But the bill proposes to charter a company," remarked Mr. B. "I can not support any such bill."

favor, when it comes up on its final passage, why-attention to their comfort-hauling wood, cooking, that's all we want." etc. Just after the regiment was mustered out, some one of the band proposed that Joe should receive a present, and accordingly a subscription was gotten up, and a costly ring purchased. The band assembled in the sitting-room of a Washington hotel, and one of the party, who was gifted with unusual pow

"Well, your pledge is against voting for any such bills; explain this bill to the House, and you may vote against it if you like," replied the reporters of eloquence, delivered the presentation speech; er-and so it was arranged.

paying a just tribute to the industry and disinterested kindness of the recipient; dwelling upon the many pleasant months they had passed together, and of their coming separation-perhaps for ever. Joe received the ring without emotion; inspected it closely, placed it on his finger, and then responded,

Shortly after, up came the bill; it was read through, and requiring, under the old Constitution, the assent of two-thirds of the members elected, the Speaker directed the messengers to call in the members. While out on this duty, up jumped the Hon. Mr. B., and briefly stated the objects of the bill-"Well, boys, it's a little too big; but I guess I can much to the surprise, it is supposed, of its friends and the members flocking, and finding the member who had during the session persistently voted against their bills, soon sealed the fate of the pending bill. The roll was called, and amidst a long and continuous peal of "No! no!" the bill in a few minutes was dead.

Astonished at such a result, the Hon. Mr. B. walked up to the reporters' desk, and, with a look of wonderment, said, "Why, the bill is killed!"

"Yes," said the reporters, "and that is just what we wanted."

Suffice it to say that the Hon. Mr. B. at last saw through the joke, and was about the best pleased man at the way the defeat had been brought about. The gentleman from New York, of course, went home highly gratified; and the friends of the bill gave up all hopes of resuscitating it.

THE tent and the field furnish many good things for the Drawer. For example:

trade it off!"

TEMPEST.

To quell a storm though mortal try,
He never is victorious;

Now would you know the reason why?
Because it's to lay Boreas!

IF the citizens of Berks County, Pennsylvania, will persistently vote for Andrew Jackson for President, the following veritable extract from a will on record in that county, dated in 1802, shows that they know how to provide for their wives in case of their death. It is copied for the Drawer :

"It is my will and I will that my beloved wife shall have possession in the house where she now resides as long as she lives, without any molestation, yearly and every year as long as she lives. Further, it is my will that my executors, after my decease, shall give to my wife yearly and every year as long as she lives forty-five pounds in good lawful gold or silver money of Pennsylvania; but Major Y and Lieutenant M, of our regi- five pounds be insufficient to maintain her, they shall take should she become sick and bedrid, and the aforesaid fortyment, were on detached service at the extreme front out of the estate as much as she may require. Further, last summer, and gave a dinner one day to several it is my will that she shall have the small meadow above of our officers. Lieutenant M, although an ex- the house she lives in for her use as long as she lives, cellent officer in his way, had strange notions of the which the executors shall manure for her every two years, "fitness of things," and very little taste for the po- and water it every year in proper season and manner, etical, sentimental, or solemn. Among the guests and mow the grass growing on the same in proper time, present at the dinner was the stately and tender-dry it, and put it in the stable. Further, it is my will hearted Dr. B, whom all loved and respected. take as much of my household furniture as she pleasesthat after my decease my wife shall have the right to The conversation at the table was interspersed with to wit, bedding, linen, pewter-ware, tables and chairs, reminiscences of the early days of the regiment, and chests, cupboards, room-stove, tubs, buckets, iron kettles, the feelings of the company became rather depressed and copper kettles, iron pots, and whatever else of housein reflecting upon old times and associates. After hold and kitchen furniture, be it named as it may-the dinner was about over, and while waiting for des- choice of every thing. Further, one horse, her choice. sert, Dr. B― arose in his dignified and impressive Further, three cows out of the stable--her choice--and when they become too old she shall redeliver them unto manner, and made an eloquent response to a toast, the executors, and choose three others out of the stable, in which he dwelt upon the peculiar interest of the and the cows to be put in pasture when she desires it, and occasion, in bringing them once more alive and well this yearly and every year as long as she lives. Further, together, after undergoing the perils of the summer they shall give unto her yearly and every year two fat campaign. He portrayed the heroic endurance of hogs of one hundred and fifty pounds each, and one hunthe regiment under all circumstances, and concluded dred and fifty pounds of beef, twenty bushels good wheat, with a solemn exordium upon the mutability of ten bushels rye, ten bushels buckwheat, five bushels of time. As he sat down amidst the profound silence Indian corn, and five bushels oats, and twelve bushels of potatoes. The executors shall take the grain to the mill, and attention of the assembly, Lieutenant Mand bring back again, and deliver into the house the meal screamed out to the invisible contraband, "Come, as she may want it. Further, the half of the kitchenGeorge, bring on the puddin' and sas!” The shock garden-which she chooses--and manure on the same to the sensibilities of the party was so abrupt that yearly, as much as she desires. And firewood to be they dispersed in disgust, leaving Lieutenant M-hauled home to the house, and split fine, as much as she to enjoy his "puddin' and sas," and wonder what in the world had gone wrong.

LIEUTENANT M————, in the fitness of his remarks, was not unlike Joe, who "played the cymbals" in our regimental band. During the period of the regiment's service Joe had made himself valuable to the other members of the band by his constant

yearly wants; two barrels of good cider made and delivered into the cellar. Apples as many as she wants, if there are any; and ten gallons of whisky, fifteen pounds of tow, ten pounds of wool. Salt, as much as she wants; of tallow, twenty pounds of combed flax, twenty pounds and hens and eggs, as many as she wants to have and keep. All the above-mentioned shall be kept, paid, and delivered unto her yearly and every year during her life by my executors out of my estate."

Fin this Magazine descriptive of a visit to purposes.

OUR years ago a series of papers appeared | narrative was a fiction concocted for speculative

Washoe, in which the author related some per- The simple truth was that the author, an sonal experiences of a very remarkable character. So wonderful, indeed, were many of his adventures, that certain incredulous persons, who have no difficulty in believing any thing except the truth, boldly assumed that the entire

ex-Government official, found himself one fine morning in San Francisco, with only an empty purse in his pocket, and saw no remedy but to visit the newly-discovered silver regions, which were then making a prodigious stir among the

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

VOL. XXX.-No. 180.-Zz

gunny-bags of Front Street, and the bummers, | regions beyond had sprung up into a second
bankers, and other men of enterprising genius
on Montgomery Street. Aided by a commission
to explore some mines which had no existence
in this world or the next, he felt assured that
he could, by means of an agency and his own
speculative talent, speedily indemnify himself
for the unprofitable years which he had spent
in the public service. In this hopeful state of
mind he set forth on his travels. Unable to
procure a conveyance at Placerville short of all
the money he possessed or could hope to obtain
by borrowing, he sturdily shouldered his blank-
ets, and footed it over the mountains-through
mud, and snow, and rain, slush, and scathing
storms-to the city of Carson, where he arrived
in due time, somewhat battered and wayworn
by the hardships of the trip. It is not my in-
tention to review in detail the wonderful expe-
riences of this adventurer in the land of silver.
They will all be found in his published narra-
tive, illustrated by authentic wood-cuts. Suf-
ficient is it for my purpose to say that before
writing his account of Washoe, and the perils
and vicissitudes of life in that region, he deemed
it prudent to retire to the continent of Europe.
The dreary years of his exile from California he
filled up, in some measure, by tours through
Spain, Algeria, Germany, Poland, and the re-
gions bordering on the Arctic Circle.

On his return to San Francisco he found, to his astonishment, that the silver mania had taken possession of the entire population, withont distinction of age or sex. Washoe and the

California. Gold was nowhere now: it was all
silver-above, below, every where. Speculation
peered into the silvery heavens in search of new
leads; nay, the genius of enterprise pointed to-
ward the regions of everlasting woe as an appro-
priate sphere for the smelting interests. Tons
of ore were piled in heaps along the curb-stones
in the streets; every office was an emporium for
the purchase and sale of feet; every desk in
every store was a stall at which millionaires
browsed upon paper; every window glared and
dazzled the sight with gorgeous engravings of
stocks; every man of the hundreds and tens of
hundreds that stood at every corner, and in ev-
ery saloon, and before every bar, carried feet in
his pockets and dividends in his eyes; and every
walking thing, save horses and dogs and rats
and mice, talked stocks and feet from morning
till night, and dreamed dividends from night
till morning. Young ladies would hear of no
proposition from any gentleman with less than
a thousand feet; and no gentleman, however
ardent, would compromise himself without ask-
ing, "Is she on the Wild-Cat or Legitimate?
How many pay feet does she offer? and what
assessments are due on her ?" Passing a crowd,
"Reese River" was poured into one ear, and
"Humboldt" into the other. "Washoe!" "Es-
meralda!" "Arizona!" "Sonora !" "Struck it
rich!" "Silver bricks!" and "Pay rock!"
hummed and drummed through the air till the
brain was nearly addled.

No wonder our adventurer, just from the wilds

He had better give Carson, and Silver City, and the Devil's Gate, and Virginia a wide berth in his future travels!

Such were a few of the grave considerations under which I surveyed the prospect of revisiting Washoe-for you must have already discovered, dear reader, that the writer of these sketches is no other than the disreputable personage above referred to. Held accountable by divers and exasperated bodies of men for all the disasters that had occurred on the other side of the mountains during the past three years, and credited by none of the fortunes made, it was due to the great cause of justice that I should go over and set myself right, or gloriously die in the attempt.

thousand feet wide. I say this was a fortunate occurrence, as it afforded me good ground for traveling by the ordinary modes of conveyance, which I have generally found to be about as safe as any other.

Of the trip to Sacramento it is needless to say much. Most people in San Francisco have tried that at least once or twice in their lives. If ever they derived any pleasure from it they accomplished more than I did. Two hours in a chilling wind, during which you partake of a hasty dinner and smoke a cigar, finds you at the Benicia wharf, the steamer fretting and fuming with suppressed steam, crowds pouring in and crowds moving out, and a great many people With this much in the way of introduction, I gathered about the premises, without any osshall proceed to give you a detailed narrative of tensible occupation save to be on hand in case my experiences, in the course of which it will be something should turn up. When there hapseen that various and magical changes have pens to be no opposition on the line you may taken place in the mining regions of Washoe. escape collision or explosion; but your chances Indeed when I look back at what Virginia City are very small indeed of ever reaching your des was at the time of my first visit-a city of sage- tination in the event of a rival steamer being bushes, mud hovels, coyote-holes, gunny-bags, on the route. In this country it is a common flour-sacks, and tattered blankets, wherein dwelt practice to fight duels with steamboats. Diffia population the most motley and incongruous culties between captains are settled by steam. ever gathered together by the force of silver and The boilers are charged to the bursting point, circumstances when I think of the multifarious and the hostile parties, accustomed to the use ledges then in the progress of development, and of steamboats from infancy, manage their weapsee what has since been done, and what prom-ons with such skill that an effective crash, acise there is in the future, I feel precisely as Lord companied by the shrieks of maimed and scaldClive did at the bar of the British Parliament-ed passengers, is the usual result. astonished at my own moderation. The marvel of it is that I carried away so little treasure where there was so much staring me in the face. I wonder how it was I ever told half so much truth, and left so heavy a balance still to be told. In announcing to certain experienced friends my purpose of revisiting Washoe I was somewhat startled by such questions as these: Is your neck insured by a responsible company? Are you subject to giddiness in the head? How often have your ribs been broken before? Are you accustomed to fractures of the legs and arms? And what provision have you made for the maintenance of your family in case a miscellaneous bullet should strike you through the bowels and lodge in your back-bone? Which I understood to mean, in general terms, that a certain per-centage of travelers who went over the grade did so head-foremost, with a stage or two on top of them, and that the state of society in Virginia City had not improved in a moral point of view.

I was about to hire a private vehicle, when, fortunately, I met a friend who had just come over by the Henness Pass. This gentleman traveled in a buggy for comfort and convenience. At a narrow pass on the way he had encountered a stage, and to avoid being run over had turned out of the grade, but never stopped turning till himself and his buggy, and the horses that pulled the buggy, together with all his provisions, blankets, deeds, mortgages, lists of mines, rolls of assessments, and schedules of dividends were piled in a confused heap at the bottom of a cañon some five hundred feet deep by several

Upon entering the Sacramento River the air becomes softer and warmer, and good-natured travelers who have been up and down a great many times point out the trees in which families of women and children lodged a few years ago when the flood swept away the houses. But many houses still remain, although the effects of the flood are visible all along the banks of the river.

About midnight the steamer, if she be well freighted, as is generally the case, runs aground on the Hog's Back, and there sticks fast till morning. Passengers who have secured rooms and berths usually avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded to lay in a supply of sleep for the journey across the mountains; and passengers who can not procure rooms or berths enjoy the privilege of sitting up in chairs carefully secured to the floors, as a precaution against theft; or spending the night in the lower saloon at a game of sledge or poker, by which means they usually travel with heavy heads and light pockets the next day. The Hog's Back is responsible for a vast deal of trouble. I have seen many hogs in my day, but never so great a bore as this.

Arrived at length in Sacramento, a hasty breakfast of water bewitched and coffee begrudged, leathery beef-steak and saleratus slightly corrected with flour, refreshes the inner man: trunks and knapsacks are vindictively hurled into the baggage-car of the Folsom train; the whistle blows; the passengers rush frantically into the cars and bestow themselves on the seats without regard to order; and the locomotive frets and fizzes on its iron way to Folsom.