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the tragedian, made a visit to America. He played many parts, among others that of Shylock, which was considered one of his best. An innovator in some respects, he was rigid as regards correctness of costume, and always refused to distinguish himself from his fellow actors by any peculiarity in his garb. He dressed for Shylock as he would have dressed for Tubal, and insisted that there should be no difference in the costume of the two characters. He was playing Shylock one night, and leaving the stage at the end of an act, proceeded to his dressingroom to rest. As he was ascending the stairs which led thereto, he was mistaken for Tubal by the stage carpenter, who crept behind him softly, and gave him, by way of a lark, what he afterwards called a boosting blow. He turned suddenly, to the great horror of the carpenter, who exclaimed, "I beg pardon-I thought it was Jobson"-Jobson being the actor who played Tubal. Good Heavens, sir," said the tragedian, "Does Mr. Jobson like that sort of thing?"

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We put this question to Mr. Meadows: Mr. Shortboy like that sort of thing?"

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AMONG the annoyances to which authors are subjected there is one which is increasing daily. It is the solicitation of their autographs. At the first thought, it looks like a compliment to ask an author for a specimen of his penmanship. 'I must be somebody," he thinks, or the autograph seeker would not have written to me;" and he proceeds complacently to reply to his request, in his very best handwriting. If he remembers the place to which his epistle was dispatched, he observes that it is followed, in a few days, by a second request from the same place. The writers, in each instance, are making a collection of the autographs of famous men, which would be incomplete without his. If he is a poet, will he be good enough to copy his exquisite lyric "The Singed Moth?" If he is a prose writer will he not compose and forward "a sentiment?" Sentiments are greatly in demand, especially among young ladies in the rural districts. If proverbial, so much the better. They need not be original, and they should not be very intelligible. A little Latin will not be amiss, and French will be très charmant.

At the end of five or ten years (or sooner, if he is a modest and busy man) the complaisant author begins to be weary of the business. He is proof | against flattery; he does not care for appreciation; all he wants is to be let alone. He answers no letters, except such as relate to business; but they come all the same. "The Singed Moth" was never in such demand; and his last ironical sentiment, "Punctuality is the thief of time," is considered truly Orphic! He smiles, but answers not, and other letters come from the same writer. Still he answers not. Stop-he does, for one of the old hands seeks literary information, which he, perhaps, can furnish. Does he know who wrote

"Though lost to sight, to memory dear?"

He does not, and does not want to, and writes to that effect, thereby falling into the trap that was set for him. He sees it, when it is too late, and determines not to be caught again. He will be, however, for there is no baffling the ingenuity of the autograph fiend. His dodges are innumerable.

Here is one which comes from Boston: "I take the liberty of addressing this letter to you to find out if possible the residence of each of the following persons." Then comes the list, viz.: Alfred Tennyson, John G. Whittier, James Russell Lowell, James Cullen Bryant, and Bayard Taylor. As the writer evidently reverences great men, we hasten to inform him that Mr. Tennyson resides at Cambridge, Mass., and may be seen almost any day at the counting-room of his publishers, in Boston. We also inform him that Messrs. Whittier and Lowell reside in the Isle of Wight, and Mr. Bayard Taylor in Egypt, where he had an important military position in the army of the Khedive. As for Mr. James Cullen Bryant, who, by the way, is editor of the London Times, at the last accounts he was exploring the site of ancient Troy, with his Homeric friend Dr. Schliemann. Letters addressed to these gentlemen will no doubt meet with prompt attention, when received, and their answers, when obtained, will no doubt be entertaining. We hope our autograph hunter is satisfied.

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THACKERAY was not a humorist, in the sense that Dickens was, nor a wit, in the sense that Jerrold was, but he now and then said a good thing in a quiet way. He was pestered on one occasion, while in this country, by a young gentleman of an inquiring turn of mind, as to what was thought of this person and that person in England. Mr. Thackeray," he asked, "what do they think of Tupper?" "They don't think of Tupper," was the reply. Another man of letters was mentioned, and it transpired that he was addicted to beer drinking. "Yes," said Thackeray, "take him for half and half he was a man.” His connection with Fraser's Magazine was the subject of conversation, and the right of an editor to change the “ copy" of his contributors was discussed. Thackeray maintained that no such right existed, except as regarded errors of grammar, and declared that the only person who could make alterations for the better was the author himself; as a rule, editorial changes were blunders. "I told an editor so once and he did not like it. 'I have no objection to your putting your hoofs on my paragraphs,' I remarked, 'but I decidedly object to your sticking your ears through them.'" "He never forgave you, of course." "I never thought to ask." Thackeray and Jerrold used to sit near each other at the Punch dinners, and Jerrold was inclined to wrangle, if everything was not to his liking; but Thackeray would keep the peace. There's no use in our quarreling," he said, "for we must meet again next week."

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It would puzzle a great many to tell why they married, if they only looked into the matter as carefully as some of their friends do for them, and on the whole, perhaps, it is well that they do not. Nine out of ten would say it was for love, which is probably true-but love of what? What did Miss De Shoddy see to love in old Petroleum? She saw a fine house on Fifth Avenue, a box at the opera, and an endless residence in Paris. What did young Spendthrift see to love in the widow Languish? He saw all his debts paid, a house in town, a country seat at Long Branch, and an occasional run over to Paris-alone, if he can bring it about. Both married for love-love of themselves and luxury. So did an Italian woman, of whom the late William Jerdan, the editor of the Literary Gazeite, has a story to tell. A friend of his, he says, a Baron Bollaud, as he was walking out one day, near London, saw an old wizened Italian tramp on one side of the road, with two or three monkeys, and on the other a rather buxom woman trudging along in the same manner, with a tambourine. He was struck by the contrast, and entering into chat with the lady, found she was the Signor's wife, and asked her how she could marry that old man. "Oh sir," said she, with a deep-drawn sigh, and a meaning glance at the questioner, "when I married him he had a dromedary!"

Sunday Morning.

THOUGHTS DURING SERVICE.

Too early, of course! How provoking!
I told Ma just how it would be.

I might as well have on a wrapper,
For there's not a soul here yet to see.
There! Sue Delaplaine's pew is empty.-
I declare if it isn't too bad!

I know my suit cost more than her's did,
And I wanted to see her look mad.

I do think that sexton's too stupid

He's put some one else in our pew

And the girl's dress just kills mine completely;
Now what am I going to do?

The psalter, and Sue isn't here yet!
I don't care, I think it's a sin
For people to get late to service,

Just to make a great show coming in.
Perhaps she is sick, and can't get here-
She said she'd a headache last night.
How mad she'll be after her fussing!

I declare it would serve her just right.
Oh, you've got here at last, my dear, have you?
Well, I don't think you need be so proud

Of that bonnet, if Virot did make it,
It's horrid fast-looking and loud.

What a dress!--for a girl in her senses

To go on the street in light blue !

And those coat-sleeves-they wore them last Sum

mer

Don't doubt, though, that she thinks they're new. Mrs. Gray's polonaise was imported

So dreadful!-a minister's wife,
And thinking so much about fashion!-
A pretty example of life!

The altar's dressed sweetly-I wonder

Who sent those white flowers for the font !-Some girl who's gone on the assistant

Don't doubt it was Bessie Lamont. Just look at her now, little humbug!

So devout-I suppose she don't know That she's bending her head too far over

And the ends of her switches all show. What a sight Mrs. Ward is this morning! That woman will kill me some day, With her horrible lilacs and crimsons,

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And there's Jenny Welles with Fred TracyShe's engaged to him now-horrid thing! Dear me! I'd keep on my glove sometimes, If I did have a solitaire ring!

How can this girl next to me act so

The way that she turns round and stares, And then makes remarks about people; She'd better be saying her prayers. Oh dear, what a dreadful long sermon! He must love to hear himself talk! And it's after twelve now,-how provoking! I wanted to have a nice walk. Through at last. Well, it isn't so dreadful After all, for we don't dine till one; How can people say church is poky!So wicked!-I think it's real fun.

GEO. A. BAKER, JR.

VOL. VIII.

AUGUST, 1874.

THE GREAT SOUTH.

No. 4.

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AFTER many weeks of journeying in the South, through regions where hardly a house is to be seen, where the villages, looming up between patches of forest or canebrake, seem deserted and worm-eaten, and the people reckless and idle, the trayeler is struck with astonishment and delight when he emerges into the busy belt extending from Aiken, in South Carolina, to Augusta, in Georgia. There he sees manufacturing villages, hears the whirring of spindles, notes on every hand evidences of progressive industry, and wonders why it was not so years before. Alas! who can compute the sum of the lost opportunities of the Southern States? The traveler will certainly give it up as too formidable a task, and our friends of the South do not like to think much upon it.

This "Sand Hill region," extending from the north-eastern border of South Carolina to the south-eastern border of Georgia, has many noteworthy aspects. Its climate has wonderful life-renewing properties for the invalid worn down with the incessant fatigues and changes of severer latitudes, and its resources for the establishment of manufactures, and for the growth of some of the

VOL. VIII.-25

STREET SCENE IN AUGUSTA, GA.

most remarkable and valuable of the fruits of the earth, are unrivaled. limit of the Sand Hills in South Carolina is very clearly defined. They are usually found close to the rivers, and are supposed to be ancient sand-banks once not far from the sea-shore. They pass through the State, half way between the ocean and the Blue Ridge, and are most thoroughly developed near Aiken, Columbia, Camden, and Cheraw. They are usually clothed in aromatic pine forests. Down the slopes of these hills, in Georgia and South Carolina, run rivers, which in winter and spring are turbid with the washings from the red clay hills to the northward; and in the flat valleys scattered along these streams

cotton and corn grow with remarkable luxuriance. In Georgia the hills run from the falls of the Savannah River at Augusta, south-west and north-east, as far as the Ogeechee River. The highest point in this curious range, at the United States Arsenal at Summerville, near Augusta, is hardly more than six hundred feet above the sea level. It is the home of the yellow and the "short-leaved" pine, the Spanish and water-oak, the red maple, the sweet gum, the haw, the persimmon, the wild orange, and the China tree; the lovely Kalmia Latifolia clothes the acclivities each spring in garments of pink and white; the flaming azalea, the honey-suckle, the white locust, the China burr and other evergreens, the iris, the phlox, the silk grass, are there at home. In the gardens japonicas grow ten feet high in the open air, and blossom late in winter; and the "fringe tree" and the Lagerstremia Indica dot the lawns with a dense array of blossoms. Although the unstimulated surface soil of all this section will not produce cotton and the cereals more than two years in succession, yet it is prolific of the peach, the apricot, the pomegranite, the fig, the pear, all kinds of berries, and the grape, which grows there with surprising luxuriance; and

BELL-TOWER AT AUGUSTA, GA.

all vegetables practicable in a northern climate ripen there in the months of April and May.

A pleasant land, one is forced to declare. But this productiveness is the least of its advantages. The beneficial nature of the climate for invalids is the chief glory of the Sand Hill country. Aiken has achieved a great reputation as a winter residence for pulmonary invalids; the equable temperature, and dryness of the air, as well as the mildness, which allows the patient to pass most of his winter under the open sky, inhaling the fragrance of the pine woods, have, year after year, drawn hundreds of exhausted Northerners thither. Before the war the planter of the lowlands, and the merchants of New York and Boston alike, went to Aiken to recuperate; the planter occupied a pleasant cottage during the summer, the Northerner arrived with the first hint of winter; but now the planter comes no more with the splendor and spendthrift profusion of old, and the Northerner has the little town very much to himself. The accommodations have, for several years since the war, been insufficient; but as the inhabitants creep back towards their old prosperity, they are giving Aiken the bright appearance of a northern town, and the ill-looking, unpainted, rickety houses of the past are disappearing. Originally laid out by a railroad company, in 1833, as a future station of commercial importance, Aiken prospered until fire swallowed it up a few years later. When the war came great numbers of refugees rushed into it, and the misery and distress there were great. The tide of battle never swept through the town; Kilpatrick contented himself with a partially successful raid in that direction when Sherman was on the road to Columbia, and as soon as peace was declared the invalids flocked back again to haunt the springs and the pleasant woody paths, over which the jessamine day and night showers its delicious fragrance.

Aiken is situated seventeen miles from the Savannah River and from Augusta, on the South Carolina railroad, which extends southward to Charleston. The inhabitants of the hill-country, a little remote from the towns, are decidedly primitive in their habits, and the sobriquet of " sand-hiller" is applied by South Carolinians to some specimens of poor white trash, whom nothing but a slave-aristocracy system could ever have produced. The lean and scrawny women, without any symptoms of life in their unlovely frames, and with their faces discolored by illness, and the lank and hungry men, have their counterparts

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nowhere among native Americans at the North; it is incapable of producing such a peasantry. The houses of the better class of this folk,-the prosperous farmers, as distinguished from the lazy and dissolute plebeians, to whom the word "sand-hiller" is perhaps too indiscriminately applied,-are loosely built, as the climate demands little more than shelter. At night, immense logs burn in the fire-place, while the house door remains open. The diet is as barbarous as elsewhere among the agricultural classes in the South-corn bread, pork and "chick'n;" farmers rarely think of killing a cow for beef, or a sheep for mutton; hot and bitter coffee smokes morning and night on the tables where purest spring water, or best of Scuppernong wine might be daily placed the latter with almost as little expense as the former. But the invalid visiting this region in search of health, and frequenting a town of reasonable size, encounters none of these miseries. At Augusta and at Aiken he can secure the comforts to which he is accustomed in the North, and can add thereto a climate in which existence is a veritable joy. In the vicinity of Aiken many hundreds of acres are now planted with the grape; and twentyfive hundred gallons of wine to the acre have been guaranteed in some cases, al

though the average production must, of course, fall very much below that.

The development of the resources for manufacturing in the region extending between and including Aiken and Augusta merits especial mention, and shows what may be done by judicious enterprise in the South. The extensive cotton manufactories at Augusta aud Graniteville employ many hundreds of hands. Scarcely a quarter of a century ago the Augusta cotton manufacturing enterprise was inaugurated with a small capital. It was the outgrowth of a demand for labor for the surplus white population-labor which should accrue at once to the benefit of the State, and of that population; and in due time the canal at Augusta was constructed. The Augusta cotton factory, which was not at first prosperous, now has a capital stock of $600,000, upon which a quarterly dividend of five per cent. is paid. Thousands of spindles and hundreds of looms are now busy along the banks of the canal, where, also, have sprung up four flour mills and tobacco factories. The cotton mill is filled with the newest and finest machinery, and has received the high compliment, from Senator Sprague, of Rhode Island, of being

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the best arranged one in the United States." At Graniteville, in South Carolina,

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