mon enemy.

nately, until they could destroy her; two by rotation, were to be constantly in pursuit: it was known that, having lost the two toes from one foot, by a steel trap, she made one track shorter than the other by this vestige the pursuers recognized in a light snow, the route of this pernicious animal. Having followed her to Connecticut river, and found she had turned back in a direct course to Pomfret, they immediately returned, and, by ten the next morning, the bloodhounds had driven her into a den, about three miles distant from the house of Mr Putnam; the people soon collected with dogs, guns, straw, fire and sulphur, to attack the comWith this apparatus several unsuccessful efforts were made to force her from the den; the hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return; the smoke of blazing straw had no effect, nor did the fumes of burnt brimstone, with which the cavern was filled, compel her to quit the retirement. Wearied with such fruitless attempts (which had brought the time to ten o'clock at night), Mr Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in vain; he proposed to his negro man to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf; the negro man declined the hazardous service ;-then it was that their master was angry at the disappointment, and declaring that he was ashamed to have a coward in his family, resolved himself to destroy this ferocious beast, lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock; his neighbours strongly remonstrated against the perilous enterprize, but he knowing that wild animals were intimidated by fire, and having pro

vided several strips of birch-bark, the only combustible material which he could obtain that would light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having accordingly divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and having a long rope fastened round his legs, by which he might be pulled back at a concerted signal, he entered headforemost, with a blazing torch in his hand.

The aperture of the den, on the east side of a very high ledge of rocks, is about two feet square; from thence it descends obliquely fifteen feet, then running horizontally about ten more, it ascends gradually sixteen feet towards its termination. The sides of this subterraneous cavity are composed of smooth and solid rocks, which seem to have been divided from each other by some former earthquake; the top and bottom are also of stone, and the entrance, in winter, being covered with ice, is exceedingly slippery. It is in no place high enough for a man to raise himself upright, nor in any part more than three feet in width.

Having groped his passage to the horizontal part of the den, the most terrifying darkness appeared in front of the dim circle of light afforded by the torch; it was silent as the house of death; none but monsters of the desert had ever before explored this solitary mansion of horror; he cautiously proceeding onward, came to the ascent, which he slowly mounted on his hands and knees, until he discovered the glaring eye-balls of the wolf, who was sitting at the extremity of the cavern: startled at the sight of fire, she gnashed her teeth, and gave a sullen horrible growl. As soon as he had made

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the necessary discovery, he kicked the rope as a signal for pulling him out. The people at the mouth of the den, who had listened with painful anxiety, hearing the growling of the wolf, and supposing their friend to be in the most imminent danger, drew him forth with such celerity, that his shirt was strip ped over his head, and his skin severely lacerated. After he had adjusted his cloaths, and loaded his gun with nine buck shot, holding a torch in one hand, and the musket in the other, he descended a second time. When he drew nearer than before, the wolf, assuming a still more fierce and terrible appearance, howling, rolling her eyes, snapping her teeth, and dropping her head between her legs, was evidently in the attitude and on the point of springing at him. At this critical instant, he levelled and fired at her head. Stunned with the shock, and suffocated with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn out of the cave; but having refreshed himself, and permitted the smoke to dissipate, he went down the third time. Once more he came within sight of the wolf, who appearing very passive, he applied the torch to her nose, and, perceiving her dead, he took hold of her ears, and then kicking the rope (still tied round his legs), the people above, with no small exultation, dragged them both out together.

Humphry's Life of Putnam.

HUMOURS of Elections." Hey day! What is the matter? Behold all the marks of invasion, or a civil war! Windows broken, doors demolished, sign-posts pulled down! Here stands a man

with a broken arm, and yonder go two or three more with bruised faces and black eyes! Prithee, what have you been about?"

"'Lectioneering, sir," answers an elderly man, to whom I addressed my inquiry.

"Lectioneering-What do you mean by that,

good man

"Why, its going about to be made a Parlament man on; and he that gets the most votes carries the day."

"But I do not see the connexion, my honest friend, between choosing Mr A. or Mr B. for your representative, and demolishing your town, or knocking one another on the head."

"Don't you? Why then I can tell you, meister, says the old gentleman, with a smile of contempt aimed at my ignorance, "these great fokes makes us little fokes drunk, and when we are drunk we fight, and when we fight we do mischief, that's all." "The greater fools you to make yourselves such beasts."

"Nay, as to the matter of that, I think you great fokes ought to know better than to set us together by the ears, to serve their own turns.”

"And I think you ought to know better than to be set together by the ears by them."

"Lord, sir, if you could get your belly full of vittles and drink for nothing, and money given you into the bargin, you would now, I'll wornt you. There is the White Lion, and Greyhound, and Blackamore's Head, has been open for these three weeks successfully. Ale was given away by pailsfull. You might go in and eat and drink till you

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burst again, at any time, and nobody would take no notice like."

"So then you are fond of the diversion, I find." "Alack-a-day, sir! I have lived in the town, and paid scott and lot thirty-one years and three quarters, come Christmas next: I've polled for eleven Parlament men, and have had my swill of ale and a broken pate every time, thank God."

"So I see these worthy gentlefolks first make beasts of you, and then claim the honour of being your representatives; that's curious enough. But pray tell me what these Parliament men are good for when you have them."

"Good for, sir! bless your heart, good for! Why if it was not for them we should all be overrun with Papishes and Prespiterians, God knows." "And what harm would they do you?"

"Lud, sir, how you talk! why they would knock us on the head, if we did not wear wooden shoes, and go to the Pantile house!"

"So you knock one another on the head to prevent these calamities!"

"Aye to be sure. Thof I an't now the man I was, I'll fight for Old England as long as there's a drop of blood left in this old carcase of mine; and I'll stand up for the church too, agen all the Prespiterians sons of bs in the nation, as long as my name's John Plodder, that I wul; I'll be d-d if I don't?"

With this pious exclamation honest John broke from us rather abruptly, and joining some of his associates at a little distance, raised a laugh upon us as we passed them.