"But our true nature is in our thoughts, not our deeds: And, therefore, in books
- which are his thoughts- the author's character lies bare to the discerning eye."

MY DEAD MOTHER, God bless her!-whom I never knew-for

when she died I was but a babe

-

- but to whom I am indebted for the

Courage, Love, and Manhood in me!-courage to breast the fiercest storm and to strike for the Right!-love to God and all human kind, and manhood to do and say the right and true thing, no matter who or what assailed me: and to all other women the wide world over, who believe that Virtue is not a sham, nor God a delusion to all who believe Marriage to be a Sacred Institution, founded by the Creator for Human Good; and to all who are opposed to whatever antagonizes the True, the Beautiful, and the Good,

THIS

WORK

is dedicated by

Casca Clanna.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by

RANDOLPH PUBLISHING COMPANY,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE A.

66

YOUNG Mr. Gumbs undertook to start a paper out in Cambria county a short time ago. He called it the Cambria Milky Way. He said, in his prospectus, that he intended to make the Milky Way lively, spicy, vigorous, fearless, and entertaining; and he did. In the first number he called the editor of the rival paper “a diabolical liar, an unmitigated scoundrel, and a remorseless assassin." He alluded to the Mayor, in a cheerful paragraph, as a corrupt magistrate, whose torments from the remorse which festered in his soul were only surpassed by the physical agony which is always the punishment of the depraved and riotous debauchee." He soothed the feelings of the postmaster with the remark that "the peculations of this official Dick Turpin can be compared to nothing but the terrific robberies committed in the past by those dastardly Spanish buccaneers, whom he so closely resembles in general character." He announced, under the head of "Social Gossip," that a certain young man had been rejected the evening before by the lady of his love, and volunteered the information that it was "the wisest thing she could have done under the peculiar circumstances; " and he related how, upon the preceding day, he heard another youth, named Alexander Jones, remark to a friend that, "if anything will make a man feel juicy about the heart, it is to talk velvet to a pair of sky-colored eyes, by moonlight, in a clover field." The next edition of the paper was not issued at the regular time. Finally some copies were sent out over the town in balloons, and they contained these editorial remarks: "The editor has found it impossible to go out to-day to hunt for news items, because the Mayor, and the editor of the Times, and the postmaster, and Alexander Jones, and a number of other individuals, whose names we have not been able to learn, have been sitting

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