The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

im advance. VOL. 2, No. 3.] " All extremes are error, the opposite of error is noltruth but error; truth lies between the extremes." STRATFORD, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1864. [WHOLE No. 30 Select Poetry. Dream On. Dream on, fond heart! awaken not To feel life's weary chain ; To know that Love must be fergot, And Hope ne'er smile again. Dream on! and thought shall bear thee back Upon her eager wing, While oe'r sweet mem'ry's faded track A rainbow light she'll fling. Dream on, though youth's bright gems depart, The thefts of time or death, The golden casket of the heart Be changed as with a breath: Dream on, nor see transformed to lead The gold so pure and fair ; No azure gem, no ruby red, Or diamonds sparkle there. yan Dream on, nor wake to feel the change Has passed o'er heart and brow ; To find life's sunny path seems strange, All cold and darkened now. Dream on, and mem'ry shall restore The treasures thou hast lost, And Time's dark waves shall bring once more The jewels on them tossed. Dream on, behold the turquoise blue, Truth's emblem ever meet ; The ruby shedding radiance new On all its blush may greet. Dream on, that ruby is the rose Of early, happy youth; And the turquoise will disclose Its innocense and truth. Dream on, and, till hope's diamond ray Shall bless thy heart's deep cells, As stars when twilight's past will stay To light the pure, clear wells. Dream on, and let thy heart beat warm, Nor fear the chill of earth; Forget her tempest-cloud and storm-- In dreamland joy has birth, In the deep hush of purple night The past renews its power, And visions all that once were bright In youth's glad springtide hour. Loved sounds once more are on the air, Voices for ever gone ; Heay'n is all bright, and earth all fair; Oh, heart, dream on! dream on! Herbert Freer's Perplexities. A CHRISTMAS STORY. From the London Society's Magazine. CHAPTER I. 'A LUCKY YOUNG Do@.' When Herbert Freer first settled in Severnsbury he would have seemed to you, or indeed to any one, about the most un- likely man in England to have furnished such a title as that which I have prefixed to the story I have to tell. Perplexities indeed! How should he have any? A young fellow of thirty, he had come down there to manage the Severnsbury branch of the Metropolitan and District Banking Company. six hundred a year, which, as everybody knows, is double the income on which (it has been conceded by the 7imes,) a man may lawfully marry. Nay, besides this he had, it was known, some interest as partner in the bank itself. His interest, he said, was merely that which Lazarus had in the dinner of Dives, He was allowed to pocket now and then a sovereign which could not be crammed into the bags of the chairman and directors; but his own profits in that way were altogether contingent on the suc- cess of the exertions of himself and his brother managers to earn more money than these bags could be made to hold. So talked Herbert Freer of himself. But then a young fellow who is doing well in the world is apt to speak banteringly of his income. We know that there are houses where even the post of Lazarus would be sought: by many candidates. And everybody in Severnsbury, knew that the Metropolitan and District Bank was one of those good things in which a share is not to be had by outsiders at any price, and in which a share, being once had, is not lightly surrendered. Then, too, it was known that Herbert's father had died in very comfortable cireum- stances, and that Herbert had inherited all. Probably gossip was therefore not far wrong 1n setting down the young manager's income at something like fifteen huudred a year. and in assuming that (though six hundred a Year is surely» worth looking after) he filled his official 'post not so much because of the income it gave 'him as because it gave phim something, without giving him oyer- much, to do. At th granted that he did spirit of dilettantism. € same time it was his work in no mere He had the reputa- He had a salary of tion of being a thoroughly good man of business--not easily over-reached, and yet not over-reaching. Much as his clerks liked him they respected him more, Add to these advantages that he had.a frank and winning way, a good temper, good. health, and a handsome person, and we may well ask what more need he wish that Fortune should do for him. Herbert Freer, in short, was declared by everybody to be 'a very lucky. young dog ;' and, what was more to his credit (and is not invariably the fact with lucky young dogs as a species), he was admitted by most ople to deserve his luck. Yet, for all this, we shall see in the sequel that it was not in any serene heaven of his own that he lived ;--that he had to breathe the common, perturbed air like the rest of us ;--had his anxieties as we have ours, and walked out often with black care for an attendant ;--had to wrestle hard with doubts and indecisions ;--knew how hard is the pillow to which sleep will not come ;--often 'heard the chimes at midnight' while he tried in vain to balance conscience with ex- pediency ;--in a word, that. he too was taken prisoner by the horrid sphinx who tries us all with the riddles that we have to answer on peril of our lives, and was well-nigh drowned in perplexities, as, indeed, too many of us are in this most perplexing world. Moreover, if a young lady's opinion be of weight, it is undeniable that in Severnsbury there were many estimable young ladies who would have been ready to declare that for a man like Herbert Freer to remain un- married as he did was nothing less than a clear tempting ot Providence, a clear laying of himself open to all manner of troubles and perplexities from which they themselves would, any of them, have undertaken to guard him. For Herbert, it must be ad- mitted, brought with him the reputation of being of a disposition, in matters amatory, vexatious both to mammas and daughters; and it soon appeared that he really deserved this reputation. No angler of course ex- pects to land a salmon as easily asa gudgeon. But allowing that a good fish is worth some little trouble, and indeed has a right to de- cline to-be caught without giving trouble, yet even the most patient of anglers, of mammas, of daughters, may be provoked and weried out sometimes; and Herbert, it was complainad, would neither tak2 a bait nor leave it alone. No one was more ready 'than he to join the girls in their pic-nics-- to row them on the river--to walk with them--to talk with them--to read poetry to them--even to write verses for them--to dance with them--to take them to concerts and lectures--in short, to be their assiduous dangler in any of the thousand and one ca- pacities in which danglers are so useful. But what avail pic-nicings and boatings, moonlight walkings and mooney talkings, if they are to be merely their own reward? Ladies of practical habits, alive to the stern realities of milliners' bills dnd unmarried angels, look on these trivial gallantries as only the necessary preliminaries to more important negotiations. To persist in them too long is a mere 'tarrying in the letter that killeth ' deeply cherished hopes. And somehow these charming junketings, no matter how dexterously contrived or how often repeated, did not bring about that softening of the heart, or softening of the brain (1 am really not quite clear which is the most correct expression,) without which even the best-nurtured young men continue strangely obdurate to those tender impres- sions which are so beautiful on materials of the due plasticity. Herbert, in short, obstinately delayed to 'range' himself. As Napeleon, or some other general, complained of English soldiers that they were by nature so obtuse and thick-headed that when, ac- cording to all known rules ef war they had been fairly beaten they could not under- stand it, but out of sheer ignorance and stupidity went on fighting--so an accusa- tion of precisely the opposite nature might with justice have been brought against the young gentleman now under criticism, fair foes surrendered to him at diseretion, laid down their arms, and craved only to preserve life at the sacrifice of liberty: yet he was so dull he would not understand tht they had surrendered at all. He wen+ on still in the trivial wartare of an everyday flirtation, and failed to see that serious op- position was no longer offezoq to him. «As for marching home 1p '¢jymph with a trem- bling prisoner *, Qhains behind him, as a gallant Jorag conquering hero ought to march--- this was what Herbert Freer could yy2o drop the fighting metaphor, as this 18 to be quite a peaceful story--out of his excessive good nature--out of his obliging dispessition--out of his amiability, his friend- line-as; his general bonhomie, there had grown a "pelief that these very qualities were what i} nO Faeans be induced to do. © Jyrevented and would prevent him from ever seriously falling in love. It was argued # His | [not certainly by very profound logicians that a young man who was politeness itse would shrink from doing so uncivil a thin as to pass by and give the cut direct' to the young ladies of Severnsbury save one. Again and again it had been announced by the established gossips that he was e d to and about to marry the eldest Miss Fetherfew, the youngest Miss Fetherfew, the second Miss Fetherfew, Miss Bertha Peacock, Miss Woodley [niece to old Colonel Woodley]--nay, he had even been talked about in connection with the venerable Miss Phillips herself [whose age was guessed to be about a thousand, and whose money in the funds about a million]. But he only let this talk ebb and flow at its own sweet will. When its ripples dashed right up against him sometimes, he skipped out of the way of them; sometimes he met the small deluge with a laugh and a joke. As for a serious denial or a serious confirma- tion he was too wise to give it. For he knew, as we all know, that in all such gos- sip the word of the supposed principal in matrimonial arrangements is the last word that is believed. So rumor went on pro- phesying, and he contented himself with simply letting the prophecies remain unful- filled. Such had been the state of affairs for nearly two years; and Severnsbury had at last become quite incredulous. A settled conviction had grown up in the minds of Herbert's acquaintance that he had not in him the stuff of which a lover is made. For a lover must have his heats and im- petuosities, his eagerness, his strokes [it may be almost admitted] of sharp practice against rivals; and Herbert had shown so far none of these qualities. He had exhibited him- self only in the character of an easy, good- tempered, clever, and rather careless fellow. When, therefore, it was blown about by old Mrs. Fetherfew that she was sure he was 'very sweet on Miss Foster,' and that she [Mrs. Fetherfew] was guite sure there really was 'something in it' this time, Severns- bury only shook its wise head and declined to have its credulity imposed on any more. Mrs. Fetherfew talked, as the winds of heaven blow, just as she listed; but it was said that if she talked as freely as the winds she also talked as idly; and so it came about that she was just as little regarded as they. i > CHAPTER II. 'LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE.' Herbert's acquaintance with the Fosters was not more than a month old when this latest gossip first began to gain ground; and in order that we may see how far it had really any foundation--how far it merely resembled the many other idle rumors that had gone before it--we shall go back to the beginning of this acquaintance, Of course when Herbert first came to Severnsbury he came well provided with letters of introduction. And even had he not done so, and had the repute of fifteen hundred a year not been in itself a tolerably good introduction, he would not have been long without acquaintances. Amongst other notes, he had brought one to Captain Fos- ter; but he had kept it unpresented so long that at last he had become ashamed to present it at all, and so he had, instead of doing so, simply put it in the fire. He had, indeed, met the captain once or twice at other people's houses, and so had come to be on speaking terms with him; but the acquaintance had never become more than a casual one. Wandering, however, one evening down the terrace in which the cap- tain lived, he noticed at the door of his house the figure of a young man, who pulled the bell with, apparently, some little hesita- tion, stooped down after having done so as if to listen whether it had rung or not, and, seemingly haying satisfied himself that it had not, descended the steps, and was walk- ing off briskly with that relieved expression of countenance which a tian wears when he has suddenly decided to put off a call which he is not over-anxious to make; but in turning to walk off he turned face to face with Herbert. 'Do. you often;do that, Phil? Are you ringing at all the doors and ranning away, or merely taking them ina casual way? The runaway was one of Herbert's most intimate companions, by name Philip Grey. 'Oh! confound it,' he said, 'I have pulled two or three times, and either it dosn't ring or they have seen me through the window and don't care to answer it.. Besides the captain is such a bore I am glad to have an excuse for going away.' Herbert laughed. 'Then let us have a walk,' he said, and linking their arms they turned and had a walk for about two paces when they found themselves in the arms of Captain Foster himself, who had come on them at that instant unawares from behind. 'Well, I declare,' said Philip Grey; 'I was just trying to with me and see ios 'Were you, indeed ; then I hope he will at any rate be persuaded by the two of us.' Herbert bowed and said, ' Very happy.' _ The captain rang, and having optim she knack of ringing his own bell better than any one else, or being perhaps more in earnest than Philip Grey, his ring was an- swered at once. : 'I wonder whether he heard me call him a bore,' muttered Philip. 'T fancy he did,' said Herbert. And, so speculating, the young men en- tered with their host; and this was the manner of Herbert Freer's first intro- duction to the house of Captain Foster. How often, I wonder do hosts and guests meet, and chat, and entertain each other with similar frankness and cordiality! Whether tain Foster really had over- heard that remark of Philip Grey's or not, he made no sign of having done so, But how many of us would like occasionally to let our dear friends know that we are aware of the lie. they have just told us, only that courtesy condemns us to silence and hypo- ericy! The gallant captain led his friends in and seated them at his table. He gave them of his wine and of his cigars; he en- tertainedthem with what he sincerely be- lieved to be very brilliant conversation ; and all the while, for anything I know, he was think of that unlucky stricture of Philip's and aiming to prove to Herbert how unjust it was. All the while, possibly, | both the young gentlemen were interesting themselves less in his remarks than in cer- tain tinkling sounds which they could barely hear, and which indicated that a piano was being played in some distant room of the house. For Philip at least knew well enough who the pianiste was. To say truth there had been some tender passages between him and Miss Foster, and the real cause of his indecision as to whether he should call at Captain Foster's house had arisen from doubt how she would receive him; and from a faint conviction on his part that pro- bably it would be better that these tender- nesses should go no further. His valor, therefore, had for once exhibited itself in the better shape of discretion, prompting him to run away. But now that he was in the house he wanted to be with her, and fidgeted under the assiduous courtesies of his entertainer. So he said at last, interro- gatively, in a break of the conversation, ' Miss Foster 7s at home then ?' and pointed in the direction from whence the sound of the piano came--as if he had not been quite well aware of that fact before he entered the house. And by-and-by, after this hint and another or two like it, the captain led the young men to the drawing-room and introduced them to his daughter, who was playing there alone. Captain Foster was a widower, and it was no secret that his means were only strait. He had indeed but little income beyond the half pay on which he had re- tired; and though it could not be said of him, as it was said of Lieutenant Luff, that 'his half pay did not half pay his debts,' it was known that he always lived tightly up to his resources. His daughter Ida was the eldest of his children, and had now come home, at the age of twenty, to take charge of his house. Besides her there was only Arthur left, a boy of ten. Between them there had been four others. Arthur could remember the time when there was only one little green mound besides the larger one in the cemetary. This larger one had al- ways been there as far as he could remem- ber: indeed it had to be made as soon as he came into the world. But these lesser hil- locks had all been made within the last five or six years, and Arthur, himself a delicate child, was left now without a playmate at all. persuade Freer to call (To be continued.) The Franchise. We learn from the New York Zribune that the people of the States begin to feel that universal suffrage is not without faults. The fearful war struggle through which the nation is now passing. is beginning to have its effects. 'The more sober thinking of the people see that Democracy has been carried too far--that men are permitted to vote who are more fit to be inmates of the prison house than voting to make laws for free men. The Zribune, than which there is not a more thoroughly Republican journal. in America, says: " Those whose ignorance or incapacity renders them more likely to do evil than good by voting, should not be allowed. to vote at all! We would,", it goes on to say, "have the laws regard and treat eyery.man according to his intrinsic qualities. If the community say that a man should be able to read to qualify him to vote, we do not object. LHstablish any moral or intellectual qualification you please and we make no objection to its enforce- ment." When we find Mr. Horace Greeley utter such sentiments as these, we may be sure a change is coming. A reform of this sort would be one of the greatest bles- | the people of the States could experience, | It isa well known fact that, in the cities particularly, it is the very lowest and most vitiated class of humanity that commands the polling booths. It is this class that, in reality, elects the, misnamed, representa- tives of the people. As a matter of course it is not the most intellectual or those who | have the greatest interest in the welfare of the community that are elevated to the highest and most important places in the State. It is very pleasant to talk of uni- versal suffrage as an abstract idea--and it may suit the-demagogue "W talk of the in- justice and er of denying a m: voice in the making of laws which he mits obgugi It is the duty, however, of the sober lightened mind to look at these mats fs dispassionately and in the light of rea- n. No sane man would think of placing an idiot or villain to rule over him--yet universal dr manhood suffrage amounts, in many instances, to the same thing. From the fact that there is no way of testing men's mental qualifications, if such were made @ test, there is no better or safer way than to w no' man to vote who does not own in : wn right less or more property (real estate) in the country. In Canada, at the present time, the fran- chise is entirely too low. Were the simple rule of property qualification substituted for the paraphernalia now in use it would be much better for the country. It would do away with the corrupt practices which now obtain to such an alarming extent of manu- facturing votes. It is quite possible that bad men may acquire property ; but as a gen- eral rule the man who has the capacity. to acquire property is capable of thinking and acting for himself and, consequently, 1s bet- ter qualified to be a voter than the low bar- room rowdy whose vote can be had at any time for a glass of bad whiskey. Tue Baptism or Prince Napro- LEoN's Son 4 Dirricutty ar Rome. --The Union says that the baptism of Prince Napoleon's son "is at this moment a great stumbling-block to the Church, The little Prince was half-baptised (ondoye,) immediately after his birth ; but it is almost with- out precedent that the full ceremony of baptism should be pustponed longer thansix months. The infant is now' more than a year old ; and the reason given for the extraordinary delay is that Prince Napoleon will have no other godfather for his son than the King of Italy, who is excommunicat- ed. The Pope, making a great point of holding to the excommunication in this case, no bishop in France can be found te fly openly in the face of the Church ; and Prince Napoleon, with' equal firmness, declares that unless Victor Emmanuel hold his infant at Pe font he shall not be baptised at all." AccipenT on THE Granp Truyk.--A man named James Wakeling while attempting to cross the track with a span of horses and a waggon loaded with wood, at a place known as Payne's crossing, on the Governor's road, with- in two miles of London, was hit by the engine and instantly killed. d The United States Postmaser-General hag again urged the adoption of the system which has proved such a convenience in England, of + allowing the post-offiee to act as a medium for the transportation of money by orders, purchas- country, In a letter from Bisbane, Australia, giving an account of his passage out, an emigrant says :-- 'Among the female passengers inthe second cabin was a young lady who frequently had hys- terics, and who would burst suddenly into tears in the dead ofnight. When asked her reason for so doing she would reply, 'her young man had poisoned himself. It turns out that she is known here as the notorious Madeline Smith, of Glasgow ; whose trial for murder some years since caused such a sensation. She was not the best conducted young lady iu the ship." . A Pozmr.--At Glasgow Mr. Beeche the following put to him by a canny Scott :--" Are you fighting for the consitution with the fugitive slave clause init? Ifso, how do you pretend to fighting for emancipation, are you not fighting against that constitution, andhow do you con- demn the seceding South?" In reply, he sai that was a trap for a Scotchman to set 'him wor- thy of his ingenuity--but he (Mr. Beecher) wad stitution " recognized slavery as & fact but re aes F, vk CE asa doctrine." po4-E. Yow London. Hotel. She, sued and recoveres. the amount from the landlord, ~~ sings, as regards their civil government, _ able atits different sub-offices throughout the ™ be fighting "for liberty? Secondly, if you aro not going to set his foot.init, And he avoided = any reply by essaying. to prove that 'iat 20g i t pe chet cio yeti ae Bo ae Lady Blantyre was robbed. ther di eagiDg ce case, sJatainigg 82000 nosthofiepelgne