which invariably follow the progress of a contribution-box are fixed upon me; and though pecuniary ruin stares me full in the face, I cannot help giving freely. I have practised various ingenious expedients to avoid this infliction, but all have been unsuccessful. Once I tried to dodge the contribution-Sabbaths by feigning sickness; but my illness was too glaringly periodical to escape suspicion, and I had to give it up. Then I tried the principle of the widow's-mite, and slily slipped a smooth tencent piece into the box; but while we were crowding out through the aisle, I overheard a little hawk-eyed old lady say to Black-Eyes, 'What a stingy creature that awkward young man who sits in your pew is! He only gave Mr. PRETTYMAN a shilling!' I thought I should have sunk through the floor, and have never dared to economise in that way since.

Upon my word, Sir, I cannot tell where all this will end. It is impossible for me to survive much longer in this pecuniary plight, for I have actually been obliged to exchange several necessary articles of value to obtain funds for these exigencies, and often at an unpleasant discount from their real worth. A favorite flute was sacrificed for the especial benefit of the Asiatic mission; a handsome new over-coat was disposed of to an old-clothes' man to aid in purchasing supplies for the station in the South Sea Islands; and I humbly trust that the infant Kickapoos, whose education is to be advanced by the pawning of my ruby shirt-pin, will one day appreciate the trying sacrifice I have made on their account. I have, sorely against my inclination, and with the fear of my unpaid tailor's bills before my eyes, liberally contributed toward the moral improvement of the natives of every imaginable part of the known globe. I have been in turn victimized by the Chinamen, the Sandwich-Islanders, the Affghanistans, the Kamskatchkans, the benighted residents of Timbuctoo, and other inhabitants of various uncivilized countries. Only last Sabbath I responded so freely to a call in behalf of the ladies and gentlemen of the Fejee Islands, that I was obliged to obtain a loan from my uncle the next day upon some valuable personal securities, at a rate of interest that would make usury-haters stare. I have no doubt that divers unfortunate persons often find themselves in a similar predicament; and I think it high time that the disagreeable practice of thrusting a contribution-box under one's nose, like a highwayman's pistol, should be abolished, and some method of collection adopted which would not harrow up the feelings of persons whose purses do not possess the delightful peculiarity which distinguished the widow's cruise.

'It is very easy to talk about the exercise of 'moral courage' upon such occasions; but the conflict in a nervous gentleman's bosom between his duty to his creditors and the dread of being pronounced 'mean,' is not favorable to an extremely devotional frame of mind. I trust that, among the reformers of the age, some friend of humanity will be found who can devise a way of giving alms more in unison with that unobtrusive charity which would not that the right hand should know what the left hand doeth, and which would remove the perplexities that now beleaguer

DID our correspondent Mr. DAPPER ever remark, that the gentlemen who 'carry round the plate,' and who are always on a cold scent after a penny, are not themselves very liberal in their contributions? Why don't you put in something?' asked a contributor, of one of these Sunday sub-treasurers, on one occasion. 'That's my business,' was the reply: 'what I give is nothing to nobody!'

WORD-PAINTING: THE FIRST DISSIPATION.- Many of our readers, we may suppose, have not as yet had an opportunity of perusing the last two numbers of 'David Copperfield,' issued with illustrations from the metropolitan press of Mr. JoHN WILEY; and it is for their especial entertainment that we desire to call their attention to two or three remarkable examples of word-painting which they contain. We commence with this limning of a servant, a 'most respectable man,' and as much of a character, in his way, as SAM. WELLER himself:

'I BELIEVE there never existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter s, so distinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to suspect him of any thing wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed the women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable.. He was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down like a baby.

'I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. He took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face, as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, if I pleased, it was half-past eight.'

This 'most respectable man'- servant of STEERFORTH is destined to act an important although subordinate part in the story, as we do guess.' A most original creation, totally unheralded, is introduced in the last number; a dwarf-chiropodist, or 'corn' and nail-cutter, hair-dyer, etc., named Miss MowCHER; who goes about with scraps of nails that she has cut from the fingers and toes of a Russian prince, and which do more for her, in private families of the genteel sort, than all her talents put together. She sells rouge, too, to the faded beauties of the realm, but very slily: 'One old Dowager, she calls it lip-salve. Another, she calls it gloves. Another, she calls it tucker-edging. Another, she calls it a fan. I call it whatever they call it. I supply it for 'em, but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon think of laying it on before a whole drawing-room as before

me.

And when I wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes—with it on — thick, and no mistake-'How am I looking, MOWCHER? Am I pale?' Ha! ha! ha! ha! Is n't that refreshing, my young friend?' But the gem of the number, and one of the most perfect word-pictures we ever saw, is COPPERFIELD's description of his 'First Dissipation.' He is at his new lodgings with 'Mrs. CRUPP,' and proposes, as a sort of 'house-warming,' to give a dinner to a few friends. His landlady, a characteristic specimen of a keen boarding-house keeper, has the address to make her lodger order every thing he wants from the pastry-cook's, leaving her to 'concentrate her mind on the mashed potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done.' She recommends to him a 'handy young man' to assist at table, and a young girl is procured, to be stationed in the pantry, 'there never to desist from washing plates.' His attention is distracted, however, during dinner, by observing that the 'handy young man' goes out of the room very often, and that his shadow always presents itself, immediately afterward, on the wall of the entry, with a

bottle at his mouth! The 'young girl' likewise occasions him some uneasiness; not so much by neglecting to wash the plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, and unable to confine herself, as her positive instructions were, to the pantry, she is constantly peering in at the guests, and constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief she several times retires upon the plates, with which she has carefully paved the floor, and does a great deal of destruction. The dinner goes on however, accompanied by the successive stages of inebriation:

"I WENT on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was needed. I proposed STEERFORTH's health. I said he was my dearest friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more obligation than I could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration than I could ever express. I finished by saying, 'I'll give you STEER FORTH GOD bless him! Hurrah! We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words) 'Steerforthyou'retheguidingstarofmyexistence !'

Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. STEERFORTH had made a speech about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears. I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me tomorrow, and the day after each day at five o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening. I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt. Miss BETSEY TROTWOOD, the best of her sex!

Somebody was leaning out of my bed-room window, refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as 'CorPERFIELD,' and saying, 'Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you could n't do it.' Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair-only my hair, nothing else looked drunk.

'Somebody said to me, 'Let us go to the theatre, COPPERFIELD! There was no bed-room before me, but again the jingiing table covered with glasses; the lamp; GRAINGER on my right hand, MARKHAM on my left, and STEERFORTH opposite-all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre? To be sure. The very thing! Come along! But they must excuse me if I saw every body out first, and turned the lamp off-in case of fire.

Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when STEERFORTH, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went down stairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was CorPERFIELD. I was angry at that false report, until finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it.

A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. STEERFORTH dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. STEERFORTH then said, 'You are all right, COPPERFIELD, are you not?' and I told him, Neverberrer.'

A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take the money from me or not. Shortly afterward, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a very large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it.

'On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full-dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people about me crying 'Silence!' to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and what! yes! - AGNES, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I did n't know. I see her face now, better than I did then I dare say, with its indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. AGNES! I said thickly, Lorblessmer! AGNES!

"Hush! pray: she answered, I could not conceive why. You disturb the company. Look at the stage!

'I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead.

"AGNES! I said. I'mafraidyou'renorwel.'

"Yes, yes. Do not mind me, TROTWOOD,' she returned. Listen! Are you going away soon?" "Amigoarawaysoo? I repeated.

"Yes.'

"I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand her down stairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for, after she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low tone:

"I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it. Go away now, TROTWOOD, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you home.'

'She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short Goori !" (which I intended for Good night!)' got up and went away. They followed and I stepped at once out of the box-door into my bed-room, where only STEERFORTH was with me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that AGNES was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine.

How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, at cross-purposes, in a feverish dream all night-the bed a rocking sea that was never still. How, as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands, hot plates of metal, which no ice could cool!

But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt, when I became conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences I had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate; my recollection of that indelible look which AGNES had given me; the torturing impossi bility of communicating with her, not knowing, beast that I was, how she came to be in London, or where she stayed; my disgust of the very sight of the room where the revel had been held; my racking head, the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day it was!'

It is our belief that this vivid picture of the folly and shame of drunkenness will have a more potent effect upon our young men than half the temperance addresses from the 'reformed drunkards' who are 'itinerating the States,' from Maine to Louisiana. A single memory of orgies like this will 'bite into the soul' of a sensitive man.

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Since the issue of our last number, the arrival of the brave Hungarians, whose names have been in the mouths of all our citizens, has been the 'public thing,' the chief topic of the day. And we rejoice that they have been enabled to feel the true sympathy which a country struggling for freedom will always command in this country. We may mention here, that we have to-day received from our excellent and attentive correspondent at Constantinople the following Appeal' in behalf of the political refugees who have been compelled to rendezvous in the Turkish capital after having been expelled from almost every other part of Europe. As the Hungarians,' writes our correspondent, 'had, and still have, many sympathizers in the United States, I thought it might be agreeable to learn how they could assist them. You have no idea of the distress which political troubles have brought upon these poor people. Many of those here are men of family and fortune in their own (?) land; and although Mussulman charity and benevolence puts Christendom to the blush, Turkey offers but few resources by which they can procure a subsistence. The officer and the soldier have found home and service in Turkish houses, but many are still houseless. I presume many Hungarians will reach the United States, for which they have a strong predilection. The Appeal' is to the philanthropic in favor of the political refugees at Constantinople by a committee of the most respectable merchants resident there. It is translated from the Journal de Constantinople' of the twenty-ninth of November :

'Ir under the existing circumstances of the present day distress and want are greatly felt by the political refugees in this city, still greater are the hearts of those who are alive to the sweet emotions of benevolence. In the presence of the total deprivation which the rigors of the season are about to increase, who will be insensible to the sufferings of the helpless? What hand can remain closed against them by selfishness? Mutually bound together by a common feeling of commiseration toward those unfortunate men, we come forward also to propose a means of rendering that sentiment active and efficacious, by opening a subscription in favor of all those persons who have found a refuge on the hospitable soil of Turkey.

"Their wants baffle and surpass the resources of private charity; and it is only a collective benevolence which can meet and relieve them. The little offering of each one is like those drops of

fine rain which, infinitely multiplied, fall with generous influence upon the parched and arid surface of the earth.

'Here political opinions have no part. We disdain so injurious a suspicion, and reject it upon whoever shall venture to conceive or to express it. Has not Humanity a paramount duty with man in the misfortunes of his fellow creature? And before giving the morsel of bread to the famished, or bestowing the garment upon the shivering, must he seek first to learn by what blow the sufferer has been disabled, or by what weapon the wound has been laid bare? Humanity! that virtue which is offered to each son of our common parent, GOD, and of that common country, the earth; thou alone sufficest us in our love for our fellow mortal, and pressest us forward to his rescue when in distress!

"This noble and true sentiment will be that of all those who enjoy the tranquillity and good order which characterize the government of His Majesty, Sultan ABD-UL-MEJID.

'Difference of race, of color, or of faith, will make none in the hearts of all those who are created of one type, and are carried forward toward the commission of the same act of benevolence.

"In closing the present appeal to the generous and the benevolent, the undersigned announce that they have formed themselves into a committee, for the purpose of collecting offerings in behalf of those political refugees now suffering from want in Constantinople.

"They call upon all those whose hearts are open to the commission of good deeds, for whatever they may be pleased to give; and in this they believe may be included all the inhabitants of this empire, without distinction of faith or nationality.

'Signed by J. H. BLACK, Treasurer, DAVID GLAVANY, CH. HANSON, P. Duran, Ch. Ede, EUG. BOIE."

THE Committee on 'Practice and Pleadings' have recently made their last report to the Legislature, by which several additional and very important changes are proposed in the present practice. The code thus far seems to meet with general commendation, both in this and other states. One of the most marked changes consists in the abbreviation of the pleadings. The following copy of the entire pleadings (except the summons and names of parties) of a cause recently on the calendar of one of our courts, may serve as a specimen of the brief manner in which an issue' may be formed under the new code. It seems to be in the spirit of that provision requiring the facts to be so stated that 'a person of common understanding may know what is intended :'

JACKSON

against

Complaint.

SUPREME

COURT.

STYLES.

THE Complaint of the plaintiff shows to this court, that on the eighteenth day of July, 1849, the defendant did, in the city of Albany, call the plaintiff a d-d thief, to plaintiff's damage of one thousand dollars; for which sum he demands judgment against the defendant.

THE answer of the defendant herein admits that he did call the plaintiff a d-d thief, as aforesaid, and that he is at all times ready to aver and prove the same to be true, as this court shall direct.

J. SMITH, Defendant's Attorney. may be found in GILBERT The plaintiff declared in

An amusing specimen of pleading under the old system VS. THE PEOPLE, I. of DENIO's Reports, page 41, et seq. trespass, for breaking his close and injuring his sheep. Two counts were as follows: 'Plaintiff farther declares against the defendant for this, to wit: that the said plaintiff had a number of sheep in the county of Columbia, and that said defendant did, in the year 1843, if ever, bite and worry fifty of plaintiff's sheep, after the said de