the passage, but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon my urn to the President I found him still patiently in the chair, from which he had not risen. He said: Has not the boy opened the door?' I replied that we

do nothing with him-he had gone off in a great Mr. Lincoln's lips came together firmly, and en, suddenly rising, he strode across the passage with the air of one bent on punishment, and disappeared in the domestic apartments. Directly he returned with the key to the theater, which he unlocked himself.

""Tad,' said he, half apologetically, 'is a peculiar child. He was violently excited when I went to him. I said, "Tad, do you know that you are making your father a great deal of trouble?" He burst into tears, instantly giving me up the key.'"'

LET THE ELEPHANT ESCAPE.

Mr. Dana relates the following: A certain Thompson had been giving the Government considerable trouble. Dana received information that Thompson was about to escape to Liverpool.

Calling upon Stanton, Dana was referred to Mr. Lincoln.

"The President was at the White House, business hours were over, Lincoln was washing his hands. 'Hallo, Dana,' said he, as I opened the door, 'what is it now?' 'Well, sir,' I said, 'here is the Provost Marshal of Portland, who reports that Jacob Thompson is to be in town to-night, and inquires what orders we have to give.' 'What does Stanton say?' he asked. 'Arrest him,' I replied. 'Well,' he continued, drawl

ing his words, 'I rather guess not. When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run.

FRIGHT A CURE FOR BOILS.

"Blair," said the President to his PostmasterGeneral, "did you ever know that fright has sometimes proven a cure for boils?" "No, Mr. President, how is that?"

"I'll tell you. Not long ago, when Colonel

with his cavalry, was at the front, and the Rebs were making things rather lively for us, the colonel was ordered out to a reconnoissance. He was troubled at the time with a big boil where it made horseback riding decidedly uncomfortable. He finally dismounted and ordered the troops forward without him. Soon he was startled by the rapid reports of pistols, and the helter-skelter approach of his troops in full retreat before a yelling rebel force. He forgot everything but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made capital time over the fences and ditches till safe within the lines.

"The pain from his boil was gone, and the boil too, and the colonel swore that there was no cure for boils so sure as fright from rebel yells."

BRIGADIER GENERALS MORE PLENTIFUL
THAN HORSES.

When Pesident Lincoln heard of the rebel raid at Fairfax, in which a brigadier-general and a number of valuable horses were captured, he gravely observed:

"Well, I am sorry for the horses."

"Sorry for the horses, Mr. President!" exclaimed the Secretary of War, raising his spectacles, and throwing himself back in his chair in astonishment.

"Yes," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I can make a brigadier-general in five minutes, but it is not easy to replace a hundred and ten horses."

"MASSA LINKUM" WORSHIPED BY

THE NEGROES.

In 1863, Colonel McKaye, of New York, with Robert Dale Owen and one or two other gentlemen, were associated as a committee to investigate the condition of the freedmen on the coast of North Carolina. Upon their return from Hilton Head they reported to the President, and in the course of the interview, Colonel McKaye related the following incident:

He had been speaking of the ideas of power entertained by these people. He said they had an idea of God, as the Almighty, and they had realized in their former position the power of their masters. Up to the time of the arrival among them of the Union forces, they had no knowledge of any other power. Their masters fled upon the approach of our soldiers, and this gave the slaves a conception of a power greater than that exercised by them. This power they called "Massa Linkum."

Colonel McKaye said their place of worship was a large building which they called "the praise house"; and the leader of the meeting, a venerable black man, was known as "the praise man." On a certain day, when there was quite a large gathering of the people,

considerable confusion was created by different parsons attempting to tell who and what "Massa Linkum" was. In the midst of the excitement, the white-headed leader commanded silence.

"Brederin," said he, "you don't know nosen' what you'se talkin' about. Now, you just listen to me. Massa Linkum, he eberywhar. He know eberyting." Then, solemnly looking up, he added, "He walk de earf like de Lord!"

Colonel McKaye said that Mr. Lincoln seemed much affected by this account. He did not smile, as another man might have done, but got up from his chair and walked in silence two or three times across the floor. As he resumed his seat, he said, very impressively, "It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race."

THE COLORED PEOPLE OF RICHMOND
HONOR LINCOLN.

G. F. Shepley gives the following interesting reminiscence:

"After Mr. Lincoln's interview with Judge Campbell, the President being about to return to the Wabash, I took him and Admiral Porter in my carriage. An immense concourse of colored people thronged the streets, accompanied and followed the carriage, calling upon the President with the wildest exclamations of gratitude and delight.

"He was the Moses, the Messiah, to the slaves of the South. Hundreds of colored women tossed their hands high in the air and then bent down to the ground, weeping for joy. Some shouted songs of

deliverance, and sang the old plantation refrains, which prophesied the coming of a deliverer from bondage. 'God bless you, Father Abraham!' went up from a thousand throats.

"Those only who have seen the paroxysmal enthusiasm of a religious meeting of slaves can form an adequate conception of the way in which tears and smiles, and shouts of the emancipated people evinced the frenzy of their gratitude to their deliverer. He looked at all attentively, with a face expressive only of a sort of pathetic wonder.

"Occasionally its sadness would alternate with one of his peculiar smiles, and he would remark on the great proportion of those whose color indicated a mixed lineage from the white master and the black slave; and that reminded him of some little story of his life in Kentucky, which he would smilingly tell; and then his face would relapse again into that sad expression which all will remember who saw him during the last few weeks of the Rebellion. Perhaps it was a presentiment of his impending fate.

"I accompanied him to the ship, bade him farewell and left him, to see his face no more. Not long after, the bullet of the assassin arrested the beatings of one of the kindest hearts that ever throbbed in human bosom.

THE BITER BIT.

The Governor-General, with some of his principal officers, visited Lincoln in the summer of 1864.

They had been very troublesome in harboring blockade runners, and they were said to have carried on a large trade from their ports with the Confederates.