it will continue until it has ceased, and it will cease when it
is no longer continued. Peace," says the Venerable Gammon,--waving
indulgent permission for the sun to go on shining,--"peace is the end
of the War, as war is the end of Peace; therefore, if we had no war,
peace would be without end, and if we had no peace, war would be
endless."

Then all the fond civilian chaps grovelled ecstatically at the
time-honored feet of the benignant parent of his country, and
four-and-twenty reliable morning journals immediately published a
report that Richmond had been taken--for another year.

But what has particularly endeared the Venerable Gammon to the hearts
of his distracted fellow-countrymen is, his able report of the manner
in which the war has conducted itself since the First of April, 1862. I
cannot exactly understand my boy, how this benignant benefactor of his
species comes to know anything at all about military matters; nor am I
prepared to state that he had any call whatever to report upon national
strategy; but he has issued a startling statement, and I give the whole

REPORT.

"On the first of April, 1862, on the day immediately succeeding the
31st of May in the same year, a solitary horseman might have been
seen approaching the camp of the Mackerel Brigade from Washington.
He was a youth in the prime of life, and carried a carpet-bag
containing the daily morning journals of that date. Upon reaching
the tent of the General of the Mackerel Brigade, he sought an
immediate interview with the latter, and at once revealed to him
that it was reported in all the morning journals, that the
celebrated Southern Confederacy had evacuated Manassas just two
weeks previously, thereby rendering an advance upon that stronghold
by our national troops a subject demanding immediate attention.

"Upon discovering that this news was indeed contained in the
morning journals, the General of the Mackerel Brigade at once
ordered a report of our national victory to be conveyed to the
Mackerels who had gained it; and having made several promotions for
bravery, and telegraphed to the excellent Democratic Organization
in New York that he had rather capture Manassas than be President
of the United States in 1865, he ordered an immediate advance upon
Manassas. The advance took place without confusion or dismay, and
on the following morning Captain Villiam