Clothier. “Step in and look at our goods, Captain.  Summer stuffs at a discount—­nice lot o’ white ducks at half price.”

Sportsman. “I beat you there.  I’ve got a nice lot o’ black ducks here that ain’t to be had at any price.”]

* * * * *

Brilliancy of the “Sun.”

The Moon, as is generally known, shines with a borrowed light, while the Sun is popularly supposed to manufacture its own gas and to arrange its pyrotechnics on the premises.  Our N.Y. Sun, however, does not always manufacture its own beams.  By far the most brilliant of the “sunbeams,” for instance, published in that journal of November 1st, is the quaint and charming little poem there headed “Sally Salter,” and written originally for Punchinello, in the issue of which publication for Oct. 1st it made its first appearance, under the title of “The Lovers.”  We congratulate the Sun on having thus successfully lit its pipe with Punchinello’s fire, though we think it might have been gracious enough to have acknowledged the favor.

* * * * *

A people of taste.

The extraordinary liberality of the generous people of Connecticut has frequently excited apprehension in the minds of their friends, that, sooner or later, as the result of their spendthrift career, they must come to beggary.  But we are glad to hear that they are making an effort in New Haven to reform.  The grocery men there say that their customers taste so much before they can make up their minds to buy anything, that what with gratuitous slices of cheese and specimen mouthfuls of sugar and sample spoonfuls of molasses, the shop-keeper’s profits are most dolefully diminished.  A particularly blue law against this economical custom will have the effect of sobering down these brilliant Cullers.

* * * * *

“What Answer?”

Is it likely that Horace Greeley, or any other man, could steer this country through its difficulties by means of the tillers of the soil?

* * * * *

Any more caves?

About the dreariest magazine or other reading we know of—­and we get a deal of it, too—­is that which describes the visits of enthusiastic persons to big caves underground, very dark, damp, dreary, ugly, funereal—­with winding ways and huge holes, water with eyeless fish, and certain drippings called stalagmites and stalactites.  The enthusiasts, who always possess that priceless treasure self-satisfaction, and a boundless capacity for wonder (which is always ready to exercise itself with anything that is big, however ugly), and the “Palaces,” and “Halls,” and “Cascades,” and “Altars,” and “Bridal Wreaths” they see there are not only finer than real ones (if you would believe them!) but so grand and wonderful as to be really indescribable.  So we find them, by their turgid and stupid reports, which are all alike, and all dreary and silly.  We have never heard of anybody who got excited over these pictures (except the artists themselves); and positively there is no flatter reading anywhere than these gushing notes about big caves.