to Time"

139 The Overdue Bill 140 More Free than Welcome 141 Abe Lincoln's Last Card 142 Latest from Spirit-Land 143 Scene from the American "Tempest" 144 "Beware" 145 The Great "Cannon Game" 146 "Rowdy" Notions of Emancipation 147 Brutus and Cæsar 148 The Black Conscription 149 John Bull's Neutrality 150 Scylla and Charybdis 151 The Storm-Signal 152 Extremes Meet 153 "Beecher's American Soothing Syrup" 154 "Holding a Candle to the ****" 155 Neutrality 156 Something for Paddy 157 Very Probable 158 Mrs. North and her Attorney 159 Columbia's Sewing-Machine 160 The Black Draft 161 The Federal Phœnix 162 Grand Transformation Scene 163 The Threatening Notice 164 Vulcan in the Sulks 165 The American Gladiators—Habet! 166 Brittania Sympathises with Columbia 167

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN

AND THE

LONDON PUNCH

"Tell me what a man laughs at, and I will tell you what he is," was one of Goethe's pregnant apothegms.

Laughter, one of the chief lines of cleavage between man and beast, is one of the chief points of differentiation between man and man. From the good-natured banter which kins all the world to the envenomed sneer that sunders it, laughter runs the whole gamut of human emotions.

It is always sincere, even in its own despite. No subterfuge, when subterfuge underlies it, is more easily unmasked. A man may smile and smile and be a villain, but villainy by the seeing eye can be infallibly detected beneath the smile.

A counterfeit laugh may be uttered, as counterfeit coin is uttered, but it does not ring true. Its baseness reveals itself to more senses than one.

Now for more than sixty years the recognized organ of British laughter has been the London Punch. The contemporary mood of John Bull towards Brother Jonathan has always voiced itself through the grinning lips of this chartered jester.

It cannot be said that even before the outbreak of the Civil War Punch had shown itself friendly to America or Americans. Why should it? The British mob disliked us and flouted us. Punch as the mouthpiece of the mob, followed suit. In the original prospectus of that journal, issued in 1845, it was expressly announced that the paper was to be devoted in part to "Yankee yarns," to "the naturalization of those alien Jonathans whose adherence to the truth has forced them to emigrate from their native land." It would appear from this new crook-backed Daniel come to judgment, that Ananias and Autolycus were models of punctilious honesty and meticulous truthfulness compared with the average American.