French hotel. God only knows where all this will end. An aged passenger entered the gate of the city about three hours since, whose locks were as white as the untrodden snow, crying, with uplifted arms: “My children! my children! O God! restore my beloved children.” He looked and enacted the character of Lear more perfectly than I had ever seen it. The snow that fell on Grandfather Whitehead and poor old Lear, were only wanting to make it the most harrowing scene I ever witnessed. But unfortunately, it has not snowed on the equator, since the advent of creation. The old man’s children arrived about an hour since, and I had the pleasure of bathing the father of the flock with brandy, which revived and exhilarated him, and made him dance before me quite a reel. The old fellow really danced wonderfully; I think I never saw a man of his years step round so lively, alter I washed his exterior, and especially his interior, with sparkling brandy. The old man has just told me that a person went from his canoe into a thicket on the Chagres, and shot a monkey, when all his tribe began to chatter wildly, and drop from the trees upon him, and stole his hat, and scratched, and hit him severely, and finally, about 400 monkeys chased him into the Chagres, where he had to swim for his life until he was rescued by his comrades. Although my brandy has made the old man extremely loquacious and facetious, yet I believe his monkey story is as reliable as my snake and alligator narratives.

(To be continued.)

c7

Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY APRIL 24 1858.

Like Adam and Eve at the hymeneal altar, contemplating the interminable generations of sinners; like Noah surveying the horrors of the deluge; like Julius Cæsar projecting the passage of the Rubicon; like the Christians braving the persecutions of the Jews; like William Tell, with his bow and quiver, hurling defiance at Gesler in the mountain gorges of Switzerland; like the great Columbus going into a midnight storm in untraversed latitudes; like the supernatural Washington going into battle, on whose consummation the liberty of the human race impends; like Napoleon at Helena reviewing his wondrous reign; like Andre and poor Orsini going to the scaffold, amid the tears of their countrymen; and like the cheerful moon, in her ramble with romantic lovers through summer skies and groves of perfume, we calmly survey the horizon in our virgin advent of to-day, although we discern a snowy cloud that resembles the terrific monsoon. But as the impetuous sun darts through infinitude, we shall soon dash among the adversaries of integrity and patriotism, and be as merciless as Jackson to the robbers of the toiling masses, or to the cruel Indians, or to British tyrants.

We have exhibited some old wares to-day, because a tried article, like a winter friend, wears well. We did not deem it necessary to italicise article and wears. And to be more specific in the Roman language, Alligators, Autobiography, William Tell, and Worms, can never expire, but be as eternal as the garments of nature.

Senator David C. Broderick challenged us to fight a duel in 1848, and Congressman John B. Haskins brought the challenge. The law might cage us if we acknowledged our acceptance of the challenge, but we will permit Broderick or Haskins to declare if we stained the mantles of Green and Perry of Rhode Island, whose gorgeous canopy we first beheld.

We shall soon give sketches of President Buchanan, Mayor Tiemann, Comptroller Flagg, members of the Common Council, the Supervisors, Ten Governors, Commissioners of Record, Education, and Emigration, and of our New York editorial brethren, including their Secretaries. James Watson Webb being the eldest, we may start with him. We shall also sketch the lives of the newspaper venders, and give those the most immortal characters who sell the most of our Alligators.

To the Metropolitan Police.—A large reward will be paid to the policemen who will prove by affidavits, or the poll lists, that Chief Matsell, the Corporation Counsel, Register, County Clerk, or Corporation Attorney, have voted for municipal, state, or national officers, since the promulgation of our Brandon Report, on the aliens of both hemispheres. As the County Clerk and Corporation Attorney are formidable candidates for Comptroller, it is important to know if they have been naturalized. We will bet they have not.

Correspondents will address Stephen H. Branch through the Post Office, whose editorial room will be in a house, whose floor is the green earth, and whose ceiling is the glittering dome of Heaven, until his patronage will enable him to hire commodious apartments in the central business portion of the city.

Our warm and graceful salutations to the editors of New York, who clung to us in adversity, whom we will love forever.

A Puff of Merit without Charge.—William W. Britt engraved our Alligator, whose widespread jaws speak for themselves in tones of thunder.

Advertisements are One Dollar a line. The overshadowing Bonner cannot have a page, lest he shoot the Alligator with our wadding.

We shall have no pictures for premature children, save the omnipotent Alligator, who can devour a lion, or swallow, an eagle without contortion.

The withered grass of Kansas not admitted in the jaws of the Alligator, lest it lacerate his bowels with black vomit.

Beware of alluring serpents in virtue’s paths, and save your money, and buy nourishment for your wives and children.

We shall commence, next week, the publication of Alfred Carson’s thunderbolts at the Common Council of 1850.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H.