CHAPTER I JEFFERSON DAVIS ON REBELLION Sumner to Howard, May 16, 1856. Ibid., p. 37. Shannon to Sumner, May 21, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 38. 1856. Shannon to Sumner, June 4, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 45. While the town of Lawrence was undergoing burning and pillage, Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel Sumner to say that as the marshal and... more...

BAR BARRED! SCENE—A Parliamentary Committee Room. Committee sitting at horse-shoe table. Bar crowded at table covered with plans, custards, buns, agreements, and ginger-beer. Huge plans hanging to walls. View in distance of St. Thomas's Hospital. East-West Diddlesex Railway Extension Bill under consideration. Expert Witness standing at reading-desk under examination. Junior Counsel (for... more...

THE LOST PASSENGER Charley Norton was bored and unhappy. He stood at the starboard rail of the mail boat gazing out at the cold, bleak rocks of the Labrador coast, dimly visible through fitful gusts of driving snow. Charley Norton and his father's secretary, Hugh Wise, had boarded the ship at St. John's ten days before for the round trip voyage to Hopedale, and during the voyage there had not... more...

CHAPTER I. I FIND LIFE. Those soft pink circles which fell upon my face and hands, caught in my hair, danced around my feet, and frolicked over the billowy waves of bright, green grass—did I know they were apple blossoms? Did I know it was an apple tree through which I looked up to the blue sky, over which white clouds scudded away toward the great hills? Had I slept and been awakened by the wind to... more...

STEPHEN ARCHER Stephen Archer was a stationer, bookseller, and newsmonger in one of the suburbs of London. The newspapers hung in a sort of rack at his door, as if for the convenience of the public to help themselves in passing. On his counter lay penny weeklies and books coming out in parts, amongst which the Family Herald was in force, and the London Journal not to be found. I had occasion once to... more...

KENNINGTON COMMON. Before all traces be lost of Kennington Common, so soon to be distinguished by the euphonious epithet of Park, let me put a Query to some of your antiquarian readers in relation thereunto; and suffer me to make the Query a peg, whereon to hang sundry and divers little notes. And pray let no one ridicule the idea that Kennington has its antiquities; albeit that wherever you look, new... more...

CHAPTER I OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO Since the end of the civil war in the United States, whoever has occasion to name the three most distinguished representatives of our national greatness is apt to name Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. General Grant is now our national military hero. Of Washington it has often been said that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his... more...

Out of the Ashes Old Troy reaped rue in the womb of yearsFor stolen Helen's sake;Till tenfold retribution rearsIts wreck on embers slaked with tearsThat mended no heart-ache.The wail of the women sold as slavesLest Troy breed sons againDreed o'er a desert of nameless graves,The heaps and the hills that are Trojan gravesDeep-runneled by the rain. But Troy lives on. Though Helen's rapeAnd... more...

Chapter I. One pleasant summer morning Alphonzo was amusing himself by swinging on a gate in front of his mother’s house. His cousin Malleville, who was then about eight years old, was sitting upon a stone outside of the gate, by the roadside, in a sort of corner that was formed between the wall and a great tree which was growing there. Malleville was employed in telling her kitten a story. The... more...

Gentleman of the Bar: When the sad event occurred which has drawn us together this morning, you met in your accustomed hall, and expressed the feelings which such an event might well inspire. You then adjourned to assist in performing the last solemn rites over the bier of your departed friend. Clad in mourning, you attended his remains from his residence to the steamer, and, embarking with them,... more...