"Hyar's the deputy sheriff!" cried a voice,
as a horse was heard galloping.

"What o' that?" replied another: "the
sovereign people ain't to be choused out o' their
revenge. Besides, Willy Hudson's a good
fellow."

Willy Hudson! All the blood rushed from
my head to my heart, and back again, and I
tingled from head to foot. My name was
Hudson—my brother's name was William! One
glance was enough, as a sunbrowned horseman
dashed into the crowd. lt was Willy—the
brother I had come to visit—just in time! I
forgot exactly what was done and said. I only
know that in about two minutes I was
unbound, safe, free, arm in arm with my brother,
and that the rough fellows who had been about
to hang me were nearly wringing my hand off as
they shook it, begging pardon tor an awkward
mistake. It was not only to me that Willy
rendered service: I twitched his sleeve, and
begged him to do what he could for the
miserable men, whatever their faults, still under
sentence. He pushed me into a tavern parlour,
shut the door, went out, and left me. I heard
shouts, laughter, groans, the applause, the
mutterings of a mob. After a long time, Willy
returned, wiping his face with a handkerchief,
very much flushed and dishevelled.

" Wagh!" he exclaimed, " what a tough job!
But it's done now, though my tongue aches
with the talking. I did it for you, George,
my boy, and, luckily, I'm in favour here, Tar
and feathers, instead of hanging, and nine-and-
thirty with a cowhide, well laid on, will spoil
their beauty for one while. But how came you
to be with them?"

"First, Willy, tell me what brought you
here? I thought the bank at New
Orleans——"

"Pooh!" interrupted my Americanised
brother; " an old story that! It broke down,
paying assets and no more. I'm here, agent for a
goods insurance company. I'm doing well, and
I'm deputy sheriff. Didn't you get my letter at
New York? But how about your being with
those rascals, of whom two have been hanged,
and four shot, I hear, eh?"

Why, they told me they were sportsmen,
Willy and——"

"You greenhorn!" said my brother, good
humouredly; " were you thinking of fox-hunting
or partridge popping? 'Sportsman' in America
means sharper, gambler, thief, swindler, gallows-
bird!"

I did not stay long at Grand Gulf.

STORY OF THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES
COURT.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.   I. THE DISEASE.

The patient lay almost at the last gasp. This
was not surprising, considering that the whole
system had been wasting in a sort of pecuniary
atrophy; that it had been bled murderously over
and over again by the fiscal lancet; that a poor-
rate cantharides had been applied on the raw,
fresh and fresh; that a rebellious fever was working
in its blood, ready to burst out upon the
surface in angry pustules; and that a fierce emigration
dysentery was griping its vitals. Taking this
hopeful diagnosis into account, I say it was not
very surprising. The ordinary medical Sangrados
had done their best and their worst—had played
out their consultations, stethoscopic soundings,
fees, and other bits of regular show, and were now
gazing with an awful respect at the two eminent
metropolitan practitioners—sent for specially—
who were standing by the bed. The eminent
practitioners—the Sir Parker Peps of the House
of Parliament, with a smaller official brother—
had seen the desperate nature of the case, and
were now turning up their shirt-sleeves for a
frightful operation. The patient was that part of
the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called
Ireland; the eminent metropolitan surgeons were
no other than the Right Honourable the Lord
John Russell, M.P., with the Solicitor-General
of the period; the perilous operation was the
famous Incumbered Estates Act of eighteen
hundred and forty-nine.

It was indeed time that something should be
done. Under the questionable treatment of
famines, seditions, agitations, evictions, arms
bills, coercion bills, and suspensions of habeas
corpus, the features of an incumbered estate,
always exceptional, acquired a new and very
curious interest. Where there were no tenants
to pay rents, it would be unreasonable to look
for rents; and where poor-rates were at the
modest figure of one pound in the pound, it may
be assumed that landlords were shy of assuming
their real character. Under this general
elimination of rents, landlords, and tenants, the situation
was distressingly simplified, and to mere
unimpassioned spectators presented a field for
the strangest speculation. But there was a
class who looked on from afar off, and to whom
the question, apart from its theoretic merits,
became interesting on more vulgar grounds.
These were a strong band of mortgagees,
principally base Saxons, representing a charge of
some four millions upon a nominal rental of
some twelve millions, and whose feelings, on
this practical suspension of the relations
between landlord and tenant, would not unnaturally
be tinged with alarm. Their gratification at
so pleasing a phenomenon in political economy,
would be not unmixed with a foolish sense of
personal apprehension. Even in the old prosaic
times there had been, in most instances, a coldness,
a complete estrangement, between
mortgager and mortgagee; and parties had been
driven to the pressure of equity suits, languishing
through many decades of years, to restore
anything like friendly communication. But, on
this new aspect of things, there came a total
suspension of all relations between these gentlemen
and their friends in Ireland; and there
being neither rent to pay, nor moneys to pay rent
with, nor tenants to earn moneys to pay rent
with, there seemed no probability of the breach
being healed. This unavoidable suspension of
cash payments—unprovided for by act of
parliament or charter—began to excite murmurs