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Is n't that 'original?' 'PERHAPS, Mr. KNICKERBOCKER,' writes a town-correspondent, 'you don't set yourself up as a Postal Reformer.' (Well, we don't, but are 'strong for the good cause,' nevertheless.) 'But I can tell you that in the annals of the POST, there are not a few rich scenes that would be found quite equal to any thing told in the varied pages of 'Old KNICK.' JOHN C. RIVES is responsible for the following. He said that when AMOS KENDALL was Postmaster-General, he took a tour to the South and West, partly on private business, and partly to get the film off of his official optics, and see how postal matters were conducted. Of course he did not inake himself known on every occasion, but he always looked on at every turn in his post-route, and sometimes he learned something. At one place in Mississippi he stopped, while travelling in the stage-coach, at a rather insignificant village, but where there was a 'distributing office' of some importance. No one knew that he was the Postmaster-General. The postmaster of the place was away from home, as he had been for some months, and the business of overhauling, sorting, and distributing Uncle SAM's mails was in the hands of a 'sub.,' in the shape of an old negro woman. The post-office was kept in a pretty good-sized room, and on one side of it there was a heterogeneous mass that appeared something like a huge pile of mailmatter; and it looked, too, somewhat like a small tea-garden. There were papers, letters, large and small packages of books, etc., in huge confusion piled around.' The old black woman very deliberately unlocked the bags and emptied the contents out on the floor. Aмos looked on, and like SATAN marshaling his legions in Pandemonium, he 'admired.' The darkey, after emptying the contents of the bags in the 'pile,' commenced putting back, and in every pouch replaced a 'miscellaneous assortment.' The Postmaster-General had his eyes opened 'some,' and it occurred to him to ask 'AUNTY' if she could read. 'Oh! no,' said she; 'but I puts back jest about as much as master used to!' As the critic said of MACREADY, when he asked the Danish courtier to play on the pipe, and the courtier took him at his word, and played Yankee Doodle! 'Phancy HAMLICK'S feelinks ! ' Fancy old Amos! But his observations were not completed. There was an enormous pile of mail-matter that had been accumulating for months under the postal supervision of the sable 'sub.' It was after 'M. C.'s had learned the art of franking, and when their 'beloved constitooents' were in the habit of applying for seeds and other products at the agricultural bureau of the Patent-Office. The cucumber-seeds of those days were not all 'basswood,' as KENDALL can testify. The seeds in the moist, warm climate of Mississippi had germinated extensively, throughout this immense mass of 'mail-matter;' cabbages, beets, carrots, cauliflowers were there; potatoes had sprouted; while cucumber, pumpkin, and squash-vines had extended out of the heap, and run nearly across the room! It is supposed that the warmth of the political documents, stimulated by the fiery nature of Southern politicians, had added to, rather than subtracted from, the fertile nature of the postal compost!' Capital: but if the public will only sustain the farseeing and indefatigable Mr. PLINY MILES in his labors for 'Postal Reform,' there will be an end to such, or kindred scenes: and of this same 'postal

reform' more anon. of this State,' writes an obliging friend, ' and a lawyer, too, modest as he is, who now and then emits a literary spark from his brain-forge, solely for diversion. He has penned some capital verse-lines; and the following, which he wrote for the KNICKERBOCKER many years ago, have been deemed creditable enough to be attributed, by several newspapers, to LONGFELLOW. From simple justice to the writer, who would never dare to ask the correction himself, will you not republish the poem, with some typographical errors made right, and give the credit of it to G. H. MCMASTERS, of Bath, Steuben county?' To be sure we will, and with pleasure. The lines were attributed to Mr. LONGFELLOW, in the printed copy from which we quote:

'I HAVE a modest friend in the western part

below. It was our pleasure to know him intimately for more than twenty years. And it is an exceeding gratification to us to be enabled to say, that from the first to the last, not one unkind, or the shadow of an unkind word or thought, ever passed between us. But who, how close soever his ties of business or relationship, could engender or retain one ill thought against a man whose whole life was a life of affection—whose inculcations and labors were inculcations and 'labors of love' — who literally and truly 'went about doing good?' It is justly said of him by Mr. BRYANT, in the Evening Post: '

'By the death of JOSEPH CURTIS the community has lost one of its most useful and beloved members. His activity of mind, which was extraordinary, was devoted to the noblest end the good of his fellow-creatures - which may truly be said to have been the great object of his life. There was no humane and generous enterprise, whether it respected the physical or the moral welfare of his race, in which he did not take a deep

interest, and to which he did not give a cheerful and ready support. The practical cast of his mind made his counsels and his cooperation always desirable, and always effectual. He was one of the few persons we have known, whom age did not make less hopeful; whose enthusiasm in the cause of human improvement was not chilled and discouraged by the disappointments to which all human plans are subject. To him it never seemed as if any exertion in behalf of the best interests of society was wasted; and instead of praising the past at the expense of the present, as men at his time of life are apt to do, he dwelt with delight upon those respects in which society has improved, and always saw something in its present, compared with its former condition, on which to congratulate his friends. Of some of the principal events in this excellent man's life, the New-York Times gives this account:

'ANOTHER distinguished and venerable friend of education, Mr. JOSEPH CURTIS, died on Saturday, at twenty minutes to ten P.M., aged seventy-three years, six months, and seven days. He was a native of Newtown, Conn. He came to this city when sixteen years old, and has resided here ever since. He was an active member of the Manumission Society' in 1817, and received from the Society for his efforts in securing the passage of the Gradual Emancipation Act, two massive silver pitchers as a token of their appreciation. In this Society he was associated with PETER A. JAY, CADWALADER D. COLDEN, and Mr. SCLOSSON. He was an active operator in the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Vagrancy, and was the leading spirit in developing our House of Refuge an institution of which, at the time, Europe had not the like. In 1820 he established the first Sabbath-school ever instituted for Free Blacks: it was at Flatbush, Long-Island. For twenty years of his prime he was an active fireman, and was the first to introduce the firemen's torch. He first introduced hose-carriages to our city. He, too, first proposed and secured the use of our present ventilators for sewers.

For thirty-three years Mr. CURTIS was a trustee of the Public School Society. He stood by the side of DE WITT CLINTON in 1804, at the opening of No. 1, in Tryon-row, the first Free School in this country, and that one, it may be remarked, an African school. For twenty years back he was the man who always gave out the certificates of merit to scholars on examination days of the public schools. In 1853, when the Old Public School Society was merged in the present system, Mr. CURTIS was one of the fifteen Commissioners chosen to represent that Society in the Board of Education. In that capacity he secured universal respect and affectionate regard.

'On leaving the Board he was invited by a unanimous vote to continue his visits to the schools and to neglect no opportunity to make such suggestions, especially with regard to ventilation, heating, etc., as should occur to him. During the past winter, he has attended most of the schoolexaminations, and visited most of the evening-schools, and given much encouragement by his presence and his brief and pertinent remarks. The last time he was out he attended the school-exhibition in North-Moore-street, on Friday, April 4, and there made some very appropriate remarks, which we reported at the time. Two years ago Mr. and Mrs. CURTIS celebrated their golden wedding: Mrs. CURTIS survives her partner. One of their daughters is the wife of Mr. L. GAYLORD CLARK, of the KNICKERBOCKER Magazine: another is the widow of Mr. TELFAIR, deceased, formerly of New-Orleans. Another remains at home. Mr. JOSEPH CURTIS, Jr., of Hyde Park, is his only son.'

WE take from the same journal the subjoined account of the funeral of Mr. CURTIS :

THE funeral services of Mr. JOSEPH CURTIS were attended yesterday. The immediate friends of the family, the members of the Common Council, and of the Board of Education, met at his late residence, where a prayer was offered. The body was then borne to All Souls' Church, by the following gentlemen: PETER COOPER, JAMES DE PEYSTER, LINUS W. STEVENS, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, S. S. RANDALL, ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, WM. H. NEILSON, ANDREW H. GREEN, Dr. RABINEAU, and WM. B. MURPHY.

'At the Church, a very large congregation had gathered: every seat was filled, and the aisles were crowded. A solemn piece of music was given by the organ. Rev. Dr. OSGOOD made the opening prayer. Rev. Dr. BELLOWS followed with a biographical sketch of the deceased, and a most happy analysis of his character. As to his religious character, he himself furnished the clue when on his death-bed: 'If any body asks, my children,' said he, what your father's religious opinions were, tell them they may be found in the sixth chapter and the eighth verse of the Prophet MICAH: He hath showed thee, O man! what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" These words Dr. BELLOWS took as the text of his discourse upon this occasion. Will you love one another?' he said to his children when on his death-bed: there is no heaven but love.' After the services, the assembly defiled through the middle aisle toward the pulpit, in front of which the coffin stood, and then passed by the side-aisles to the church-doors. Hundreds were present who were attached to him by acts of kindness, and by whom he was equally loved and venerated.'

We understand that a biography of Mr. CURTIS, by Miss CATHARINE SEDGWICK, is in course of preparation for the press. 'H. P. L.,' himself of late 'a-missing' in our pages, thus introduces a distinguished new contributor to the KNICKERBOCKER. We make instant place for the illus

trious French exile: 'M. QUATREMÈRES DE SERIN has seen the KNICKERBOCKER has determined to contribute an article to its pages. For ten years, he assures me, he has applied himself to 'the Literature English.' Is not his progress astonishing? An exile from his country, solely on account of la Politique, he fled from Caen in France only to encounter worse K. N.'s in America: he feels it his duty to enlighten these latter: he writes an article on shirt-collars. M. QUATREMÈRES DE SERIN desires me to say that a friend revised the spelling in this article, but the grammatical construction, the idioms, are just as they came from his own pen. Shall we not congratulate M. SERIN on his success not only as a writer, but as a composer? What startling originality! - what observation! With what cheerfulness he 'condemns himself to write English!' M. QUATREMÈRE DE SERIN is an Artificial Philosopher: not a particle of any thing Natural about him, as he has been pleased to observe. I have introduced him. I beg leave to retire, congratulating you on your new acquaintance, and begging you will not forget the older one:'

'The Philosophy of Shirt-Collars.

BY QUATREMERES DE SERIN.

'BYRON offered, how many pounds for an idea? By good chance for him I was not born at the time, else my IDEA would have won the prize: however, my amour propre would not have permitted me to accept hard pounds; these soufflets of fortune I despise. Moi! I write for the fame, not for the feed! Ah! yes; I forget I am not writing of myself - for I write in English-let us speak of collars.

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* The Scoop-Dish. — He is before us : regard him! That stout neck with its rope veins, so sturdily planted on the shoulders; it has need of a cover to prevent the peaceable citizen from reading its owner's character in his neck. He hastens to conceal it. See, he catches hold of a tin basin, cuts out a quarter of its rim, and speedily he has a pattern that will do for him to masquerade in. The back of his neck now presents the upright linen rising above his coat-collar; it comes forward of the ears; it is called the Scoop-Dish; is very starched, and has met with an embarrassment of success among these 'shoulder-hitters,' these butchers, these unclassical gladiators. Ah! these men with bullet-heads, sharp eyes, broad chests - see, their collars rise up like the combs of game-chickens; they are the fighting-cocks which give us 'the sport.' O my dear friend! the difficulties of the journalist! I but pick up my pen to designate an idea, and see, I meet a Scoop-Dish round the neck of a Quaker! What atrocity, sac — Ah! yes; I must not allow myself to be transported; I am writing English. I accost that Quaker excessively politely, and ask him why he sports the Scoop-Dish? Absolutely he is so good he is dumb. I light him up as to my meaning; he comprehends perfectly, and says the collars were of his brother who voyaged to California. ‘Ah! my dear friend,' says I, 'was he not of the shoulder-hitters?' Then I have more still explanations to make, then he comprehends. True, brother JEEMS was a hard boy,' The Scoop-Dish belongs to 'the sport.'

he responds. Ah! see, am I not right again? The_Boll-Over. In old times the Roll-Over was BYRON-ical - how changed at this date! It will be ironical now to say so much of it; so much of those who employ it. But rest tranquil; it still displays the human nature far more than those beastly bumps of the head, which show nothing but hard knocks that execrable belief of bumps! Ah! so well might one read this great country and its grand, furiously splendid Nature by those 'bumps,' those mounds in the valley Ohio! The poet, he wears the RollOver, because-ah! why? I ask one of them, a great one I have confidence he is

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great, he is so much dirty- and he answers: 'Roll-Over collars follow beauty's line, the arch! If you would wear them standing up, procure the starch!' He says 'starch' is the argot, I mean to say 'slang,' for money. For this reason, the want of starch, all great poets accustom themselves to the Roll-Overs. So, I see I make discoveries. I am encouraged: I shall proceed.

The Knife-Blade. There is your wealthy man, the banker; his collars come up straight under his ears, shooting in advance like a pen-knife excessively sharp; they recede behind till they are engulfed in the black cravat, that abyss of darkness. They are always scrupulously white, neat, clean. Ah! so that monster of a Vesuvius has the most beautiful flame of fire at his top, but who comprehends what is in his inwards, his interiors?

The Religieux. Then those marvellously white, straight, precise collars of the ministers. Helas! I condemn myself to write English. Let us pass on.

'The Louis Napoleon. - The ribbon of paste-board collars that encircle so tightly the necks of those dear little caniches of the drawing-rooms, the foplings! For them a turning of the head is an impossibility, their voice is choked into an 'aw-aw;' this sound of junior jackasses is all they are allowed to utter. Let us leave them to sing execrably their own music.

The Up-and-Down.-Well then, my dear friend, you have not seen them? You have not been in the country of Sundays, those charming days when the sun shines, and you can walk out without soiling your boots, and the small birds sing on the pumphandles? Go, then, and you will have great enjoyment to get back in the city, my faith! I have been there myself, and seen these tall, serious, very much stiffened shirtcollars, and they were round the brown necks of great, strong, sober men, my faith! Not any one has more right to wear, to display so much of stiffness, for reason that they elevate the potato that causes this same starch. Now, you will know him the next time you meet this Up-and-Down collar.

'The Weak-in-the-Knees. My patience suffers when I discourse of this subject. He has no enterprise; he comes at first out of the drawer in the morning, and he wears an air of grand promise, but he breaks it before an hour; he falls down on one side, he falls down on the other, he looks one week old in sixty minutes. He has no stamen, no starch! My friend,' said I one time to one who accustomed himself to this species of collar, 'why you invariably have such sickly collars?' 'Oh! ah! I never thought, but, oh! ah! the washer-woman does it!' 'My friend,' said I, 'just conscience! How many of the times does she bring to you such collars?' 'Always,' said he. My gracious! what stupidity. Then again, what use to complain? My friend was a Weakin-the-Knees collar-man.

The Horse-Collar.- In effect one would look at these 'jockeys,' these people of the race-course to find adorning them this style. Well, no; mostly have I noticed them round the throats of severe, quiet, stupendously deep 'coves'— - the Professors. Ah! but I must temper this assertion by the specification of the kind of professors; it is so necessary among you good Americans, where talent is so very common. Parbleu! my barber is a professor with grand practice, lots of clients. To recommence: this collar belongs to college professors, men of the languages, sciences, mathematics, and its form constantly revives a memory of the pons asinorum, for so it is something like the figure of the upper part of that jackassy bridge. It sweeps round from the back part of the nape of the throat, till it ends in round corners very far ahead of the chin underneath. Of a Sunday morning it is as a general, clean and much upright. Alas! on a Wednesday following he looks like the tail of a rooster on a very rainy day. I fear greatly these wise men clothe their heads to the detriment of their bodies; certain of their ideas are excessively outrageous.

‘The Wide-Awake.-In England they wished me to make purchase of a 'jolly little tile,' at a hatter's where I entered to get a traveller-hat. I inquire what name was be