This snake, according to some naturalists, is oviparous, and according to others viviparous; but all authorities agree that it is viperous in the extreme.  Serpents are generated in various ways; the horse-runner, for instance, being derived from the fibres of horses’ manes and tails, which probably receive the breath of life in a mare’s nest.  That such is the origin of the horse-runner the reader can verify for himself, by putting a few horse hairs in a basin of water and watching them till they begin to squirm.  Possibly the shorter fibres from the caput of an African might in like manner produce vipers.  The experiment is worth trying.  There are several varieties of the species in this country; the most malignant and treacherous being the Political Vipers—­snakes in the grass—­bred from the spawn of the Original Cockatrices, and a curse to the land we live in.

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WOMAN IN THE CENSUS.

A fresh blow has been struck at Woman’s Rights!  Gallant ladies, eager to cope with figures, have been compelled to yield to numbers—­inferior numbers at that!  Man, the minority, remains the popular tyrant of population.  Women, the majority, don’t count, can’t count for any thing—­even for women—­at least in the sense of being Census-takers; for General WALKER has decided that Assistant Marshals LAVINIA PURLEAR and SARAH BURGOYNE (hear it, shades of NEY and BLUCHER!) are ineligible to such a warlike title.  General WALKER is not firm in his mind that Marshals PURLEAR and BURGOYNE [would it be as well to say Marshal WALKER and Generals PURLEAR and BURGOYNE?] are feminine.  “These appear to be the names of women,” he says.  Why might they not be the names of men?  Is there no right or reason in these days of domestic revolution for men to name themselves LAVINIA and SARAH if they like it, and their wives like it?  And suppose LAVINIA and SARAH that ought to be, or might have been, choose to call themselves MAHALALEEL and METHUSALEM—­who’s to prevent?  Why should not the Rev. Mr.——­ style himself Miss NANCY if he pleases?  Why should not the Hon. Mr.——­ rechristen himself BETTY if he has a mind to?  H’m!  A pretty pass we are coming to if these women folks who ask men’s rights and take men’s names won’t lend us theirs!  And alas, alas, ye lasses!  What if some-day ye do indeed abstract our census, and marshal us into helpless minority.  What if we have to disguise ourselves, and shave our beards, and change our names even to get on the police!  Or will ye—­ye bullying Syrens!—­grow whiskers and wear pantaloons, and put us in station-houses, and clear us out of the Census altogether?

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A LETTER FROM A FRIEND.

Friend PUNCHINELLO:  Thee has doubtless sorrowed, in spite of thy motley, with those bereft at Richmond.  Circumstances made that disaster a calamity which we have all felt in common.  But thee knows that “Blessings come often in disguise.”  Let us find what small comfort we can in this thought.