the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty-five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he was skillful with a raft, and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack-he's dead now, poor fellow !—was made captain of her. He always used to take the wheel going through the rapids. One day when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and Jack's utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with: 'Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute-I've lost an apple overboard!'

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Stories Illustrating Lnicoln's Memory.

At one

Mr. Lincoln's memory was very remarkable. of the afternoon receptions at the White House a stranger shook hands with him, and as he did so remarked, casually, that he was elected to Congress about: the time Mr. Lincon's term as representative expired,. which happened many years before.

29

men

"Yes,' said the President, "you are from tioning the state. "I remember reading of your election in a newspaper one morning on a steamboat going down.

to Mount Vernon."

At another time a gentleman addressed him, saying, "I presume, Mr. President, you have forgotten me?" "No," was the prompt reply; "your name is Flood. I .saw you last, twelve years ago at," naming the place and the occasion. "I am glad to see," he continued, "that the Flood flows on,

Subsequent to his re-election a deputation of bankers

from various sections were introduced one day by the Secretary of the Treasury. After a few moments of general conversation, Mr. Lincoln turned to one of them and said: "Your district did not give me so strong a vote at the last election as it did in 1860.”

I think, sir, that you must be mistaken," replied the banker. "I have the impression that your majority was considerably increased at the last election,"

"No," rejoined the President. "you fell off about six hundred votes." Then taking down from the bookcase the official canvass of 1860 and 1864 he referred to the vote or the district named and proved to be quite right in his assertion.

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Philosophy of Canes.

A gentleman calling at the White House one evening carried a cane which in the course of conversation attracted the President's attention. Taking it in his hand he said: "I always used a cane when I was a boy. It was a freak of mine. My favorite one was a knotted beech stick, and I carved the head myself. There's a mighty amount of character in sticks. Don't you think so? You have seen these fishing-polls that fit into a cane? Well, that was an old idea of mine. Dogwood clubs were favorite ones with the boys. I suppose they use them yet. Hickory is too heavy. unless you get it from a young sapling. Have you ever noticed how a stick in one's hand will change his appearance? Old women and witches wouldn't look so without sticks. Meg Merrilies understands that."

Common Sense.

The Hon. Mr, Hubbard, of Connecticut, once called upon the President in reference to a newly invented gun, concerning which a committee had been appointed to make a report.

The "report" was sent for, and when it came in was found to be of the most voluminous description. Mr. Lincoln glanced at it and said: "I should want a new lease of life to read this through!" Throwing it down. upon the table he added: "Why can't a committee of this kind occasionally exhiblt a grain of common sense? If I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his points-not how many hairs there are in his tail."

Lincoln's Confab with a Committee on "Grant's

Whisky."

Just previous to the fall of Vicksburg a self-constituted committee, solicitous for the morale of our armies, took it upon themselves to visit the President and urge the removal of General Grant.

In some surprise Mr. Lincoln inquired, "For what rea

son ?"

"Why," replied the spokesman, "he drinks too much whisky."

"Ah!" rejoined Mr. Lincoln, dropping his lower lip. "By the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me where General Grant procures his whisky? because, if I can find out, I will send every general in the field a barrel of it!"

A "Pretty Tolerable Respectable Sort of a Cler

gyman."

Some one was discussing in the presence of Mr. Lincoln the character of a time-serving Washington clergy.. man Said Mr. Lincoln to his visitor:

He re

"I think you are rather hard upon Mr. minds me of a man in Illinois, who was tried for passing a counterfeit bill. It was in evidence that before passing it he had taken it to the cashier of a bank and asked his opinion of the bill, and he received a very prompt reply that it was a counterfeit. His lawyer, who had heard the evidence to be brought against his client, asked him just before going into court, 'Did you take the bill to the cashier of the bank and ask him if it was good?'

"I did,' was the reply,

“'Well, what was the reply of the cashier?'

"The rascal was in a corner, but he got out of it in this fashion: 'He said it was a pretty tolerable, respectable sort of a bill."" Mr. Lincoln thought the clergyman was "a pretty talerable, respectable sort of a clergyman."

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Opened His Eyes.

Mr. Lincoln sometimes had a very effective way of dealing with men who troubled him with questions. A visitor once asked him how many men the Rebels had in the field.

The President replied, very seriously, "Twelve hundred thousand, according to the best authority."

The interrogator blanched in the face, and ejaculated. "Good Heavens!"

"Yes, sir, twelve hundred thousand-no doubt of it.

You see, all of our generals, when they get whipped, say the enemy outnumbers them from three or five to one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred thousand men in the field, and three times four makes twelve. Don't you see it?"

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Minnehaha and Minneboohoo!

Some gentlemen fresh from a Western tour, during a call at the White House, referred in the course of conversation to a body of water in Nebraska, which bore an Indian name signifying "weeping water." Mr. Lincoln instantly responded: "As laughing water,' according to Mr. Longfellow, is Minnehaha," this evidently should be " Minneboohoo.'

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Lincoln and the Artist.

F. B. Carpenter, the celebrated artist and author of the well-known painting of Lincoln and his Cabinet issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, describes his first meeting with the President, as follows:

"Two o'clock found me one of the throng pressing toward the center of attraction, the blue' room. From the threshold of the crimson' parlor as I passed, I had a glimpse of the gaunt figure of Mr. Lincoln in the distance, haggard-looking, dressed in black, relieved only by the prescribed white gloves; standing, it seemed to me, solitary and alone, though surrounded by the crowd, bending low now and then in the process of hand-shaking, and responding half abstractedly to the well-meant greetings of the miscellaneous assemblage.