pers:--

"Standing upon a staging at an elevation of about eight or ten feet from
the floor, the Doctor lifted and sustained, for a considerable time and
without apparent difficulty, a platform suspended beneath him on which
stood twelve gentlemen, all heavier individually than the Doctor himself,
and weighing, inclusive of the entire apparatus lifted with them, _nearly
nineteen hundred pounds avoirdupois_. In the performance of this
tremendous feat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, nor
girdle,--nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fitting across his
shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of rather formidable-looking
chains. At his request, a committee, appointed by the audience, and
furnished with one of Fairbanks's scales, superintended all the
experiments."

The exact weight lifted on this occasion was eighteen hundred and
thirty-six pounds. A few evenings after, I lifted, in the same way, in
Lynn, eighteen hundred and sixty; in Brookline, eighteen hundred and
ninety; in Medford, nineteen hundred and thirty-four; in Maiden, nineteen
hundred and two; and in Charlestown, nineteen hundred and forty.

As my strength is still increasing in an undiminished ratio, I am fairly
beginning to wonder where the limit will be; and the old adage of the
camel's back and the last feather occasionally suggests itself. I have
fixed three thousand pounds as my _ne plus ultra_.

* * * * *

FREMONT'S HUNDRED DAYS IN MISSOURI.

I.

The narrative we propose to give of events in Missouri is not intended to
be a defence of General Fremont, nor in any respect an answer to the
charges which have been made against him. Our purpose is the more humble
one of presenting a hasty sketch of the expedition to Springfield,
confining ourselves almost entirely to the incidents which came under the
observation of an officer of the General's staff.

General Fremont was in command of the Western Department precisely One
Hundred Days. He assumed the command at the time when the army with which
Lyon had captured Camp Jackson and won the Battle of Booneville was on the
point of dissolution. The enemy, knowing that the term for which our
soldiers had been enlisted was near its close, began offensive movements
along their whole line. Cairo, Bird's Point, Ironton, and Springfield were
simultaneously threatened. Jeff Thompson wrote to his friends in St.
Louis, promising to be in that city in a month.