the body; and they would go up to the room in which they knew him to be, or to have been. Up, therefore, they went. Tim had just fallen into a slumber, after having taken his soup. He was dreaming of the green fields of his childhood, or, mayhap, of that period of life still green in his memory, which the frosts of adversity could never render withered or arid― that period when the rosy cheek and soft blue eye of Peggy first Caught his youthful fancy!'' Whatever he was dreaming of, Peggy was thinking of but him. She flew to give him an embrace, but before she could clasp his horizontal form he had awoke, and sprung upright in the bed as suddenly as if he had been galvanized. Peggy fainted-Tim's two courageous, equestrian friends ran to the gate, mounted their horses and galloped home, swearing they saw Tim Flanigan's ghost; that every room in the hospital was haunted with sperets, and that they'd never for Tim's corpse agin till there had been three masses said for the repose of his soul. go Peggy soon recovered, and instead of finding Tim a corpse was rejoiced to find him convalescent. POOR JACK. "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, THUS sang the poet Dibdin; but, like most all other poetry, it is more to be admired for its imagination than for its reality. That instances are innumerable where the life of poor Jack has been miraculously saved from destruction by Divine Providence, we will admit; but for what good purpose, we ask, does this sweet little cherub keep constant watch over him? Is it to inure him to privations and perils at sea, such as few landsmen feel, and to lead him into intemperance and expose him to imposition when ashore? It is really frightful to see the poor, honest, unsophisticated sailors lavishing in riot and dissipation the meagre wages which they receive for their hazardous and laborious services. It may be said that this language applies to sailors as they were, not as they are. If they have improved in their K habits we rejoice at it, though, should any one take a walk by the taverns to which they resort, as we did very recently, he will see but little evidences of the desirable reformation. He will see them in dirty squads, sitting round dirty tables, playing dirty cards, drinking dirty-looking liquor, or otherwise engaged in riotous dissipation. It would be indeed well if the sailor were taught to eschew these habits-if he were taught a proper degree of self-respect, and that there were other incentives to his ambition than that of being first to mount the rigging or take in or make sail. One of them, a redfaced, unshaved fellow, with hair-like the Mississippi water-of a muddy, yellow colour, and wearing a dress distinctive of his calling, was yesterday brought before the Recorder, on the charge of being drunk and creating a disturbance in the street. Recorder (to the prisoner)--"How came you to get so drunk?" Sailor-"Well, Lord love your honour, that's more nor I well knows. I met you sees, with an old shipmate that I hadn't seen for several years. We went, of course, to take a glass of grog together; we then began to compare reckonings and read over log-books, and while at this, glass followed glass. Neither of us, it appeared, made very prosperous voyages. Sal, my old shipmate's sweetheart-that he left after him when he went on his last voyage to India, and who promised to splice braces with him on his return-cut the fastenings while he was away, and put out with a lubberly tailor. And my Bess-poor girl! with whom I hoped to labour for life she didn't run away with a tailor-oh, nobut her timbers, your honour, were too weak for this stormy world, and though she was as trim and pretty a craft as was ever moored in a fellow's heart, she sunk-into the grave!while I was on my last whaling voyage. The telling of these things to one another, your honour, made our hearts spring a leak, like, and we took grog by way of caulking, to stop it." The Recorder asked the police officer if he was offensive, or had insulted any person. The officer said he was not; but he was staggering along the side-walk, scarcely able to walk, and was singing "A tar he is a jolly dog He loves his lass and he likes his grog" "Well, then," said the Recorder, "I shall dismiss him. But," NED KNOX ON ELECTIONS. 111 said he addressing the prisoner," if you should be brought up again, I shall send you to the calaboose.” "Don't fear that, your honour; I'll keep a look-out ahead for breakers hereafter while I'm in the city. You shan't find me hauled up again by such a piratical-looking wrecker as this here"-alluding to the officer. He then drew two dollars from the pocket of his blue jacket, paid jail fees, and crowded sail out of the office. NED KNOX ON ELECTIONS. "I SAYS whooror! for the people," said Ned Knox on Monday night-" and I says, whooror for 'lections too. Fellers talk of inwentions, of locomotives, and lightin' rods, and lectrifyin' machines, and all that, but them aint nothin' compared with 'lections. 'Lections is the greatest inwention of the age, and congress ought to give the man what fust made the model of them a patent right, renewable forever. I admit that the principle might be improved; a feller with a genius could make it to move along with the enlightened spirit of the age, as Bill Brown, the candidate for the legislature, said. Now, if I was ingineer of the concern, I'd clap on steam—I'd fire up, I tell you; you wouldn't get me to stop the ingine, no way you could fix it; I'd never stop to wood, nor take in passengers; I'd go ahead all the time; I'd hold perpetual 'lections and then a feller 'ud get his liquor gratis all the time, and he could go to the choosen candidate's swar-ee every night. Besides, these perpetual 'lections 'ud have more influence on the manners of the people than an act would, if one was to pass congress to inculcate the principles of politeness. Talk of the people being free and equal !—vell, folks that want somethin' to talk about may talk of it, but it's all talk and no toddies-men aint never free and equal but at 'lection times. 'Lections, like orders of enlistment, brings all men to the same standard-them that aint got no wote are too low for the service; them that's too aristocratic are too high for the ranks, and won't get the command. Therefore, I says again," said Ned Knox, "whooror ! for '"'lections." "I say, silence," said the watchman, who at a distance had heard Ned's dissertation on elections, and took him to be a Millerite holding forth.-" Silence, I is the guardian of the people's lives and properties, and it would be a wiolation of my dhuty, 'cordin' to the corporation ord'nance, to let you frighten folks out of their lives, or cheat them out of their property." "Shut up," said Ned, "I doesn't care if you was an alderman-I'm a hindependent woter." "Well, and what if you be," said the watchman; "the polls is closed now." "Who cares," said Ned; "I'm like a bill before the 'House'— I'm open for discussion." "Then I moves," said the watchman," that you be referred and taken up before the Recorder to-morrow morning." "I calls for the yeas and nays," said Ned. "The question is carried," said the watchman, and he carried Ned Knox off to the watchhouse, reported progress to the officer of the night, and, instead of asking leave to sit again, went and took his stand. JACK BURNS, THE BUSTER. THE oddest looking fellow up before the Recorder yester day was Jack Burns. He was a case of the superlative order, or highly concentrated kind. His eyes were like a pair of preserved beans; nature had made an excavation in the centre of his nose; his lips were like a large plumb that became cracked in the centre from being over ripe; there was a hollow in his chin as if it had been made there by a butter taster; his hair was like a half-tanned fox skin, and his whole face was as ragged as a newly picked mill-stone. He was progressing along the Levee, if the term can be applied to making three steps forward, two to the right, four to the left, and an uncertain number backward. The motion of his tongue, like the motion of his feet, went every which way. He was singing, and whilst one of his notes was at D flat, the next one jumped clear up to A sharp. The watchman could not positively swear to what tune his song went, but from the measure we would say that it was to the air of "Roy's wife of Aldavallah."-Thus it went : JACK BURNS, THE BUSTER. 113 "And then," said Burns, descending from poetry to prose, "he is sure to lay his grapling irons on me and take me right off to the watch house." "He does, does he," said the watchman, who had been listening to the melody of Burns. "I'm blamed if he dont," said Burns, "and I'll tell you what it is, old feller, I look upon these here Charlies, both indiwidually and in the aggregate, as greater enemies to human happiness and the peace of society, than either musquitos or the Seminole Indians. I'm blow'd if I doesn't have a law of general hextermination passed agin all vatchmen and vatchmen's rattles by the next congress. They are the nat❜ral enemies of the 'uman race, and I wants to put a general hextinguisher on 'em." "The d-1 you do," says Charley, who became somewhat enraged at this wholesale denunciation of his whole "order." "Well now, I tell you one thing, old feller, you can't shine, no how you can fix it. Now, if you aint no objection you'll come along with me, and we'll see to-morrow how far you can carry out your principles.” "Why, you haint no vatchman," said Burns. "Yes, but I are though," said Charley," and a right up and down one at that." 66 Vell," ," said Burns, "you know I didn't mean vot I saidI vas but larkin”.” "I aint green," said Charley. "You can't throw sand in this child's eyes. I can't stand no more nonsense: business is business, as the Yankee said when he dived into the pumpkin pie; so come along." And off he took Burns to the Baronne street watchhouse. As they went along the prisoner took much pains to convince his captor that the watchmen, taken as a body, or every body among them taken as himself, were the best disposed fellows in the world—the protectors of men's lives and liberties, and in fact whole-souled fellows in every sense of the word. Charley was not to be caught in the trap, so he delivered Burns in "good order and condition" to the constable of the night at the Baronne street prison, where he was caged till yesterday morning. Before the Recorder he pleaded good intentions, but his honour having recognized him as one who had been up before and down before, to prevent him from being up again he sent him down again for thirty days. |