be wonderfully increased in duration : they talk of Methuselah and his great uncles as familiarly as maidens of fifteen do of puppydogs. The danger seems to be that people will live too long. True it is that none of this cabbage-fed tribe have yet given any strong signs of longevity; they all die off most unaccountably just as they are on the point of beginning to live a thousand years. However, this must be a mere freak of Nature, who often takes a malicious pleasure in confounding the wisest of our calculations.

TheSawdust Journal," a newspaper which has been for some time established in this city, must, we think, convince any man who will take the trouble to read it, that eating is a very dangerous business. It is astounding to perceive what multitudes have died of roast beef, mutton broth, and such like slow poisons. A considerate man wonders to find himself alive, and is fully convinced that he ought to have been dead long ago. But to show that people are at last fairly awake on this subject, and are determined not to sit still and be poisoned any longer, we make the following extract from the editor's correspond

ence.

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE SAWDUST JOURNAL.

"Gooseborough, December 25. "Friend Withershins:- I wrote to you some time since, for the Library of Starvation and the Sawdust Journal; I hope you will send those excellent publications as soon as possible, with any other works you may have on the subject of short commons. Public attention is now strongly turned towards these subjects, and we really hunger and thirst after every thing in the shape of bare bones. Doctor Sawdust has been lecturing in this place, and produced quite an excitement: his proofs of the pernicious consequences of eating food were in the highest degree convincing; people discovered themselves to be sick who never dreamt of the thing before indeed, it is very clear that but for Dr. Sawdust, we should never know half our misfortunes. Flesh meat is now held in

:

utter abomination among us. People are turning their pigs out of doors at a great rate; all the cows are cashiered, and the poultry have been obliged to cut and run. As for a beef steak, I need not say, such a thing is not to be had for love or money: sausages are entirely out of demand, except such as are stuffed with red baize and turnips; and I verily believe the ghost of a sheep's_head would frighten the whole community. Flesh, in fact, is quite out of the question, and nothing is fish that comes to net here; a man could not even get a salt eel for his supper. All the dogs have run mad, and every cat in the town has departed this life.

"I hope, friend Withershins, we shall have the pleasure of beholding your hatchet face among us before long. You would be delighted to see the sharpness of our noses, the prominence of our cheek-bones, and the beautiful lantern-like transparency of our jaws. The good work is going on, although a great many among us are going off; this, however, cannot be owing to their change of diet, but to the roast turkeys they ate last winter. There is a class of young ladies at Mrs. Nippo's boarding-house, who are living (those I mean, who still survive) in exact adherence to the principles of Dr. Sawdust, and find their complexions highly improved by it. They have excellent soup, made of pebble-stones boiled in clear spring water: sometimes they strain it through a colander of turnip-tops; but this the Doctor calls high living. sawdust dough-nuts never give them the heart-burn; and if you shake a bunch of radishes at them once a week, it is all they want. You never saw a more beautiful and interesting sight than these young ladies; they resemble fair and delicate cabbage-plants growing under the shady side of a barn. Their strength is so much improved by their diet, that they have no occasion for exercise, and never feel the least desire to walk about. Indeed, this would be somewhat hazardous, for one of them being abroad on a windy day last week, was accidentally blown against the side of a newly painted house, where she stuck till somebody came to her relief. Since this catastrophe, they have all kept within doors, which, in fact, is much the best way for true Sawdustarians.

The

"Since writing the above, I have received accounts from the neighbouring town of Noodleton, where Dr. Sawdust has also been lecturing. The good work is going on there. The people have given up eating entirely. Most of them do nothing but gape, though even this is censured as a superfluous luxury, as well as the practice of sucking fog through rye straws. Tee-total Fast Day Forever Associations are rapidly forming. Several people have sewed up their mouths, and assure me the sensation is delightful; others hold back, and think that knocking their teeth out is going far enough. However, the general cry is "go ahead," and I think these last must knock under, in spite of their teeth.

"Brother Sappy lectured on water-porridge last evening, and delighted a most enthusiastic audience. He gave a flaming description of carrots, and the mention of onions brought tears into every eye. He means next week to take up the question on the moral qualities of baked beans. We are all as thriving as corn-stalks; there is not a face in the town that is not pea-green.

"Yours most emaciatingly,
"SIMON SCARECROW."

THE GIPSYING PARTY.
BY JAMES N. BARKER.

GLAD to escape the town and all its cares,
"My custom always of an afternoon,"
And sometimes of a morning, or a day,
A week, a month, whenever time is mine,
I had been rambling through a spring-tide day,
By field and forest, lake and rocky stream-
I cannot say, ma'am, what was my pursuit,

A bird perhaps-perhaps a butterfly,
A flower, a stone, a fly-no matter what-
The mind that nature touches finds a science
At every step to study and admire.

'Twas night-fall; I had lost my way, but knew
The town was yet far distant, when, behold,
My destiny led me to a cottage door';
Not one of those vile cabins of our country,
Which, whether built of log, or stone, or brick,
Frighten the trees away:-an actual cottage,
Embower'd within a grove of sycamores,
With honeysuckle hanging to its walls,
And woodbine climbing round the rustic porch;
A cottage ornée I might term it, but
'Tis but a frippery phrase, and unbeseeming
A good substantial farm house, such as this.
I've said, fate led me, but 'twas in the shape
Of a fine little rogue I met i' the forest,
Toting a load of dogwood flowers and red bud.
I might have deemed him Cupid's little self,
Or, as he toddled homeward, broad as long,
Thought him, for poets all believe in Ovid,
Some daring lover of the goddess Flora,
Transform'd into a walking vase of flowers.
VOL. I.

A female met us ere we left the wood,
Like Venus seeking for her truant boy,
Or something better-like a tender sister
Seeking her little brother. Shall I say
What were our greetings? They were prim enough,
For she was modest, and with modesty

I'm always modest.

When we reach'd the cottage,
The evening meal was waiting, with a welcome
That made me one o' the family, impromptu.
The sire, the dame, the children, all, methought,
I had dream'd of before-especially
The little maid who met us in the wood,
Of her I had had visions. Supper ended,
I could not think of going then; the road,
They said, was intricate, the night was dark,
And gentle Mary, though they did not say it,
I saw was charming-so I gratified them.
The sire was one of those plain, solid men,
Who sometimes startle the pert citizen,
Or college coxcomb, into nothingness;
The growth of our free soil, self-educated,
Yet ready, should their country call them forth,
Fresh from the plough to guide the ship of state,
Or lead our armies on to victory.

The dame was worthy of her spouse, and worthy
Of the dear daughter she had form'd, and taught
All that, perhaps, a woman need to know-
How to be good, agreeable, and useful.

The loud wood robin, with his liquid note,
The sweetest in the forest, roused me up
To meet the brisk good morrow of the red breast,
Peering and nodding at my flowery casement;

C

'Twas dawn-adieu, my Mary-au revoir.

I saw her soon again, you may suppose,
And often too; and when the summer came,
And brought its hot vacation, and the city
Went out of town, to mountains, caves, and springs,
I got my furlough too, and went to Mary.
We walk'd and talk'd, rode, sat, and read together;
But 'twas some time ere her accomplishments
Peep'd, one by one, upon me from the veil
Her modesty hung o'er them. She had read
Her father's well fill'd library with profit,
And could talk charmingly. Then she could sing,
And play too, passably, and dance with spirit;
She sketch'd from nature well, and studied flowers,
Which was enough, alone, to love her for.
Yet was she knowing in all needle work,
And shone in dairy and in kitchen too,
As in the parlour :-To conclude, I loved her.

Reader, didst ever go a gipsying? I do not mean pic-nic-ing with a party Foolish and formal-but with wife and children, Or a few true dear friends; choosing a spot Fit for your gipsy camp, with fountain near, Flowers, birds and breezes, shade and solitude; There for a day to pass the happy hours, Giving free scope to nature-it is worth An age of city life. Go, prithee, try it, And if you are unmarried, I'll engage, Provided he or she be there you love, You'll not be single quite another year. 'Twas so with me-I might have hem'd and ha'd From year to year, breaking a poor girl's heart With "hope deferr'd;" and wasting my fresh youth With fears of folding doors and marble mantels.

[From Yankee Notions.]

THE Annual Meeting of the Society for the Diffusion of Useless Knowledge and the General Confusion of the Human Understanding, was held at the Asineum on Monday last; the President, the Rev. Dr. Bubble, took the chair, precisely at seven o'clock, assisted by the Hon. Mr. Fudgefield, and Timothy Tinshins, Esq., Vice Presidents. The President delivered an introductory discourse on the usefulness of useless knowledge and the advantages of confusion in the under

standing, which elicited the greatest applause from a thronged and delighted audience. The following is an abridged copy.

GENTLEMEN OF THE USELESS KNOWLEDGE ASSOCIATION:

I have the honour of congratulating you on this anniversary meeting. We are engaged, gentlemen, in a stupendous effort. The object of our endeavours is to place the foundations of the intellectual universe on the highest state of moral elevation. There is great truth, gentlemen, in the exaggeration, that the intense application of human intellect in infinitesimal quantities to the analytical pursuit of psychological investigation, leads to the surest mathematical discrimination of moral

idiosyncracies. The human mind, gentlemen, I consider as composed of two qualities,rationation and immaterial recipiency. Facts are imbibed by the inductive process of mental recipiency, and, being rationally rationated, lead to reason. This we denominate the March of Intellect and intellect hath three branches, namely, logic, metaphysics, and dogmatics, which, being synthetically combined, constitute man a reasoning animal. As the Stagyrite remarks, concerning the method of philosophical induction. "Ömnis ratio de ratione rationans, rationare facit rationaliter rationando omnes homines rationantes,” an axiom which, I apprehend, no one will deny. In the unenlightened mind, all attempts at reasoning are in the highest degree unreasonable, just as in the dark all cats are grey. Gentlemen, we live in an enlightened age; Peter Parley and the printing press have effected a moral and hypercritical revolution; all men can read the Pandects, and the Novum Organum. Instead of the spelling-book and the primer, our children have Cudworth's Intellectual. System and Adelung's Mithridates. Modern intellect may be compared to a magnificent toadstool, which shoots out its head on all sides, the moment it gets an inch above ground. Sometimes it has been compared to an overgrown pumpkin-vine, sprouting right and left, and grasping at more than it can hold; but this is a misrepresentation: the mind will hold any quantity of knowledge since the invention of lyceums and encyclopædias; and there is no difficulty at the present day, in getting a quart into a pint pot. Gentlemen, I say to you, go on. Let useless knowledge flourish. The world is growing wise. Man is tall in intellectual stature;

his heels are on the earth, but his head is in the clouds.

The following report of the standing committee was then read.

REPORT.

The Standing Committee of the Society for General Confusion of the Human Understandthe Diffusion of Useless Knowledge and the ing, beg leave to report, that the affairs of the Society were never in a more prosperous and desirable condition. They have great pleasure in congratulating the Society upon the encouraging prospects which the present state of the country holds out to them. Useless knowledge was never more highly prized or more eagerly sought after; and mortal understandings were never in a more admirable confusion than at present. Your Committee beg leave to call the attention of the Society to sundry circumstances which, in their opinion, have had the most powerful effect in bringing about these desirable results.

Your Committee feel bound to distinguish with the most pointed and laudatory regard, the efforts of the newspaper editors of this

country, who, in the course of the past year, have laboured with the most disinterested zeal in forwarding the objects of the Society: they have constantly shown themselves friends of useless knowledge and confounders of the brains and understanding of mankind. Your Committee would particularly call to your approving notice, the unwearied industry of these gentlemen in discovering mares' nests, fighting windmills, basting dead cats, bottling moonshine, catching Tartars, peeping through millstones, swallowing earthquakes, gobbling down piracies, and bridling their asses at the tail. Your Committee recommend that each newspaper editor be presented with an elegant leather medal, bearing the inscription, "Ex fumo dare lucem," in allusion to their wonderful sagacity in sometimes distinguishing smoke from fire.

Your Committee would further point out to the notice of the Society the various quack doctors of this country, and in particular the Vegetable Diet Sawdust Live-forever Starvation tribe;-useless knowledge is under infinite obligations to these individuals, though their reward and encouragement would seem rather to belong to that enlightened association, the Society for the Extinction of the Human Species. Nevertheless, considering the immense amount of useless knowledge they have propagated, and its effects in producing confusion not only in the understandings, but in the bodies of men, your Committee do not feel at liberty to pass them by without some adequate notice. They therefore recommend that each of these persons be presented with a medal of the purest and hardest bronze, bearing the inscription "Stultorum infinitus est numerus," in allusion to the very wide field which exists for their praiseworthy and philanthropic labours.

Your Committee would further recommend to your favourable notice, those worthy and enlightened individuals the March of Intellect Cold Water Tee-totallers, who have manfully lent their strong assistance towards promoting the objects of this Society. Your Committee cannot praise too highly the labours of these gentlemen in propagating useless knowledge. The world is indebted to them for the discovery of the method of drinking out of empty glasses, getting high on cold water, decanting a bottle of hay, sucking April fog through goose-quills, and the demonstration by chemical analysis, that sixteen thousand cubic miles of moonshine contain alcohol enough to fuddle three moschettoes. But the most amazing discovery due to the ingenuity of these gentlemen, relates to whiskey punch, which they have ascertained not to be whiskey punch, but a compound of prussic acid, opodeldoc, nux vomica, prelinpinpin, coloquintida, pepperaria, sudcrumhatcheta, and a conglomeration of heterogeneous concoctions too numerous to mention. The most brilliant

discoveries may still be expected of the Teetotallers, as they are now engaged in an inquiry into the metaphysical character of pint pots. Your Committee recommend that each individual of the March of Intellect Tee-total Association be presented with a tin dipper of the shallowest possible form, with the strictest injunctions never to put his nose into it.

Your Committee further recommend to the favourable regard of the Society that distinguished individual, Dr. Humm, the ingenious reviver of animal magnetism, whose labours in the cause of the Society deserve the highest commendation. Dr. Humm has not only been instrumental in extending knowledge useless, and more than useless, but he has also thrown the understandings of many human beings into confusion worse confounded. His success in this particular has been most brilliant, and many individuals under his influence are so far gone in their intellectuals, that they do not show the least glimmer of common sense. Your Committee beg leave to lay before the Society a brief relation of the brilliant and astonishing experiment in animal magnetism performed by Dr. Humm upon the person of a full grown, intelligent and respectable cat of this city, in the presence of a large number of citizens of the first talent and respectability.

"All things being prepared, the cat was brought into the room and placed in an armchair. The cat was a grey tabby, with a black and yellow tail, and sea-green eyes, and a mild ingenuous expression of countenance, and appeared to be about four years old. Doctor Humm assured us there was no sort of private understanding between him and the cat, as had been suspected by some sceptical persons. Indeed, the cat appeared perfectly innocent, and every body was quite convinced of her honesty. She stared round at the company with wondering eyes, as if not comprehending the cause of the assemblage, but could not escape from the chair, because she was held down by her paws and tail by five of the gentlemen present. Dr. Humm then began the magnetic operation by placing the fore and middle fingers of his left hand over her eyes so as to keep them shut close, and drawing the fore finger of his right hand in a direct line from the cat's nose across her bosom down to the extremity of her left paw. The magnetic effect was immediately apparent. Her tail began to wag, so much so that the Rev. Mr. Fogbrain, who was holding on by that limb, immediately let it go in order to witness the result of this strange phenomenon. In thirteen seconds there was a sensible vibration of the cat's tail, which waved from side to side, describing twentyseven degrees of the segment of a circle. general murmur ran throughout the assembly. It wags! it wags!' exclaimed every onethere was no longer any room for doubt; the

A

most sceptical among the spectators was thoroughly convinced that the tail was wagging, and even that arch unbeliever Simon Sly was heard to declare, he did not doubt of the waggery.

"Dr. Humm now changed his operation, and commencing as before at the cat's nose, he passed his two fingers up the skull bone between the ears, down the occiput, round under the neck to the tip of the shoulderblade, and thence in a straight line down to the left paw. After thirty-one magnetical touches in this manner, the wagging of the tail increased to such a degree as to describe almost a semicircle, and Dr. Humm declared the animal was sound asleep. As the cat gave no evidence to the contrary except by the wagging, there was no doubt of the fact, for the Doctor assured us that magnetized cats always wagged their tails when sleeping. The cat was therefore declared to be in a fit state for experiments, and Doctor Humm began by willing the cat's tail to tie itself up in a bow-knot: the tail immediately twisted itself round and described the figure of a bow-knot in the air. This was witnessed with astonishment by every one in the room. Mr. Noddy seeing the wonderful effect of the experiment, signified a wish to bear a part in the operation, to which Dr. Humm very politely consented. Mr. Noddy therefore proceeded to magnetize the cat from the tip of the lower jaw, under the chin, across the trachea and thorax, down to the heel of the right paw the cat immediately gave a loud mew: which in a sleeping cat must have been a sure sign that something ailed her. Mr. Noddy then willed her nose to be in a rathole, which took immediate effect by the cat's snapping sharply at his fore finger.

This astonished the company a second time, and Dr. Humm made a third experiment by willing the cat to be thrown souse into Frog Pond. The Rev. Mr. Fogbrain immediately let go her fore paws, and strange to say, they began pad, padding, as if attempting to swim. The murmurs of admiration that ran round the company at this wonderful sight are not to be described. She swims! she swims!' exclaimed every one; the proof was complete; most of the spectators could hear the splashing of the water in the pond, and some even imagined they could see the boys chucking stones at her. After this had been displayed to the full satisfaction of the company, Dr. Humm willed her to come safe ashore; notwithstanding, her paws continued to paddle, but this was easily accounted for, as the Doctor assured us she would stand perfectly still as soon as she got her land-legs on.

Dr.

"Various other experiments followed, which we have not space to describe in detail. Scantiwit willed the cat to be in a mustard pot, whereupon she immediately gave a loud sneeze, and made an immensely wry face.

Mr. Milksop willed her to be lapping cream, on which she gave a hearty purr and licked her chaps three times. Mr. Dryasdust willed her to scratch his wig, and at the same moment felt a sharp tingling under his skullbone, by which he was convinced he had something there," &c., &c.

Your Committee having laid before the Society these wonderful experiments, recommend that Dr. Humm and each of the individuals who assisted as above, be presented with the Freedom of the Corporation of Fool's Paradise.

Your Committee would recommend to the respectful notice of the Society the various public lecturers of this portion of the country, and in particular, those who treat of German metaphysics, Coleridgism, optimism, and similar ultra-mundane exaltations of the human intellect. Your Committee suggest that a prize be proposed the ensuing year for the best dissertation on the following subject,"The Influence of Transcendental Metaphysics on the Growth of Cabbages." They recommend that each transcendentalist be presented with a stout broomstick for the purpose of flying through the air.

Your Committee would trespass too far upon the time of the Society were they to enumerate at length all the matters which deserve their attention. They are obliged reluctantly, therefore, to pass with a bare mention, the great number of old women, quidnuncs, schemers, dreamers, steamers, systemmongers, method-mongers, improvers-of-society, &c., who are now exercising so vast an influence in this country.

AMERICAN STRICTURES ON THE CHARTISTS IN ENGLAND.

[From the Corsair.]

THE silent and rapid growth of this formidable revolutionary faction in England is one of the most momentous signs of the times in that country. The avowed intentions of the Chartist party are peaceful, but their objects are not on that account the less decidedly revolutionary. The institution of a virtually new and written constitution for the unwritten one under which England is now governed, being, as we understand it, the first object which the Chartists have in view, and what they insist upon as the only wholesome basis for all further political action. Now this is a very different matter from the new question of Reform; for should such a re-organization of the government be once instituted, it is impossible to predict what vital changes it might undergo in the attempt to re-construct

upon such a model as should be agreed upon. The people of the State of New York did once in formal convention take their old constitution to pieces and put it together again in such a shape as to please themselves,