"Mrs. WARD, and ladies, what means this extr❜ord'n'ry demonstration ?"

"It means," said that remarkable female, "that you men air makin' fools of yourselves. You air willin' to talk and urge others to go to the wars, but you don't go to the wars yourselves. War meetin's is very nice in their way, but they don't keep Stonewall JACKSON from comin' over to Maryland and helpin' himself to the fattest beef critters. What we want is more cider and less talk. We want you able-bodied men to stop speechifying, which don't 'mount to the wiggle of a sick cat's tail, and go to fi'tin'; otherwise you can stay to home and take keer of the children, while we wimin will go to the wars!"

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Gentl'men," said I, "that's my wife! Go in, old gal!" and I throw'd up my ancient white hat in perfeck rapters.

"Is this roll-book to be filled up with the names of men or wimin' ?" she cried.

"With men-with men!" and our quoty was made up that very night.

There is a great deal of gas about these war

meetin's. A war meetin', in fact, without gas, would be suthin' like the play of HAMLET with the part of OTHELLO omitted.

Still believin' that the Goddess of Liberty is about as well sot up with as any young lady in distress could expect to be, I am

Yours more'n anybody else's,

A. WARD.

II.

THE DRAFT IN BALDINSVILLE.

IF I'm drafted I shall resign.

Deeply grateful for the onexpected honor thus confered upon me, I shall feel compeld to resign the position in favor of sum more worthy person. Modesty is what ails me. That's what's kept me under.

I meanter-say, I shall hav to resign if I'm drafted everywheres I've bin inrold. I must now, furrinstuns, be inrold in upards of 200 different towns. If I'd kept on travelin' I should hav eventooaly becum a Brigade, in which case I could have held a meetin' and elected myself Brigadeer-ginral quite unanimiss. I hadn't no idea there was so many of me before. But, serisly, I concluded to stop exhibitin', and made tracks for Baldinsville.

My only daughter threw herself onto my boosum, and said, “It is me, fayther! I thank the gods!" She reads the Ledger.

"Tip us yer bunch of fives, old faker!" said ARTEMUS, Jr. He reads the Clipper.

My wife was to the sowin' circle. I knew she and the wimin folks was havin' a pleasant time slanderin' the females of the other sowin' circle (which likewise met that arternoon, and was doubtless enjoyin' theirselves ekally well in slanderin' the fustnamed circle), and I didn't send for her. I allus like to see people enjoy theirselves.

My son ORGUSTUS was playin' onto a floot. ORGUSTUS is a ethereal cuss. The twins was bildin' cob-houses in a corner of the kitchin'.

It'll cost some postage-stamps to raise this fam❜ly, and yet it 'ud go hard with the old man to lose any lamb of the flock.

An old bachelor is a poor critter. He may have hearn the skylark or (what's nearly the same thing) Miss KELLOGG and CARLOTTY PATTI Sing; he may have hearn OLE BULL fiddle, and all the DoDWORTHS toot, an' yet he don't know nothin' about music-the real, ginuine thing-the music of the laughter of happy, well-fed children! And you may ax the father of sich children home to dinner, feelin'

werry sure there'll be no spoons missin' when he goes away. Sich fathers never drop tin five-cent pieces into the contribution box, nor palm shoe-pegs off onto blind hosses for oats, nor skedaddle to British sile when their country's in danger-nor do anything which is really mean, I don't mean to intimate that the old bachelor is up to little games of this sort-not at all-but I repeat, he's a poor critter. He don't live here; only stays. He ought to 'pologize, on behalf of his parients, for bein' here at all. The happy marrid man dies in good stile at home, surrounded by his weeping wife and children. The old bachelor don't die at all-he sort of rots away, like a pollywog's tail.

My townsmen were sort o' demoralized. There was a evident desine to ewade the Draft, as I obsarved with sorrer, and patritism was below Par -and Mar, too. [A jew desprit.] I hadn't no sooner sot down on the piazzy of the tavoun than I saw sixteen solitary hossmen, ridin' four abreast, wendin' their way up the street.

"What's them? Is it calvary?"