"Mr. Wright," said the Recorder, "you were found drunk last night by the watchman. What are you?"

"A victim, sir-a victim!" said poor Richard, emphatically, pursing up his brow, folding up his arms, and extending his legs in a latitudinal direction, evincing by his attitude and eye that he was prepared to meet with fortitude whatever further broadsides fortune was about to let fly at him.

Recorder." Of whom have you been the victim ?"

Richard. "I have been the victim of mankind-of the world-of my own ambition-that feeling which beacons us onward but to deceive-that lures us forth but to disappoint; that feeling which

'Makes the madmen who have made men mad!'"'

Here Richard buried his face in his hands, as if the thought of what he had been overcome him for a moment.

Recorder." What has all this to do with your being

drunk?"

Richard." Short-sighted mortal-superficial observer of human nature-knowest thou not that there are secret impulses and unseen machinery operated on by outward causes or external agents, that set in motion and control all our actions? Ambition has been the locomotive by which I ever have been propelled along the railway of life, and never did I start my steam to perform a journey, that I had not a blow-up before I got to the end of it."

Recorder." But the charge against you is that you were

drunk."

Richard. "Yes, and I have been so for the last ten yearsdrunk with disappointment and affliction; a species of inebriation for which the tee-total society have yet offered no antidote."

"That's vot he always says," remarked the watchman who had the honour of arresting Richard-"he's ever a goin' on with that 'ere gammon, swingin' his arms about like a horator on the Fourth of July, and talkin' such big vords that I'm blowed but I vunders he don't get the lock-jaw! "Vy, yer honour, he's a valkin' dixonary, that feller is; but a reg'lar hard von on the liquor."

"Base scavenger in the bye-ways of justice, hist thee!" said Richard, scornfully, to the watchman; and then, addressing the Recorder, he continued-" My bark of hope, your honour, was long since split on the rock of ambition, and you now see

THE VICTIM OF AMBITION.

145

before you but the wreck of my original self. "Sir, when I set out on my first voyage in life, my sails were well trimmed, the horizon was bright, the wind fair, and the sea such as a mariner could wish; but, sir, I made for the port of love, and got wrecked ere I had made half the voyage." Here he turned up his eyes, and in an apostrophizing tone exclaimed-"Ever adorable Eliza!" and then despondingly added

"She was not made

Thro' years or moons the inner weight to bear
Which colder hearts endure !—

But she sleeps well,

By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell."

Recorder."I do not sit here to listen to a memoir of your life, nor a monody to your Eliza.”

Richard." Nor do I come here to tell it. I am charged with being drunk: I admit the charge, and claim the right of being heard in justification. Now, sir, I shall drop metaphor and proceed. Thinking to bury my reminiscence of love in Lethe's stream, I turned my thoughts to war, and was near getting buried myself in the swamps of Florida. I was ambitious to have my name inscribed on the same roll with the heroes of my country; but I too often found it was not even enrolled on the mess roll. Instead of a wreath of laurels on my brow, I came home with a gash on it, made by an Indian's tomahawk; and instead of the acclamations of my countrymen for my bravery, the only thing I got was the ague. Still (continued Richard) I was not satisfied. Ambition still beckoned me on, and she pointed to politics as the certain road to success. Well, sir, I entered on it; attended ward meetings— went to barbacues-made stump speeches-told my 'friends and fellow-citizens' that a crisis had arrived in the affairs of the country; that the constitution was in danger; that the ship of state was sinking, and that unless I was elected the whole country, including the disputed territory, would inevitably go to Davy Jones' locker some fine morning. Here, again, my evil genius interfered; for when the election came on, my short-sighted constituents gave me but three votes! My luck-my luck again. Sir, they talk of mounting the ladder of fame, and ascending its topmost round. Sir, the simile is an incorrect one: there is no ladder to fame, nor any round to the ladder; if there were I would have reached it. No, sir, fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail, and it is only

N

after it has slippped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!"

Recorder." If fame and notoriety be synonymous, you have now gained what you have been so long in pursuit of. You will see your name in the columns of the Picayune tomorrow-glory enough for one day!

"Take him down," said the Recorder to the officer, and the clerk was ordered to draw out a commitment for Richard Wright for thirty days.

JEALOUSY.

WE verily believe that jealousy was one of the first and most potent of the evils which flew on the world from Pandora's box. We speak of jealousy in a particular and restricted sense, and do not apply to it a general meaning. We do not mean that spirit of animosity begotten between parties by rivalry in business, nor that ill will which is engendered towards aspirants for place or power who outstrip their competitors in the race for either. We allude to that peace-destroying fiend—that implacable foe to domestic peace-that "green-eyed monster," which reverses the rightful position of husband and wife, making home, which should be a paradise, a pandemonium; furnishing the world with tales of scandal, at which modesty blushes and virtue weeps-giving very often extra employment to judges, juries, executioners and executors. This unappeasable passion is indigenous to no particular country nor peculiar to any one class. The untutored Indian on the prairie feels its force as strongly as the educated prince in his palace. The Jew, the Gentile, the Mahommedan and the Christian, are all in turn the victims of its demoniacal fury.

It has seized on the mind of Nancy Nilligan, and the consequence is, that one of the police officers seized on Nancy, on Nancy's husband, Ned Nilligan, and on the alleged author of Nancy's jealousy, Nora Neil. They were all before the Recorder yesterday, and if they were not very eloquent, they were at least very loud in accusation and defence. Nancy, who was rather poetically pathetic, commenced:

"O, the thief-the thief of the world! to think of lavin' me alone in a strange counthry, like a bird in a wild bog that had lost its mate, or a hare in the snow without a form. O Ned!

it's little I thought, avic, when you soothered me with your sweet talk, that the hot sun of your warm love would so soon be succeeded by the could frost of neglect. O wirastrew! but it was a sorry day to me that you looked on Nora Neil."

Up to this time Mrs. Nilligan spoke more in sorrow than in anger; her language was that of subdued reproof rather than violent crimination; but this allusion to Miss Neil drew from the latter lady the following retort, which was accompanied by a look that, if analyzed, must have contained a full quart of bitters:

"See that now, Mrs. Nilligan; throth, thin, he'll look on me agin, too, and you can't help it either; so you may put your hands in your pockets and plase yourself."

Here the smothered fire of Mrs. Nilligan's wrath blazed forth, and her very looks seemed sufficient to burn to a cinder her real or imaginary rival.

"O, listen to that, your honour," she said; "d'ye hear how the brazen-faced hussy spakes to me teeth afther puttin' betune me and me lawful husband. O, sure if she hadn't the assurance of Freney the robber, she'd hide her head, and would'nt be seen in coort. But sure I know very well Ned wouldn't spake to the likes of her if some fairy woman or some one didn't throw a spell over him."

"O, Nancy Nilligan, your tongue is no scandal to you," retorted Nora. "I didn't work any pishiroge for her husband, your honour. I'm a dacynt girl, and here's me character that I got from me last place. To tell the thruth, I don't think he's any great beauty, though she thinks that it's out of his big toe the sun shines."

Ned certainly was not a very prepossessing individual. His face resembled a roll of Goshen butter, with a centre slice out in front for a mouth, and two pewter balls stuck in above for eyes. He had withal a good natured kind of look, and traces of repentance were visible on his countenance for any sins of omission or commission of which he might have been guilty towards Nancy.

"Well," said the Recorder to Ned, "what have you got to say in this affair?”

"O, faix," said Ned, rubbing down with his right hand a close crop of hair, rubbing his chin with his left, and looking half lovingly, half imploringly at Nancy-"O, faix, your honour, I b'lieve somebody is to blame; I had, to tell the truth, like Daniel O'Connell, strong notions of repalin' the

union-with Nancy-but now, since I find she still has the ould gra' for me, I'm for goin' back to her and mindin' me business. In fact, your honour, I'm as much in favour of reannexation as President Tyler himself."

This declaration of principles seemed to give Nancy great and unspeakable joy, and Nora Neil left the office saying, she wished her (Nancy) "luck in her bargain.”

A CABMAN IN A DILEMMA.

OUT-DOOR THEATRICALS.

AMONG the numerous strange cases brought under the special notice of the Recorder was that of Sophronia Fitzclarence, who was arrested in the streets a few nights since at the instance of a cabman. With hair dishevelled, bonnet knocked into a "cocked hat," and dress draggled and in disorder, she appeared as though she had been enacting antics under the joint influence of rum and romance.

The cab driver, who was a sinister looking chap with an oblique cast in his eye, a very large head, and an enormously stout neck-was the principal witness against Sophronia, and appeared to be as much of a character as the accused herself. "Well, sir," said the Recorder, "What did Sophronia do to you

"Vell, if you'll jest hold your hosses a minute or two, I'll give you all the items," retorted the cabman, with the peculiar patois of his particular class.

"Go on, then," continued the Recorder.

Yes, sir. Vell, as I was standing aside of my cab, sir, near the corner of St. Charles and Poydras streets, a thinkin' on my fare for the day, this ere fair one came a stormin' along with a kind of a theatre step, and jest as she got up to me she stopt suddently, give me a wild stare in the face, clasped her hands together, worked her shoulders forward and back, and then kind of shrieked out 'Oh! Clifford! is that you?' 'No, I'm d-d if it is,' said I; but afore the words was scarcely out of my mouth she threw both arms round my neck, like I was her own dearest blood relation, then pushed me off at arm's length, looked me full in the eye, and says she, follerin' up her first speech, Clifford! don't you know me? Vell, 1