England.

USED "RUDE TACT."

General John C. Fremont, with headquarters at St. Louis, astonished the
country by issuing a proclamation declaring, among other things, that
the property, real and personal, of all the persons in the State of
Missouri who should take up arms against the United States, or who
should be directly proved to have taken an active part with its enemies
in the field, would be confiscated to public use and their slaves, if
they had any, declared freemen.

The President was dismayed; he modified that part of the proclamation
referring to slaves, and finally replaced Fremont with General Hunter.

Mrs. Fremont (daughter of Senator T. H. Benton), her husband's real
chief of staff, flew to Washington and sought Mr. Lincoln. It was
midnight, but the President gave her an audience. Without waiting for an
explanation, she violently charged him with sending an enemy to Missouri
to look into Fremont's case, and threatening that if Fremont desired to
he could set up a government for himself.

"I had to exercise all the rude tact I have to avoid quarreling with
her," said Mr. Lincoln afterwards.

"ABE" ON A WOODPILE.

Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself under adverse and
unpromising circumstances--he was a bare-footed farm-hand--excited
comment. And it was not to be wondered. One old man, who was yet alive
as late as 1901, had often employed Lincoln to do farm work for him, and
was surprised to find him one day sitting barefoot on the summit of a
woodpile and attentively reading a book.

"This being an unusual thing for farm-hands in that early day to do,"
said the old man, when relating the story, "I asked him what he was
reading.

"'I'm not reading,' he answered. 'I'm studying.'

"'Studying what?' I inquired.

"'Law, sir,' was the emphatic response.

"It was really too much for me, as I looked at him sitting there proud
as Cicero. 'Great God Almighty!' I exclaimed, and passed on." Lincoln
merely laughed and resumed his "studies."

TAKING DOWN A DANDY.

In a political campaign, Lincoln once replied to Colonel Richard Taylor,
a self-conceited, dandified man, who wore a gold chain and ruffled
shirt. His party at that time was posing as the hard-working bone and
sinew of the land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats,
ruffled-shirt gentry. Taylor making a sweeping gesture, his overcoat
became torn open, displaying his finery. Lincoln in reply said, laying