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You needn't try to steal up
An' lif' that precious heel up;
You's got to plow dis fiel' up-
You has, sah, for a fac'.

Dar, dat's de way to do it!
He's comin's right down to it;
Jes' watch him plowin' t'roo it;

Dis nigger ain't no fool.

Some folks dey would 'a' beat him;
Now, dat would only heat him-
I know jest how to treat him.
You mus' reason wid a mule.

He minds me like a nigger.
If he was only bigger
He'd fotchi a mighty figger,

He would, I tell you! Yes, sah!

See how he keeps a-'cickin'!
He's as gentle as a chicken,
An' nebber thinks o' kickin'-
Whoa dar! Nebuchadnezzar.

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Is dis heal me or not me?

Or is de debbil got me?

Was dat a cannon shot me?

Hab I been heah more'n a week?

Dat mule do kick amazin'!

De beast was spiled in raisin'

By now I 'spect he's grazin'
On de oder side de creek.

SPEECH OF THE HON. PERVESE PEABODY ON THE ACQUISITION OF CUBA.

Feller citizens, gentlemen and ladies, Mr. President: I rise before this august body with phelinks more easily described than imagined. Colder than a statooary, more deader nor Julius Cæsar,

must be the buzzum of him who could look araound on this here assemblage without emotions big enuf to choke an ox risin' in his throat. As I look araound what dew I see? On the one hand, the magnits and magnitaries of science, on t'other a parfeck constellation of beauty in the shape of female women. Sir, sích a specktackle is calkerlated to melt an isuckle or draw tears from a horseshoe. In view of sich scenes, I ax, in the name of Pontius Pilate at the siege of Corinth, "lives there a man with soul so dead as never to hisself has said" this is my kedantry. Mr. Pres. Sir: Altho' this here society in its more gineral bearings is designed to settle all questions pertainin' to the hull world, and for the perpetooation of the grate principals of human indewrance, as laid down in the Magny Charter, habeas corpus and the forty thieves, yet the question now on hand, to be attended to right away, is annexation in gineral, Cuby in pertikerlar. Sir, what are we? By we, I mean the biggest, the fastest, the moast onmitigated nation on which the sun, from its risin' in the purple chariots of the Oriental hemispheres of the East, to the goin' daoun tharof in the flambient hyfalutins of the West, shines on. Need I say I allude to the suvrin galaxy of the onterrified States, which stans afore the world a bacon of light, conspikerous in the surroundin' darkness as a tarler candle in sullar. I say, sir, What are we? IIark! From the battle-fields of Madawaska on the one hand, and from the amphibeous insyclopedys of the grate Western pararies, swells and busts one universal response-we are Angoly Saxonies, Dimmercratic platitudes and manifest destinies. What do we want? Sir, we want all them leetle strips of land which jine us, whether unoccupied, except by bares, wolves, shanghies, injuns and howlin' wildernesses, or whether possessed by them what hain't got Angoly Saxony blood a-runnin in their veins. Sir, this is natral. Novy Zembly, Pattygoney, Buzzard Bay, Oysteraly, Pemaquid, Canady, and the two hemispheres with lands contigerous, up to 54-49, in the parallels commencin' at a stake and stone in Otisfield and runnin thro' the ekynoctial tropic of Apricot and Kansas, the finger of Natur points out as our own. Mr. Pres.: I have taken a heap of pains to get the boundaries right, and I may say, withaout seemin praoud, I am posted up; and I challenge the hull world to prove me wrong in a single figger, unless it be in

regard to Pemaquid, which, lyin' in the seventeenth allegory, and bounded westerly by the Magdelene clouds, and Easterly by the Tom-Bigbee mountains, makes it onsartain whether a bee line runnin' thro' the kimmercal underlations of hydergin would strike it. Now sir, whar does Cuby lie? Ef I had a mat of the Universe, a pair of compasses and a yard stick here, I'd pint out the sitooation of that gem of the Cariboo seas and queen of the Antipodes. But as thar hain't but one mat in taown, and that belongs to a federalist, who's an inimy of annexation, and wouldn't lend it, I must give you a verbum rum derscription by word of maouth. Cuby is a perninsuly, entirely surrounded by salt water, lyin' in latitude 482, 2 hours 14 minutes and 43 seconds, Nor by Nor East. Longevity 54-49. Climit permiskerous. Sometimes it's hot. Sometimes tain't. Back in the perraries it's healthy; while, owin' to fogs and rumatiz, the sea coast is so salubrious that nobody but alligators can live thar, except for a short time between the last of June and the furst of July. Proddux: Maple sugar, punkins, tin ware, wooden combs, corkscrews, rum, merlasses and niggers. The inhabitants are mostly black and blue, tho' some is striped. Habits permiskerous; durin' the hurrycane months (thar ar twelve of them montlis), percarious. The poorer classes lives on what they can git while they do live, arter that they don't live on nothing. The rich eats sum biled eggs; but their staple and daily dialect is rum and onions, half and half. Mr. Pres. This here detestable land, literly flowin' with merlasses, and chuck full of likely riggers, is aourn. Yes, sir, it is jist as much ourn as is your horse or your caow, wich has strayed from your paster. Cuby is a stray from this onmitigated Republic. Again I wish I had a mat I could show you that it onst jined on to the State of Maine. By it I could show you how the North shore of Cuby and the coast of Maine would fit together jest like two parts of a broken sarser. Now, sir, if this air hypothecary are correct (and I'd like to see the critter that'll dispute it), why, we've only to prove property and take back our own agin, and if any outlandish furriners darst to say anything, lick 'em. Sir, the time ain't fur off when this devout consummation will become a fixed statoot. That are happy period is comin' on at the rate of eighteen miles an hour, when the streaked banner of our common kedantry shall wave

in triumph over this lost but recovered jewel from the diaphragm of the E Pluribus Onion. Then, while that almighty specimen of poultry, and most on terrified faowl, the American eagle, roosts in the towers of Moro Castle, we'll lick the merlasses and haze the niggers. Mr. Pres. Thar is a destiny that shapes our ends, whether we will or whether we won't. Our destiny is a manifest one, and it pints us onmistakably to Cuby and all the 'tother consarns raound about, askin' us to make a long arm and help ourselves.

HALF WAY DOIN'S.

IRWIN RUSSELL.

Belubbed fellow trabelers: In holdin' forth to-day,

I doesn't quote no special verse for what I has to say;

De sermon will be berry short, and dis here am the tex':

Dat "half way doin's ain't no 'count for dis worl' or de nex'."

Dis worl' dat we's a libbin' in is like a cotton row,
Whar ebery cullud gentleman has got his line to hoe;
And ebery time a lazy nigger stops to take a nap,
De grass keeps on a-growin' for to smudder up his crap.

When Moses led de Jews acrost de waters ob de sea,
Dey had to keep agoin', jes' as fas' as fas' could be;

Do you s'pose dat dey could ebber hab succeeded in deir wish,
And reached de Promised Land at last, if dey had stopped to fish?

My frien's, dar was a garden once, whar Adam libbed wid Eve,
Wid no one 'round to bodder dem, no neighbors for to thieve,
And ebery day was Christmas, and dey got deir rations free,
And eberyting belonged to them except an apple tree.

You all know 'bout de story-how de snake come snoopin' 'roun'A stump tail rusty moccasin, crawlin' on the groun'

How Eve and Adam ate de fruit, and went and hid deir face,

Till de angel oberseer he come and drove 'em off de place.

Now, s'pose dat man and 'ooman hadn't 'tempted for to shirk, But had gone about deir gardenin', and 'tended to deir work, Dey wouldn't hab been loafin' whar dey had no business to, And de debbil nebber'd got a chance to tell 'em what to do.

No half way doin's, bredren! It'll nebber do, I say!
Go at your task and finish it, and den's de time to play-
For even if.de crap is good de rain'll spoil de bolls,
Unless you keep a pickin' in de garden ob your souls.

Keep a ploughin' and a hoein', and a scrapin' ob de rows, And when de ginnin's ober you can pay up what you owes, But if you quits a workin' ebery time de sun is hot,

De sheriff's gwine to lebby upon eberyting you's got.

Whateber 'tis you's dribin' at, be shore and dribe it through, And don't let uuffin' stop you, but do what you's gwine to do; For when you sees a nigger foolin', den, as shore's you're born, You's gwine to see him comin' out de small end ob de horn.

I thanks you for de 'tention you has gib dis afternoon;
Sister Williams will oblige us by a raisin' ob a tune.
I see dat Brudder Johnson's 'bout to pass aroun' de hat,
And don't let's hab no half way doin's when it comes to dat!

CHURCH BELLES.

GEORGE COOPER.

Coming in couples,
Smiling so sweetly;
Up the long aisle

Tripping so neatly.

Flutter of feathers,

Rustle of dresses,

Fixing of ribbons,

Shaking of tresses.

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