Mr. Stanton. Mr. Secretary of the Interior, what is the average circulation of newspapers in the loyal section?

Mr. Smith. A thousand million.

Mr. Chase (rapidly computing).  Which on Mr. Blair’s proposition would yield a million dollars revenue.

Mr. Welles. And support the government at our present rate of expenditure for one day!

Mr. Seward. The public would bear half a cent on each paper.  The publisher could make his readers insensibly pay the tax, and improve both paper and issue by receiving another half cent:  and so add one cent of charge per copy.

Mr. Chase. Which would yield a revenue of five millions per year.

Mr. Lincoln. Would the people stand such a charge?

Mr. Stanton (good humoredly). Will our friend the Secretary of State smoke fewer cigars when you come to tax tobacco?

Mr. Welles (naively). But newspaper reading is not a vice.

Mr. Bates. Be not so sure of that.  The passion for newspapers excites the minds of the whole republic.  Now-a-days your servant reads the news as he works.  The clergy peruse the Sunday extras, and the crossing-sweeper begs your worn-out copy instead of a cigar-stump.

Mr. Blair. Yet Gen. McClellan has not read a newspaper in three months.

Mr. Lincoln. The subject brings to my mind a good old parson in Springfield who used to complain that the Weekly Republican was as bad as himself.  He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with new texts.  Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and the dear divine had been perusing the same paper as many times.

(Omnes laughing heartily.)

Mr. Stanton. Talking of General McClellan,—­I had my first engagement with him last night at one o’clock.

Mr. Welles (startled). One o’clock!  No wonder he has had typhoid fever.

Mr. Lincoln. I think he is napping it now.  He has a wonderful facility at the sleep business.  Forty winks seem to refresh him as much as four hours do other people.  At my last levee, according to the newspapers, he and his wife retired early. He went up stairs and napped for two hours, desiring to see me for half an hour alone afterward.  Then he spent several hours at the topographical bureau, hunting for some old maps which he insisted had been there since the Creek campaign.  He was rewarded for his industry by finding also an admirable map and survey of the situation around New Orleans.

Mr. Seward. The General is a believer in Robert Bruce’s spider.  The American spider’s-web didn’t reach Richmond in July, nor Columbus in November, but McClellan has kept on busily spinning.

Mr. Blair. Can any one tell me what is the General’s platform?