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Early Years—Senator Henry B. Anthony.

When I was in the Providence Post Office, Henry B. Anthony was a student of Brown University, whose noble father resided in Coventry, and the pale and delicate Henry would descend College Hill at evening shades, and present his sweet little face at the Post Office window, and inquire in solicitous and music tones: “Good Stephen, did my dear father or mother write me to-day?” And if I said yes, his tiny face reflected the innocent hilarity of childhood. But if I said no, he would depart in silence, with tears careering on his brilliant and intellectual eyes. One summer evening, while in the doorway of the Post Office, we had a long political disputation. Henry was a Whig and I a Democrat. He was a Hamiltonian, and I a Jeffersonian. Samuel and Joseph Bridgham, Wm. Henry Manton, Giles Eaton, David Perkins, Halsey Creighton, Edward Hazard, Nathan F. Dixon, George Rivers, and other students of Brown University, were there, and most of them were Whigs, and opposed to Gen. Jackson, who was then President. We had a very exciting discussion, and the students applauded as we warmed and glowed and rounded our periods; but Henry received the most applause, and I the most hisses. I endured all this with composure; but when Henry corrected my pronunciation of the military word “corps,” (kore,) which I pronounced like corpse, (korps,) a dead body,—he brought blushes to my cheeks, and copious blood to my brain, and the conquest was his, and I retired into the Post Office, and studied dictionary for some time, and resolved to acquire the principles of the English language. And from that memorable evening, I have been a laborious student. When this same Henry B. Anthony became Governor of Rhode Island, my father was the Senator from Providence County, which is the second honor of the State Administration, and the duties more arduous than those of the Governor himself. And father has told me that Henry often consulted him during his Gubernatorial Administration. When poor father died, I called on Henry at the Providence Journal office, who received me with the cordiality of a brother, and said: “Stephen: My father has recently died, and I profoundly sympathize with you, as I know what it is to lose a good father like mine. As to your father, Rhode Island never had a wiser nor a better citizen, nor a purer patriot,—and years will roll ere she will rear a man of his integrity and penetration. Our whole State is in tears, and will ever cherish him with warm affection.” Henry was elected an American Senator last week from Rhode Island, and here am I, with a dagger and revolver in my hand, exposing the robbers and parricides of my country, and with not one truly reliable friend in all the world; and even the few dollars that I recently received from the Corporation for public services, are in ceaseless danger through the stealth of heartless and greedy wretches, whose avarice will never be satiated until they have wrested the very last farthing from trembling hands that are in constant peril of paralysis. And now, dear Henry, receive my most affectionate congratulation on mounting the ladder of your highest ambition. But if you join the plunderers and traitors of the Senate, and be recreant to truth and justice—to Greene and Perry—to the Rhode Island Line, so fondly cherished by Washington—and to our dear native soil, and to the loved stars of our glorious canopy, and of the long, dark, cold, dreary, and sleepless nights of the Revolution,—if you be recreant to these sacred lights of our early years, I will paralyze you with execrations,—and if I survive you, I will trample and blight the verdure that blushes over your odious and accursed mausoleum.

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The Patient and Doctor—The First Interview.

Patient—Doctor, I have got the piles and dyspepsia most awfully. I have taken lots of medicine, and it has made me more costive, and caused my head to ache worse than ever. Now, Doctor, what on earth shall I do to cure me of the piles and dyspepsia?

Doctor—Buy Branch’s Alligator.

Patient—What kind of medicine is that?

Doctor—It ain’t medicine. It is a pepper.

Patient—What kind of pepper?

Doctor—A darn funny pepper.

Patient—How can that cure the piles and dyspepsia?

Doctor—It will make you laugh and cry at the same time, and move your bowels, and it actually gave one of my patients the diarrhœa and hysteric cramps in the stomach last week.

Patient—Where can I find it?

Doctor—At any depot in the city.

Patient—I will try it. How much shall I pay you for your medical advice?

Doctor—Only one dollar.

Patient—There it is. Good day, Doctor.

Doctor—Good day.

Patient—(stumbles going down the steps)—It looks awful cloudy, Doctor.

Doctor—Quite so. It looks like rain.

Patient—Yes, rather. Good day, Doctor.

Doctor—Good day. Call again.

Patient—I will. [Exeunt.]

SECOND INTERVIEW.

Patient—Good morning, Doctor.

Doctor—How do you do?

Patient—I am so weak I can hardly stand.

Doctor—It must be owing to the warm weather.

Patient—No it ain’t. I have been reading Branch’s Alligator, and I have got the dysentery so bad that I fear I shall lose my entrails and die before sundown, if you don’t give me something to stop it. Why, lord bless your dear soul, Doctor, I was up all last night, and have been out ten times to-day. O do relieve and save me, Doctor. Only give me back my piles and dyspepsia again, and I’ll be satisfied. The dysentery is more dangerous than either, and I’m not prepared to die. I joined the Church at the time Awful Gardner and Ex-Alderman Wesley Smith did, but I didn’t hold on, and I am worse now than I was before I joined the Old Dutch Church in Fulton street. Do save me, Doctor, do. O do! All this trouble has come upon me, because you told me to read Branch’s Alligator, which made me laugh so, that my bowels got under way, and I couldn’t stop them. Do save me, dear Doctor.

Doctor—Do you ever read the Herald, Times, or Tribune?

Patient—No. I consider it a sin to read those papers.

Doctor—Why?

Patient—Because they lie and black mail so, and deceive and sell the people, and plunder them, and erect such elegant buildings with their plunder. They never could make so much money by honorable industry.

Doctor—Well, now, you go and buy a copy of the Herald, Times, and Tribune, and go home and read the editorials, and the letters of their Albany and Washington correspondents, and their mercenary Wall street money articles, and read their billingsgate of each other, and their horrible black mail articles, and they will so thrill your blood, as to produce an instant reaction, and you will soon be more costive than before you read Branch’s Alligator.

Patient—I’ll do it. How much shall I pay you for your advice?

Doctor—Not a cent.

Patient—You are too generous, Doctor.

Doctor—Not at all. Those editors ain’t worth a cent, only what they steal from the government, and the politicians, and the people. They