the progress of her education. When the storm
was over, she took to the pump, and sang with
a tenderness and fair-weather-after-a-storm
sweetness,

Rock and roll me over, one more day,
One more day, my darling,
One more day;
O, rock and roll me over,
One more day.

The parrot's usual sharp barking unhumanity of
voice was not present in this specimen. She
spoke and sang like a music-loving negro of
intelligence and European training. Doubtless
her first lessons had been given by such a master.
I am sorry to be obliged to record, that presently
Captain Brown's bird began a running fire
of very naughty words. As the Yankees say,
"it would not be pretty" to repeat this portion
of the bird's performance. Like a good artist,
she did not allow her audience to tire from the
length of any part of her entertainment. She
came by sudden transition to the rehearsal of
political contests. She elected General Harrison
to the presidency of the United Slates with
great éclat, singing,

Have you heard the great commotion,
Motion, motion,
The country through?
It is the ball a rolling on,
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too,
And with them we'll beat little Van;
Van, Van, is a used-up man.

The English reader may need to be informed
that General Harrison, then candidate for the
presidency of the then United States, had once
upon a time fought with some Indians at a place
called Tippecanoe. A hero was wanted as candidate
for the presidency. The " Hero of Tippecanoe"
was selected, and duly nicknamed "Old
Tip," and was sung into office. "Tyler, too,"
became vice-president, because a president
involves the sequitur of a vice-president. "Little
Van, Van," who was "a used-up man," was
President Van Buren at the time ot this election,
in the fourth year of his reign over the great republic.
The songs in this campaign, which were
all faithfully remembered by the parrot, had a
great family resemblance, and were not too reverent
to be inconsistent with universal suffrage
and "the sovereignty of the people." One of
them, sang to the tune of O Susanna, alluded to
the residence of Mr. Van Buren, and the product
of his kitchen-garden, in the culture of which he
was supposed to have much satisfaction:

I had a dream the other night,
When everything was still,
I dreamt I saw old Kinderhook
A comin' down the hill;
A cabbage stump was in his mouth,
A tear was in his eye,
Says he, we are beaten, North and South,
But Johnny, don't you cry.

Johnny was President Van Buren's only son,
and a celebrated democratic "stump orator."
The family residence was at Kinderhook.

The next "presidential campaign" rehearsed
by the bird was that in which Mr. Henry Clay
failed to be elected. The refrain of one of the
songs was sung to the tune of Old Dan Tucker:

Get out of the way, you're all unlucky,
Clear the track for old Kentucky!

Millions of men, north, south, east, and west,
had sung the same doggerel to the same negro
music, with the same host of torchlight processions
and tar-barrel bonfires, that the parrot was
now singing in the soft sunshine of early spring,
in the metropolis of the great republic.

Captain Brown's bird was a living history
of much that had not found record elsewhere.
When at last she ceased to sing, I turned to
the table, to find a melted ice cream and an
iced sherry cobbler awaiting my leisure. I
paid proper attention to the legitimate fluid,
and was paying my score, when a young girl,
as pretty as young American girls often are,
brushed past me, and past her faded and
attenuated mother, who sat at the receipt of
cash, evidently going to school; for she had a
book and a porcelain slate in her hand. The
parrot cried out briskly, "Maggie, have you got
your Geography?" She replied, "Yes, I have,"
and went her way. The feminine cashier assured
me that the parrot knew the meaning of all she
said, and of all that was said to her. The
proprietress believed in her rational powers as fully
as the negroes believe in those of the monkey.
"I only wish," said she, " that she would not
say so many things that are not pretty."

Should the age of the parrot be correctly
estimated by naturalists, this same bird may live to
celebrate a dozen more presidential elections: or
perhaps the inauguration of an elective monarchy.

TWOPENNY TOWN.

TWOPENNY TOWN is one of the most salubrious,
and yet one of the most despised, quarters
of the metropolis. Persons with a turn for
gentility, who have so far got on in life as to be
able to reside in the aristocratic neighbourhood
of Russell-square, speak of Twopenny Town
with the greatest contempt. When they wish to
mark the low social status of a person, they
mention with a sneer that he lives at Twopenny
Town. They talk facetiously of Twopenny
Town as a distant and unknown region, to which
only the most adventurous explorers have penetrated,
and from which travellers have returned
to tell strange tales of rude and inhospitable
natives, who live in ground-floor parlours, poison
their guests with twenty-seven shilling sherry,
and go out to parties in cleaned gloves. In
these aristocratic circles—albeit within ten
minutes' walk of the Mob-Cap, the centre and
capital of the despised region—the very mention
of Twopenny Town is considered equivalent
to a good joke. It calls up in the genteel
mind's eye absurd pictures of life in parlours,
bed and breakfast tor ten shillings a week, with
use of sitting-room, and dinner on Sundays;