the metropolitan editors were Municipal Reporters prior to their present exalted and lucrative, and powerful position as public journalists. Even before we baptised the Alligator, we had to endure the tortures of a ten years’ pilgrimage around the corners and through the subterranean caverns of the City Hall. But no more of this. We sincerely congratulate our Reportorial friends, on the reception of a trifling remuneration for their severe and honorable toil.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New Turk.

c12a

Life of Stephen H. Branch.

My brother Albert came to New York without the knowledge of father, and I got him a situation at the Harpers. I shall never forget how hard I besought John Harper to employ Albert, who did not want a boy, but kindly employed him to please me. Albert had the salt rheum, and also had very small and spiteful yellow bugs on the surface of his cranium. As I had to sleep with him, I combed his head every day, and when I found one of the little villains, I most cruelly tortured him with pins and flame, to terrify his brethren who remained, and to thwart his return to Albert’s head. But in spite of my bloody precaution, poor Albert’s skull teemed like Egypt of old, with ferocious animals, and I retired with him at night, invested with the fear of a culprit on his march to the scaffold. The yellow scamps made such a Napoleonic resistance, that I procured a finer comb, and in my violent efforts to drag out and exterminate the enemy, (who were deeply embedded and irresistibly fortified in his invulnerable skull,) poor Ally screamed, like an eagle on his cliff, and Mrs. Harper came to the basis of the attic stairs, and severely scolded us for quarrelling and fighting, as she supposed. Mrs. Harper was extremely nervous, and fearing she would learn that Albert had battalions of animalculæ in the region of his brain, and also trembling lest they would ground arms, and encamp and form tents in my luxuriant intellectual foliage, I advised Albert to return to Providence, and after long persuasion, with candy and peanuts, and peaches, he assented, and I went to Captain Bunker, Junior, who kindly consented to take him to Providence, without charge. While leaning on the railing of the steamer, with our eyes on the beautiful panorama of the bay, Captain Bunker told me that my lot was cast in a vicious city, and that I must resist evil temptation, and always be a good boy, and become a worthy man, and breathed other kind words into my ears, which soothed my lonely and inexperienced heart, made me cry vociferously, and I have always cherished him with the purest affection. Albert went to Providence with Captain Bunker, but instead of going to father’s, he proceeded to Boston with the money John Harper gave him, and thence to Eastport, Maine, where the yellow bugs increased so rapidly, that he was compelled to return to Providence, where father had his head shaved, which presented a bloody battle plain, full of teeming entrenchments, and his yellow foes so bewildered him, that the hospital nurses had to watch him closely, for several days, lest he would destroy himself.

John Harper often called me from the composing to the counting room, and sent me to the Banks in Wall street to get or deposit money. I often contemplated the robbery of the Harpers, by flight to a foreign land; but when I reviewed their exact justice to all men, and their kindness to myself and brother Albert, and to all their apprentices, journeymen, and laborers, I would falter in my wicked purpose. While returning from bank with a $500 bill, I dropped it by design, and asked a stranger if he had lost it, who said yes, and strove to seize it from the pavement, but I was about one second in his advance. While about to run, he seized me and demanded the return of his $500 bill. I cried and screamed lustily, and during the scuffle, two gentlemen came to my relief, when my antagonist soon fled, and I run down Cliff street, like a bloodhound. Better time was never made from the old pump of Saint George’s to the Harpers. I never again pretended to lose a $500 bill.

(To be continued to our last groan.)

The following meritorious gentlemen are wholesale agents for the Alligator.

Ross & Tousey, 121 Nassau street.
Hamilton & Johnson, 22 Ann street.
Samuel Yates, 22 Beekman street.
Mike Madden, 21 Ann street.
Cauldwell & Long, 23 Ann street.
Boyle & Whalen, 32 Ann street and
Bell & Hendrickson., 25 Ann street.

Advertisements—One Dollar a line
IN ADVANCE.

AUG. BRENTANO, SMITHSONIAN NEWS DEPOT, Books and Stationery, 608 BROADWAY, corner of Houston street.

Subscriptions for American or Foreign Papers or Books, from the City or Country, will be promptly attended to.

Foreign Papers received by every steamer. Store open from 6 A. M. to 11 P. M. throughout the week.

RODGERS, BOOKSELLER, STATIONER and NEWS VENDER, Broadway, near Twelfth street.

Books, all the new ones cheap, at Rogers.
Magazines, soon as out, cheap, at Rogers.
Stationery, London made, cheap, at Rogers.
English Papers, imported by Rogers.
American Papers, all sold by Rogers.
Books to Read, at one cent a day, at Rogers.

EXCELSIOR PRINT, 211 CENTRE-ST., N. Y.