riving by
the river, or by Grant's inland route, will find Grape, Cannister &
Co.'s carriages at the landing, or any depot on the line of
entrenchments. Buck, Ball & Co. take charge of all baggage. No
effort will be spared to make the visit of all as interesting as
possible.

This capture was printed in the Chicago _Tribune_, with the comment
that it was a ghastly and melancholy burlesque. There is really a train
of melancholy in the reflection that it was so little of a burlesque;
that they who could endure such a siege, on such fare, should have been
compelled to bear their trial in vain. But the quick-satisfying
reflection must follow of the truth, the heroism--the moral
invincibility--of a people who could so endure and--laugh!

But it was not only from the soldiers and the camps that the humor of
the South took its color. Spite of the strain upon its better
part--from anxiety, hope-deferred and actual privation--the society of
every city keeps green memories of brilliant things said and written,
on the spur of excitement and contact, that kept the sense of the whole
people keenly alert for any point--whether serious or ridiculous.

The society of the Capital was marked evidence of this. It preserved
many epigrammatic gems; often coming from the better--and brighter--half
of its composition. For Richmond women had long been noted for society
ease and _aplomb_, as well as for quickness of wit; and now the social
amalgam held stranger dames and maidens who might have shown in any
_salon_.

A friend of the writer--then a gallant staff-officer; now a grave,
sedate and semi-bald counsellor--had lately returned from European
capitals; and he was, of course, in envied possession of brilliant
uniform and equipment. At a certain ball, his glittering blind-spurs
became entangled in the flowing train of a dancing belle--one of the
most brilliant of _the_ set. She stopped in mid-waltz; touched my
friend on the broidered chevron with taper fingers, and sweetly said:

"Captain, may I trouble you to dismount?"

Another noted girl--closely connected with the administration--made one
of a distinguished party invited by Secretary Mallory to inspect a
newly-completed iron-clad, lying near the city. It was after many
reverses had struck the navy, causing--as heretofore shown--destruction
of similar ships. Every detail of this one explained, lunch over and
her good fortune drunk, the party were descending the