political sagacity; but it
is not difficult to indicate some of the things that need not be done.
It is not necessary that the president should be reduced to any such
mere figure-head as is the monarch in the half-dozen parliamentary
governments of Europe. Perhaps the principle of a ministry sitting in
the houses of Congress might be omitted; and it is not clear that the
president's veto would have to be altogether sacrificed. It is not
positive, indeed, that a formal amendment of the constitution would be
necessary to obtain the essentials of the reform under consideration.
We have amended the spirit of the constitution in one highly important
feature without changing the letter of that instrument. Perhaps the
nearest way to the object in view lies through a more intimate
relation between the cabinet and the committees of the Lower House.

Finally, the consideration presents itself that if the conclusions
reached here are correct, those persons who have sought by statutory
restriction and appeals to public conscience to abolish the spoils
system have not employed the wholesome policy of attacking the evil at
its source. They seem to be mowing rather than uprooting the weeds.
Doubtless our political garden has been tidied, but the roots of the
evil growth and the aptitudes of the soil remain. The reform system,
as applied to the great body of minor clerical offices, will probably
prevail from now on; but we can scarcely hope that the broad spirit of
civil service reform can reign in this land until the people shall
have made themselves immediate masters of the legislative power.

Edward V. Vallandigham.

UNCLE SCIPIO.

Once more the wizard of the Christmas-time lifts his wand in our
homes, brightening young eyes that look forward, dimming old ones that
look backward. Thou hast prisms of hope for the young; prisms of tears
for the old, but shining always in our souls with a light all thine
own. We hail thee, lovely spirit of this matchless festival!

Would that words could paint to you a picture which I carry in my
heart! I see it through a light brilliant, yet tender, that Christmas
morning long ago in the old Georgia home. Those were dark days of war
which I remember, and the shadow of death had already fallen on our
house: but there was one day in the year when we did not feel its
chill. What shadows can withstand the light of the Christmas fire in
the heart of a child?

We had grown to be pretty thoro