300 AN IMPROMPTU CROW-BAR.' THE BACHELOR' was in a 'reverie:' 'RALPH SEAWULF' was silent: RICHARD HAYWARDE' was musing, and 'Old KNICK.' was drinking in the exhilarating air of the sweet Spring morning-('we four, and no more,' were being wheeled to Huntington, Long Island, over a beautiful road, through pleasant villages, in a fine vehicle, drawn by a pair of 'fast bays')-when HAYWARDE, noting a long neck of land pushing out into the Sound, bare at low tide, and thickly besprinkled with crows, inquired, 'What is that?' Long-Neck,' Horse-neck,' ' Cow-Neck,' 'LittleNeck,' 'Rye-Neck,' or which of the Long-Island Necks' is it?' 'Neither, I fancy,' answered 'one of us;' 'it is only a nameless bar putting out into the Sound: but I should think Crow-bar' would be a good designation for it.' NUMBER FOURTEEN. A REVERSED WASH-TUB : A RAIL-ROAD LYRIC: A PERSONAL FUNERAL: THE GAL HE horrors of Washing Day' have composed a time THE hallowed theme for grumblers, and have elicited the soft numbers of the poets. But according to an amusing traveller, whose 'Letters' we have recently read, they remove far off the annoyance in some parts of the old world. At Ouchy, near Lausanne, he writes: 'I saw to-day for the first time in my life a converse of the washing-tub theorem. In the common case, the washing-tub contains water and the linen, but not the washer-woman, who is at some point without the tub: in this case the tub contained the washer-woman, but neither water nor linen. The women were standing in tubs in the lake, and were washing clothes which were on the outside of the tub in the water. The mode they have of subsequently smacking the linen on the stones is a most uncharitable and un 302 A RAIL-ROAD LYRIC. christian proceeding. Far from hiding the defects of an old shirt, it puts them immediately in a very striking light, and makes the most of all its little weaknesses.' THE ensuing lines are quite in the style of THACKERAY'S 'PEG of Limavady;' yet they are perfectly origi nal, and do not even verge upon parody. The reader will observe how completely the measure chimes with rail-road motion: THE well-known anecdote of 'JARVIS and the melancholy Frenchman' with the segar-box had its parallel here a short time since. A gentleman of bituminous complexion, dressed all in sables, with black coat, black vest, black gloves, black pantaloons, and black hat, with a very long black streamer depending therefrom, was walking alone through Broadway with solemn step and slow,' bearing a very small baby's coffin under his right arm. A brother 'darky' coming from the opposite direction, with a recognitive grin, èxposing a row of teeth like the keys of a piano, hailed him: Well, JOE! where is you bound dis mornin' wid yu box?' 'SAAM!' said the mourner, 6 with a look of offended dignity, and a 'stand-aside' wave 304 THE TOPER'S SPECTACLES. of the arm, 'Go 'way!-do n't you see dat I is a funeral?' This interrogative 'WHO hath redness of eyes!' 'portion of divine scripture' is forcibly illustrated by an anecdote, related with most effective dryness by a friend of ours. An elderly gentleman, accustomed to 'indulge,' entered the bar-room of an inn in the pleasant city of H- on the Hudson, where set a grave Friend toasting his toes by the fire. Lifting a pair of green spectacles upon his forehead, rubbing his inflamed eyes, and calling for a hot brandy-toddy, he seated himself by the grate; and as he did so, he remarked to Uncle BROADBRIM that 'his eyes were getting weaker and weaker, and that even spectacles did n't seem to do 'em any good.' 'I'll tell thee, friend,' rejoined the Quaker, 'what I think. I think if thee was to wear thy spectacles over thy mouth for a few months, thy eyes would get sound again!' The ‘complainant' did not even return thanks for this medical counsel, but sipped his toddy in silence, and soon after left the room, ' uttering never a word.' Ir is related of the celebrated clergyman, JOHN MASON, that sitting at a steam-boat table on one occasion, just as the passengers were 'falling to' in the customary |