A Queer Compliment.
When Lincoln sent Admiral —— to enforce the blockade at Charlestown and Wellington, he said “there was no chance of failure, as the person sent carried with him a blockhead that nothing could penetrate.”
A slight addition.
A New York lawyer was desirous of being appointed as a judge. “There are only ten,” he exclaimed, “to transact the whole of the state’s affairs.” “And so you want to increase them to one hundred,” said Lincoln. “How so,” said the applicant. “Why, by adding a cipher to them.”
Preaching out West.
Lincoln is very fond of repeating the following: “I knew an old preacher, out west, who, on a very cold day, when describing hell, said ‘it was an awful place and that the cold was unbearable.’ One of his congregation, at the close of the sermon, took upon himself to ask the preacher why he had described hell as being cold, when all eminent divines said it was the very reverse. ‘Oh, sir,’ said the preacher, ‘I had good reason, for if I had preached the reverse, I should have had them running away to warm themselves.’”
Tom Thumb.
“I understand, General,” said Lincoln, addressing the celebrated dwarf, Tom Thumb, “that you are about to have the first instalment of a family.” “Yes,” was the general’s reply. “Well,” said the president, “I trust it will be a boy.” “Why,” interrogated the dwarf. “Because I should like your infant to increase my infantry.”