"On to Richmond!"—The Peninsular Campaign. (1862.)
M'Clellan. "You must coax him along: conciliate him. Force won't do. I don't believe in it; but don't let go. Keep his head to the rear. If he should get away, he might go to Richmond, and then my plans for conquering the Rebellion will never be developed."
B-lm-t. "Hold fast, B-rl-w, or he will get to Richmond in spite of us; and then my capital for the European market is all lost."
B-rl-w. "I've got him fast; there's no danger. He's only changing his base to the Gun-boats."
B-lm-t. "Look out for that letter to the President which you wrote for him. Don't lose that."
B-rl-w. "No; I have it safe here in my pocket. When his change of base is effected, I will make him sign the letter, and send it to old Abe."
There is no country on earth where the humorous aspects of human life are more relished than in the United States, and none where there is less power to exhibit them by the pencil. There are to-day a thousand paragraphs afloat in the press which ought to have been pictures. Here is one from a newspaper in the interior of Georgia: "A sorry sight it is to see a spike team, consisting of a skeleton steer and a skinky blind mule, with rope harness, and a squint-eyed driver, hauling a barrel of new whisky over poor roads, on a hermaphrodite wagon, into a farming district where the people are in debt, and the children are forced to practice scant attire by day and hungry sleeping by night." The man who penned those graphic lines needed, perhaps, but an educated hand to reproduce the scene, and make it as vivid to all minds as it was to his own. The country contains many such possible artists.
A novel kind of living caricature has been presented occasionally, of late, by Mr. William E. Baker, of the famous firm of sewing-machine manufacturers, Grover & Baker. At his farm in Natick, Massachusetts, Mr. Baker is fond of burlesquing the national propensity to convert every trifling celebration into a banner-and-brass-band pageant. A great company was once invited to his place to "assist" at the naming of a calf. At another time, the birthday of a favorite heifer was celebrated with pomp and circumstance. In the summer of 1875, several hundreds of people were summoned to witness the laying of the corner-stone of a new pig-pen, and among the guests were a governor, military companies, singing clubs, members of foreign legations, and other persons of note and importance. The enormous card of invitation, besides being adorned with pictures of high-bred pigs in the happiest condition, contained a story showing how pigs had brought on a war between two powerful nations. This was the tale:
