hed for.

_Mr. Chase._ Or in the Tribune satires of Horace! But let me ask Mr.
Blair what he thinks of a newspaper tax.

_Mr. Blair._ Very favorably. I am for a mill stamp on every paper,
obliging every ten readers to pay the government one cent.

_Mr. Stanton._ Mr. Secretary of the Interior, what is the average
circulation of newspapers in the loyal section?

_Mr. Smith._ A thousand million.

_Mr. Chase_ (rapidly computing). Which on Mr. Blair's proposition would
yield a million dollars revenue.

_Mr. Welles._ And support the government at our present rate of
expenditure _for one day!_

_Mr. Seward._ The public would bear half a cent on each paper. The
publisher could make his readers insensibly pay the tax, and improve
both paper and issue by receiving another half cent: and so add one cent
of charge per copy.

_Mr. Chase._ Which would yield a revenue of five millions per year.

_Mr. Lincoln._ Would the people stand such a charge?

_Mr. Stanton (good humoredly)._ Will our friend the Secretary of State
smoke fewer cigars when you come to tax tobacco?

_Mr. Welles (naively)._ But newspaper reading is not a vice.

_Mr. Bates._ Be not so sure of that. The passion for newspapers excites
the minds of the whole republic. Now-a-days your servant reads the news
as he works. The clergy peruse the Sunday extras, and the
crossing-sweeper begs your worn-out copy instead of a cigar-stump.

_Mr. Blair._ Yet Gen. McClellan has not read a newspaper in three
months.

_Mr. Lincoln._ The subject brings to my mind a good old parson in
Springfield who used to complain that the _Weekly Republican_ was as bad
as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with
new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three
previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and
the dear divine had been perusing the same paper as many times.

_(Omnes laughing heartily.)_

_Mr. Stanton._ Talking of General McClellan,--I had my first engagement
with him last night at one o'clock.

_Mr. Welles (startled)._ One o'clock! No wonder he has had typhoid
fever.

_Mr. Lincoln._ I think he is napping it now. He has a wonderful facility
at the sleep business. Forty winks seem to refresh him as much as four
hours do other people. At my last levee, according to the newspapers, he
and his wife retired early. _He_ went up stairs and napped for two
hours, desiring to see me for half an hour alone afte