time by whispers which disclosed that there was a cake baking in the ashes, and the woman and her husband were congratulating themselves on the way in which they had kept their food and deceived the hungry traveller. Feeling angry that they should have told him they had nothing to eat when it was not true, and that they were now "chuckling" over it, he determined to spoil their game. He began to move restlessly, and finally got up and complained of feeling very badly. The woman asked him what was the matter. He told her he was much distressed in mind and could not sleep, and went on to say that his father when he died had left him a large farm, but that he had no sooner taken possession than mortgages began to appear, and, taking the fire poker, he said: "My farm was situated like this," illustrating by drawing the poker through the ashes, so as to entirely surround the ash cake with the lines. "First one man got so much of it off on this side; then another brought in a mortgage and took off another piece there; then another there, and another there, and there and there," drawing the poker through the ashes each time to explain locations, " until," said he, "there was nothing of the farm left to me at all, which I presume is the case with your cake." "And I reckon," said Mr. Lincoln, "that the prospect is now very good for soon having the Rebellion as completely cut up as that ash cake was."

When he had finished reading telegrams announcing Sheridan's last fight with Early, in the Shenandoah Valley, he said he thought Early's army was in about the same condition as a dog he once heard a man say he had killed by filling a piece of punk with powder, and, setting it on fire, he clapped it inside of a biscuit, and, as the dog rushed at him as usual, tossed the biscuit to

him; in an instant the dog snapped it up and swallowed it. Presently the fire touched the powder and away went the dog, his head in one place, a leg here and another there, and the different parts of him scattered about. "But," said the man, 66 as for the dog, as a dog, I was never able to find him"; "and this," he said, “ was very much the condition of Early's army, as an army.”

Mr. Stanton came one evening from his room and stood in the doorway of the telegraph office, without coming in. Mr. Lincoln did not notice him at first t; as he looked up from his writing and perceived him standing there, he bowed low and said, with much gravity: "Good-evening, Mars."

The only occasion on which I knew him to use a profane word was on receipt of a telegram from General Burnside, then in Greenville, East Tennessee, announcing that he expected a portion of his command to be at Jonesboro at a certain time. Eagerly looking over the map to see the position of the force under Burnside's command, it seemed to him that the portion referred to was marching away from instead of to the rescue of General Rosecrans, as ordered. Mr. Lincoln reread the dispatch, thinking there must be some mistake, and repeated to himself: "Jonesboro? Jonesboro? D. DJonesboro!" and he immediately addressed a telegram to Burnside, saying:

"If you are to do any good to Rosecrans it will not do to waste time at Jonesboro. It is already too late to do the most good that might have been done; but I hope it is not too late to do some good. Please do not lose a moment."

During my knowledge of him Mr. Lincoln always dressed in plain black, his clothes sometimes "showing wear." I think I never saw him wear an overcoat; instead of that he wore an ample, plain but peculiarly

figured gray shawl, and his usual way of disposing of it as he entered the office was to hang it across the top of the inner door, which was nearly always standing open, and so high as to be out of the reach of a man of ordinary height. When sitting at a desk writing briefly he sometimes assumed a half-kneeling, half-sitting posture, with one knee on the carpet. When composing at some length it was his habit to look out of the window and, apparently unconsciously, scratch his head, particularly his temples, often moving his lips in whispers, until he had his sentence framed, when he would put it on paper. He wrote rather slowly but quite legibly, taking care to punctuate accurately. His spelling was faultless, which is not true of all great men, even those of education; and yet on two or three occasions he asked me, while writing, as to the use of one or two "l's" or two "t's." He rarely erased or interlined; and his diction, so peculiar to himself, always seemed to me the perfection of plain, simple English. He sometimes read aloud, and on one occasion I remember his reading to me at some length, rather slowly and thoughtfully, and purposely mispronouncing certain words, placing the accent on the wrong syllable and the like. He was at this time sitting opposite me beside the large table on which I was writing, his chair leaned back against the wall, his legs crossed, one foot resting upon the round of his chair and the other suspended in space. During this reading he stopped occasionally to remark upon the subject of his reading—a detailed description of a battle- and one of his remarks, I remember, was upon the meagreness of adjectives in the language to express the different degrees of feeling and action.

NEW YORK CITY.

LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITIONIST RIOTS.

TO PREVENT HIS INAUGURATION.

BY AARON M. POWELL.

THOUGH One of the early Abolitionists and editor of their organ, the Anti-Slavery Standard, I was not personally acquainted with Mr. Lincoln. I can recall two or three things of interest in connection with him, however; for instance, his speech at the Cooper Institute, in 1859, which undoubtedly opened the way for his becoming President. After his election there was a systematic attempt made to prevent his inauguration. The Knights of the Golden Circle, whose headquarters were in the South, had their allies and coworkers among the Democrats of the North. About the time of Lincoln's inauguration we antislavery workers were holding a series of conventions in New York and other cities. The persons just referred to used the occasion of these meetings for a series of mobs, extending from New York to Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, etc. Wherever we appeared we were confronted with a disorderly crowd seemingly organized by the same general hand. In Utica the mob had taken possession of the hall before we could organize our convention, and we had to hold our meeting in a private house. In connection with these mobs they circulated reports in the newspapers that the North

repudiated the Abolitionists and Lincoln. In Utica we learned that the evening before we were mobbed a group of men had gathered in a lawyer's office. They prepared resolutions which were sent out the next day repudiating the Abolitionists and Lincoln. The central figure of that group, as we learned afterward upon investigation, was none other than Horatio Seymour. The pur

pose of these riots and mobs was to give the impression to the South, and the country generally, that the North, as well as the South, was inimical to Lincoln's inauguration.

At Syracuse we were driven from our hall, and a freespeech meeting was organized, at which the Rev. M. E. Strieby, now one of the secretaries of the American Missionary Association, presided. I attempted to speak, but being recognized as one of the Abolitionists who were to have addressed the convention, there was a great howl from the disorderly element present. In the rear of the hall, directing the movements of the mob, was Col. John A. Green, one of Horatio Seymour's lieutenants. Susan B. Anthony, Charles L. Redmond, a colored man, the Rev. Samuel J. May and the Rev. Beriah Green were present as speakers on this occasion. Just as we left the platform the mob, largely composed of men. from the Salt Works, led by Colonel Green, opened on us a shower of eggs. At a meeting in Auburn, which we were allowed to hold, they put pepper on the stoves, nearly suffocating speakers and audience, especially the former, who could not reach the windows handily. In Rochester we were again confronted by the mob. In Boston George W. Smalley, now of the New York Tribune, and some other young men slept in the house of Wendell Phillips as his body guard.

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