* * * * *

‘TEN TO ONE ON IT.’

  When the Union was broken, truly then
  One Southron was equal to Yankees ten. 
  When the Union war began to thrive,
  One Southron was equal to Yankees five. 
  When Donaldson went, ’twas plain to see
  One Southron scarce equalled Yankees three. 
  Now, Manassas is lost; yet, to Richmond view,
  One Southron still equals Yankees two. 
  And lo! a coming day we see,—­
  And Oh! what a day of pride ’t will be,—­
  When a Northern mechanic or merchant can
  Rank square with a Dirt-eater, man for man. 
  Perhaps this point we may fairly turn,
  And Richmond, to her amazement, learn,
  When peace shall have come, and war be fled,
  And its hate be the tale of time long sped,
  That where there is work or thought for men,
  One Yankee is equal to Dirt-eaters ten.

* * * * *

LITERARY NOTICES.

UNDER CURRENTS OF WALL STREET.  A Romance of Business.  By Richard B. Kimball, Author of ‘St. Leger,’ ‘Romance of Student Life,’ &c.  New York:  G.P.  Putnam; Boston:  A.K.  Loring. 1861.

In the United States about one person in a hundred is engaged in mercantile pursuits—­in other words, in ‘broking,’ or transferring from the producer to the consumer.  Of this number, a larger proportion than in any other country are brokers in the strict sense of the word, buying, selling, or exchanging money or its equivalents, and managing credit so that others may turn it into capital.  A more active, eventful, precarious and extraordinary life, or one calling more for the exercise of sharpness and shrewdness, does not exist, than that of these men.  They are among regular business men what the ‘free lance’ is among military men, or the privateer among those of the true marine.  Any one who has been familiar with one of the ‘craft,’ has probably heard him say at one time or another—­’what I have seen would make one of the most remarkable novels you ever read;’ and he spoke the literal truth.

Realizing this fact, Mr. KIMBALL, a lawyer of twenty years’ standing in Wall St., and consequently perfectly familiar with all its characteristics, has devoted literary talents, which long ago acquired for him not merely an enviable American but a wide European celebrity, to describing this broker-life, with its lights and shadows.  Choosing a single subject and a single class, he has elaborated it with a truthfulness which is positively startling.  As we often know that a portrait is perfect from its manifest verisimilitude, so we feel from every chapter of this book that the author has, with strictest fidelity, adhered to real life with pre-Raphaelitic accuracy but without pre-Raphaelitic servility to any tradition or set mannerism.  The pencil of a reporter, the lens of the photographer, are recalled by his sketches, and not less life-like, simple and excellent are the