[Illustration:  THE SITUATION IN EUROPE.

  INTO “BIZ” LOUIS NAP HE IS GOING,
  TO PAY OFF THE DEBTS THAT HE’S OWING;
  DETERMINED THAT HE WILL MAKE his MARK,
  BY TAKING THE CHANGE OUT OF BISMARCK.]

* * * * *

FROM AN ANXIOUS MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTER.

[Who is at a Watering Place.]

NEW YORK, July 12, 1870.

MY DEAR DAUGHTER:  How are you getting on, dear?  Well, I hope, for you know I do want to get you off, desperately.  Thirty-seven, and still on my hands!  Mr. GUSHER, of the Four-hundred-and-thirty-ninth Avenue, goes down next Saturday.  He will hunt you up.  Mr. GUSHER is a nice man—­so sympathetic and kind; and has such a lovely moustache.  Besides, my dear SOPHY, he has oceans of stamps.  Quite true, my child, he hasn’t much of anything else, but girls at thirty-seven must not have too sharp eyes, nor see too much.  Do, dear, try and fix him if you can.  Put all your little artifices into effect.  Walk, if possible, by moonlight, and alone; that is, with him.  Talk, as you know you can, of the sweets of love and the delights of home.  Dwell on the felicities of love in a cottage, and if he doesn’t see it, dilate on the article in a brown-stone front, with marble steps.  Picture to him in the most glowing terms the joys of the fireside, with fond you by his side.  If he hints that a fireside in July is slightly tepid, thoughtfully suggest that it is merely a figure of speech, and introduce an episode of cream to cool it.  Quote vehemently from TENNYSON, and LONGFELLOW, and Mrs. BROWNING.  Bring the artillery of your eyes to bear squarely on the mark.  Remember that thirty-seven years and an anxious mother are steadily looking down upon you.

Cut SMIRCH.  SMIRCH is a worthless fellow.  Would you believe it? his father makes boot-pegs for a living.  The house of WIGGINS cannot consort with the son of one who pegs along in life in this manner!  Never.  Banish SMIRCH.  Don’t let SMIRCH even look at your footprints on the beach.

Then there is Mr. BLUSTER.  What is he?  Who?  Impertinent puppy!  Pretended to own a corner-house on the Twenty-fifth Avenue, and wanted to know how I should like it?  Like it?  I should like to see him in Sing-Sing! He own a house?—­a brass foundry more like, and that in his face!  Keep a sharp eye on BLUSTER and his blarney.  He’s what our neighbor GINGER calls a “beat,” whatever that is—­a squash, no doubt.

Don’t spare any pains, my dear, for a market.  I was only twenty-six when I married the late lamented Mr. WIGGINS.  And a dear good man he was—­only I wish he had paid his bills at the corner groceries.  How he did love, my dear—­that favorite demijohn in the corner!  And then when he came home at night with such a smile—­he’d been taking them all day.  Don’t fail to catch somebody.  GUSHER, depend, is the man.  Money is everything.  Never mind what he hasn’t