK' IN SLEEPY HOLLOW · HEREDITARY LIGHTNING: A FEW THOUGHTS ON DEATH: ANECDOTE OF JARVIS THE PAINTER: A GHOST-STORY: COOL REPLY TO A DUNNING-LETTER: CHILDREN -HOME FEELING IN OLD AGE: A‘CUTE' YANKEE CLOCK-PEDLER: AUTUMN IN THE COUNTRY, AND ITS INFLUENCES: A STRANGE HORSEADVENTURE: AN INVOLVED COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION.' W HEN there comes a warm autumnal rainy day, it gives us great enjoyment to go over (omnes solus) to Hoboken, and repair to a gable-angle of the Swiss châlet, built by the tasteful STEVENS, and there, under an open 'weather-board' canopy, gaze for hours upon the distant city, spreading before us like a map, and our noble harbor and bay, covered with tall ships, their tapering masts and cordage pencilled against the sky, or the lighter craft, with their white sails glinting for an instant in the fitful sun 30 A REVERIE OF BOYHOOD. light that steals through a broken cloud. There we watch the rain sift in long slanting lines across the bay, and over the town, and along the majestic Hudson, and think ' on diverse things foredone,' when we were as yet but a little boy; especially of early days in the country, when with departed 'OLLAPOD' we used to perch ourselves upon the top of a fresh hay barrack,' (soft and fragrant couch!) and from underneath its straw-thatch roof look out through the gently-falling rain upon the fading yellow woods, the meadows of dim dying green, and russet stubble-fields. That remembrance links with others of the country, until it merges in a sort of mental essay on Political Economy. One thinks of the reapers cutting the golden grain; of man and boy rolling the round fat 'murphies' out of the black loamy soil; of gathering in the yellow-green oats, so smooth, and so pleasant to 'cut, rake and bind;' of the Liliputian forests of tall silky flax-stems; of the yellow-corn, so delightful to husk at night, with a barn-floor full of girls and boys, waiting joyfully amidst the sweet 'husky' odors for the subsidence of the big 'heap,' that they may partake of the repast of pies and cakes and sweet cider that is spread in the house. All these various labors 'in due season' freight the vessels which you see tending to the vast metropolis; some in the far distance, some huddled close together, some wide apart, but all making for one port; while there, in the great town before A NEW CHRISTIAN ERA. 31 or you, men and 'prentice-boys in dingy shirt-sleeves, at hours when the farmers, their 'patrons,' are in bed, ‘ply their busy tools of trade;' cabinet-makers are sending off furniture; druggists are arming country practitioners with engines of destruction' against the 'great enemy' their patients; hardware dealers are sending out pots, kettles, and pans, for 'stewing, baking and boiling' in far western wilds and so forth; which, in connection with general commerce, as dry-goods, tin-plates and spelter, groceries, hay, cutlery, 'grits' and 'shorts,' sarsaparilla, turpentine-gum, putty, 'ging-shang' root, codfish, hops, brads, bees-wax, soft-shell almonds, gun-powder, osnaburgs, fustic, corks, madder, hackled hemp, dried beef, nail-rods, staves and heading, varnish, and BRANDRETH'S pills, constitute what is most usually supposed to compose the main elements of 'Political Economy!' Ir was a pleasant thing to read, in a late number of a metroplitan religious journal, an account of four clergymen, of widely different denominations, meeting weekly at each other's houses, in a New-England village, for religious communion and prayer. The liberal Christian spirit which prompted this act did not exist formerly in that section, nor indeed any section, of the Union; and we hail its appearance with sincere pleasure. Other sheep I 32 EXECUTION OF GROUND-MICE. have,' said our SAVIOUR, 'which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.' Why should they, who profess to lead and point the way to heaven, dwell upon mere differences of doctrine, which touch neither the heart nor the life? Let them rather say, looking up to a common REDEEMER: 'O CRUCIFIED! we share thy cross, Thy passion too sustain; We die Tпy death to live THY life, L—————— 's ‘Reminiscence of Boyhood' was a positive treat. Well do we remember the Execution of the Ground-Mice,' as performed by 'OLLAPOD' and the writer hereof, when we were wee things.' The prisoners were caught in the act of theft, under a 'shock' of cut-corn, after an ineffectual attempt at escape, and were confined in a square stone prison, 'digged i' the earth' of the meadow. We slept but little the first night of their confinement; we thought of them during the night-watches, and talked of them, as Giant DESPAIR talked with his wife of CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL, shut up in Doubting-Castle. In the morning we visited the prison betimes, and fed the plaintiffs' and 'examinationed' them as well as DOGBERRY himself A SCENE AT SING-SING PRISON. 33 could have done. We continued to visit them for several days afterward; and their bearing evincing no penitence, they were condemned to be hung, and a day was appointed for their execution. We had seen a model of a gallows on the cover of the 'STORY OF AMBROSE GWINETT,' and ‘OLLAPOD' constructed a very secure 'institution' of that kind; and when the fatal morning arrived, with all due privacy the culprits were brought forth, the thread of death which was to clip the thread of their lives being round their necks. They were addressed in moving terms by OLLAPOD, and assured that all hope of reprieve was ridiculous; it could not be thought of by the authorities' for a moment. 'They must prepare to mount the scaf fold!' They walked, 'supported' partly by the 'rope' around their necks, with firm hind-legs, up the ladder, and the 'fatal cord' was adjusted to the transverse beam. It was a moment to be remembered. At a signal given by the jotter-down hereof, the trap-door fell, and they were launched into liberty! For the thread broke, and the 'wretched culprits' were soon safe in the long grass of the meadow. It was a narrow escape for 'em! WE passed an hour in the Sing-Sing State-Prison the other day; and while regarding with irresistible sympathy the wretched inmates, we could not help thinking how |