'Hall's Journal of Health recommends to those writing to soldier friends to inclose a little capsicum (in the vulgar, simply strong cayenne pepper) in the letter. The editor declares that the effect of the slightest pinch in a glass of water, is better than quinine whisky. It prevents thirst, and wards off miasma; it protects from chills, and does not induce too much animal heat. It stimulates without leaving any depressing effect; all of which we most firmly believe. The weight is so small that enough to do a great deal of good may be put in tissue-paper and be inclosed in a single letter without cost additional to the regular postage rates.'
Every mail brings fresh proof of English antipathy to the Federal Union. It is now only a question of time when we are to be attacked by the great Abolition nation. John Bull is hammering away at his iron-clads and doing his best in every direction to aid the aristocratic and despotic principle, so dear to his soul—nay, which is his very soul and self. In China he is helping the Imperialists, whose awful and heart-rending atrocities go beyond all belief—in the West, the slaveholder meets with his warmest sympathy. How well—how human—how Christian he looks now with his sheepskin thrown aside—this selfish, brutal savage, howling for cotton and trade and gold as though all truth, honor, and nobility were as dirt before them.
For all this, England will have its reward. In the history of nations, 1862 shall be marked as the year of British falsehood, infamy, and guilt. Upharsin!
Dear Continental: Curious fellows those Pre-Raphaelites!
Do you remember Holman Hunt's picture of the Light of the World? I remember that one evening at the Century, among a cheerful group of Leutze, Durand, Gifford, Mignot, and others, you once called it a pre-Raphaelight of the World!
Well, 'twas far away in Switzerland, tilly hi ho—tilly i o! all in the mountains high, several years ago, and I was touring and sketching somewhere along in the Oberland. I found at last a retired village without English. No—not without them altogether—there was one little man with a barba rossa, and he was pre-Raphaeliting round for a subject.
He found it at last in a small rock about nine inches by twelve—full of sentiment, tone, color, piety, feeling, reality, child-like faith and trustingness.
And he went to work to paint the rock.