Washington, D. C., September 9th, 1862.
You may remember, my boy, that some months ago there was a trespass of depraved burglarious chaps at Wheatland, the seat of Ex-President Buchanan. The matter might have slipped my own mind, had not the British member of the Cosmopolitan, last night, read aloud the following memorandum of the thing, found in a deserted Confederate camp on the Rappahannock. The Briton waved his hand for silence, and says he:
LAMENT.
BY A CHEVALIER D'INDUSTRIE
It really seems as if the trick
Of this here game, secession,
Was bound to bring disgrace upon
Each wirtuous profession.
The days of chivalry are gone,
When gentlemen wos plucky,
And sooner'd starve than lower themselves
To make their swag and lucky.
Why, when I wos a little prig,
And took the junior branches,
We all looked down upon the chap
That traveled vulgar ranches.
It wos beneath a gentleman
To stoop to vulgar stealin's;
And when I see how things is changed,
It really hurts my feelin's.
We had some dignity, you see,
And upper circles knew it;
For if a thing wos wicious mean,
We wos too proud to do it!