and told him she liked little children. With a good deal of confidence he looked up in her face and said: "Do you? - do you like them very much?' "'Yes.' "Do you?' "'Yes.' "Have you got a white baby?' 'If any of your correspondents has a two-year-and-a-half boy who can beat this, his father can take my old hat, if he does not prove to be a prouder one than, Yours, etc.' 'A LITTLE boy in his fourth summer sat nestling in his mother's lap one afternoon, during a terrific thunder-shower. 'Mother,' said he, 'does GOD make it thunder?' 'Yes, darling,' was the reply. 'Well, can't GoD stop it?' 'Yes, my child.' 'Well, then, I will pray and ask him to stop it;' and without waiting for another word from his mother, he slid from her lap, and, kneeling beside her, clasped his little hands, and said: 'O dear, good God, please don't let it brighten' any more! and'- At this moment a clap of thunder, louder than any that preceded it, saluted his ears, and stopping short in his prayer, he turned his eyes to heaven, his face speaking the disappointment he was about to utter: "There! God did let it 'brighten' again,' said he, as he hid his face in his mother's lap, and sobbed bitterly: true childish sorrow at a prayer unanswered.' 'I HAVE a youngster who 'takes after' his mother enough to have always been, since he gained any control of his vernacular, propense to odd sayings occasionally. When between three and four years old, he had been reading the story of JONAH, as related in some of his little books. After his perusal of it, as my manner with him was, I questioned him about it, to ascertain how much of it he had remembered. His recitation was very accurate until this question was proposed: 'What did JONAH do after his delivery from the fish?' 'Why, Papa,' said he, 'I don't exactly remember; but I suspect he 'washed off,' and then 'put for Nineveh !''' 'A BRIGHT little girl, four years of age, was riding in the country with her uncle, a short time since, when, in passing a farm-yard, they saw a peacock: 'Oh! look! look! look!' said the little girl; 'see the pretty bird!' 'Yes,' said her uncle, but without stopping. 'But stop the horse, Uncle; I want to look at him longer,' said little MARY. 'I can't now,' said he; 'I'm in a hurry.' MARY hesitated a moment, then giving her doll, which she held in her hand, a toss to the side of the road, 'There, Uncle EB.,' said she, 'you get out and pick up my baby, while I look at the bird!' Wasn't that rather "cute' for a little girl of four years?' 'WHILE on a visit to my father's house, after a year's absence, we had a family evening-circle, in which father, mother, brothers and sisters, talked over domestic matters of every variety usual in such meetings. Among other things, some of the older sisters were telling me that the youngest, a girl of some five summers, and who was cosily sitting upon my knee, had got so she slept all alone in her crib, (a wee thing, she had, when last I saw her, not been trusted from her mother's arms,) but added, in a teasing manner, that on waking in the morning and not finding herself with her accustomed bed-fellow, she would rise very quietly and creep into the foot of her parents' bed. She looked up into my face, with a tear in her large black eye, and said: 'I don't care, need I, JACK; my pa's and my ma's feet are as good as their hands!' Her simple logic warded off the ridicule most effectually.' "OUR 'dear little boy,' who delights in the mysteries of 'straight-lines, pot-hooks, and hangers,' has been in the habit of attending Methodist meetings where the preacher worthily practices LAWRIE TODD's theory of extempore sermons, with no other guide before him but the open Scriptures. JIMMY was induced by a friend, the other Sunday, to attend a church of another denomination, where the carefully-written sermon was read to the congregation. On his return, after much thought, he broke out: Ma! that Mr. B don't preach out of the Bible!' 'Not out of the Bible, my child?' 'No, Ma, he preaches out of a writing-book !'' ‘Ar an infant Sabbath-school, to the care of which I was 'promoted,' a few years since, I gave a 'Bible-story' - the 'Prodigal Son.' When I came to the place where the poor ragged son reached his former home, and his father saw him 'a great way off,' I inquired what the father probably did. One of the smallest boys, with his little fist clenched, said: 'I donno, but I des he set de dog on him!'' AGAIN we are favored 'Good-evening,' little-folk, for this time. with a spirited 'Pome' by Mr. K. N. PEPPER, who touches nothing that he doesn't ornament. In a private note to the EDITOR, he intimates that his poetical power may be failing him. Not so: there are parts of 'The Suferinks of a Man' which are fully equal to portions of the 'Lines to a Berd on the Fens.' Oh, no; Mr. PEPPER must not lose confidence in himself. He has only just commenced his career: he has been writing, as it were, 'with one arm tied behind him.' Macte virtute, Mr. PEPPER: The Suferinks of a Man. COMPO GED INTO RIME BY MR. K. N. PEPPER, ESQ. As he traveld by the way This Man was hurd to say i wish I had some 1 for company. But their he wer al aloan & that is suferink we oan. He syd severil times quite hard He heerd a yel Sum distans of it was a Dog & that Dog wos hisn. o said he as he stompt onto the ground So it being a litle cus of a dog He jest took him by the nap of the nec ery, taiking out a fresh cud into his chec WE saw in one of our daily journals once, the following advertisement: 'To Capitalists: Wanted, five hundred dollars to go on a spree. References exchanged.' We dare say the wag who wrote it also penned the following on the back of a bank-note: This is the last of five thousand dollars left me by my dear departed grand-mother one year and a half ago: I wish it had been ten!' There spake a burdened heart: ten thousand dollars would have given him a three years' 'blow-out!' 'ALREADY,' says a tra veller who visited Buffalo in 1811, 'there is a turn-pike road to New-York, having the accommodation of a stage-coach three times a week. I think this likely to become a large settlement.' 'Precisely so!' We thought it had become so, when last October we looked down from the house-top of an esteemed and hospitable friend, in the very northernmost part of that minia ture of New-York, upon a city whose towers, steeples, cupolas, and turrets, pierced the smoky air in the distance, and whose splendid steamers and sailing-vessels were departing or coming into the harbor, across the green waters of beautiful Erie, 'stretched beyond the sight,' to anchor amidst a small forest of masts, and scores of lofty black steamer-pipes, in port. The very hum of the great 'City by the Lakes' reached us through the still air; the din of its 'multitudes commercing.' Take up its journals—the great test, every where, it has always seemed to us, of the prosperity of a town—and look at its representative, palpable to the eye, in their advertising-columns. By-the-by, speaking of old times, stage-coaches, etc., please to read the following advertisement from an old number of JAMES CHEETHAM's 'American Citizen,' published in this metropolis: THE NEW-YORK AND ALBANY MAIL-STAGE, ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE RIVER, WILL leave New-York every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, at two o'clock in the afternoon: lodges at Hackensack, Goshen, and Kingston, and arrives in Albany the third day. Fare of each Passenger through, Eight Dollars: Way-Passengers, Five Cents per mile. Think of that, town-reader, when you are rushing to Albany in the Hudson River express-train in three hours for two dollars! Times isn't as they used to was!' - - - WE perceive that the American Institute has awarded the first premium, a valuable medal, to Mr. NEHEMIAH DODGE, Number Fortytwo, University-Place, for his 'Anti-choking Arch-valve Pump,' one of the most important hydraulic inventions of the day. Beside being one of the most accomplished and skilful dentists in the city, Mr. DODGE is known as an inventor of the first order of genius. He has offered one thousand dollars to any pump-maker who will produce a pump that will raise as much water with as little power as his, to the height of one hundred or one thousand feet. The principle is exceedingly simple, and the action wholly unobstructed. --- OUR friend Colonel HARPER, who did the city good ser vice as Mayor, (but whose tin porringers around the Park-fountain didn't prove a profitable investment,) is a good deal of a wag, and loves a joke as well as his dinner. We happened to be sitting in the counting-room of the 'BROTHERS' one day, when there entered a sleek-looking gentleman, with a strait-collar'd, cut-away coat, and a broad-brimmed drab hat. He advanced toward the Colonel:' 'Is Mr. HARPER in?' 'I'm one of them,' said the exMayor. 'Well, Sir, my name is URIAH G. HOPKINS. I belong to the Oneida Conference. I am a minister of the God'spel. I want aid. I come here on the LORD's business.' 'The man who attends to the LORD's business,' said the Colonel, without moving a muscle, 'is out at present: he will be in at two o'clock!' This was the simple fact: all donations to religious and charitable societies being delegated to only one particular partner of the house. 'Having said thus much,' we close with the following tribute, which we think must have been sent us by mistake. Why was it not addressed to that distinguished firm? 'HARPER AND BROTHER, what wonderful men! Around the whole world from the East to the West, Roveing from land to land, does the bright pages of HARPER. Either for the rich, or for the poor, 't is all the same. 'And while unfolding to your view the works of the great, 'Both far and near, you see the glorious pages of HARPER, To this end then subscribe, and sustain this wonder, However great the Boasting of England, she has not one of these: Roveing HARPER be more numerous far, and the glory will be thine!' OUR friend and esteemed correspondent 'LORRAINE' has drawn a touching picture in the following sketch: but next month, (Deo volente,) we shall take occasion to exhibit a contrast of character that would make almost any man prone to regard every stranger a villain until he had proved himself to be an honest man: 'JUDGE not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.' 'I THINK, friend KNICK, that the source whence this caption comes, will entitle it or ought to to a perfect confidence in the truth of its requirements, and an entire acquiescence in the obligation which it imposes. 'Now, my object is, to make use of it for the government of a very worthy man, whose success in life has made him rich. I know he is kind-hearted, for I have tried him. He was more sympathizing, however, when he was poorer, than he is now. 'I had a friend who borrowed a little money of him, to be returned at a given time. Between the time of borrowing and that of payment, loss after loss, following one another like the echoes on Lake George, overtook my friend, the result of unforeseen causes, and therefore not to be guarded against; making of him a powerless man. I never can forget his looks when, one evening, as we were walking in Washingtonsquare, he said: "I am very unhappy. I am a debtor to a few friends, and grieve that I should be so entirely unable to return favors so kindly extended to me. What makes me so unhappy at this moment is, I was passed, a while ago, by one of these my creditors, an old friend, who hitherto never met me but with a smile, and with words of courtesy and kindness. He threw into my face a cold and reproachful look, and uttered not a word. Now, this is terrible! It agonizes me. What would I not give, to be able, now, to return his favor! I have made arrangements, but they are in the future. And, though all I owe him, and others, will assuredly be paid, whether I live or die, my heart is as lead, as the days revolve which are to bring around the day of my ability to pay.' 'I threw in a few words of comfort, or tried so to do; but that frigid look had frozen my friend's heart. I parted with him at the door of his residence, when he pressed my hand, and passed in, uttering not a word. 'I was sent for, three days after, to see my friend, and found him pale, and almost pulseless. 'What is the matter?' I inquired. 'Ah! my dear Sir, I cannot stand the averted face of a friend! That look has gone to my heart, as the frost goes to the flower. O God! to be honest, and to be thought not honest!' His head fell to one side, and he was dead! 'On examining into his business affairs, a list of his creditors was found; as were also the arrangements he had made to pay them. The means proved sufficient: and all he owed, principal and interest, was paid within that year. 'How sweet the memory of such a man!' AMONG the number of gallant spirits from Indiana who volunteered during the war with Mexico, was a Captain B. He was in General Scorr's line, and was made quarter-master at a port in Mexico, where he was faithfully discharging his duty to himself, and preparing to come home a richer, if not a better man. The intelligence that CLIFFORD had arrived to open negotiations for peace, found him dismayed, in the midst of his lucrative operations, at the prospect of their speedy termination. He determined to see the Commissioner, and did see him. 'I hear,' said he, 'Mr. CLIFFORD, 'that you are sent out to conclude a treaty of peace. I am a poor man, Sir, and have a large family at home; but I'm a good democrat, Sir; I'm as good a democrat, Sir, as any man; and my father was a democrat before me. Now, Mr. CLIFFORD, I'm United-States' disbustin' Agent here, and I'm making a power of money while this war lasts: jest you hold on a spell, won't you?' Is n't it barely possible that some such motive sometimes prolongs, if it does not assist to create, 'wars of conquest?' DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, the THOMAS HOOD of America, has been giving a series of lectures before the Mercantile Library Association, upon The British Poets. He is an admirable lecturer, as well as writer, and keeps his crowded audiences in the best possible mood. His last, upon BYRON and MOORE, was a superb effort. HERE is a capital illustration of 'Word-Knowledge' in an English boy, who had risen through four classes in a Church-school. He was asked to write the 'Belief,' and he wrote thus: I BELIVE in GOD the all mighty maker of Heaven and in JESUS CHRIST the only son of GOD who was conseved by the holy Gost born of the vurgin Marry Soffed under panshed plited was Squestifided and beded he desended into hell the third day he rose again from the ded he desended into Heaven and setted hat the right hand of Gon the father of all might maker of Heaven and earth the see and all that in thim is and rested upon the Seventh day and Howard it.' 'Soffed under panshed plited!' Think of the repetition of such nonsense as this, for a period of four years! 'IN your 'EDITOR'S Table,' writes a Maryland contemporary, 'in the November number, I see an allusion to, and an extract from a 'Pome' on the Downfall of Hungary. I send you some lines on the effects of 'Old Rye,' in connexion with our National |