and practice, and that he makes the best
use of both to prove his opinions, is very
evident. Besides, he takes the popular view of
the question, which is a great point in his favour.
To oppose this, I have nothing but a small
amount of practical knowledge of the question
at issue, with a few facts to support my
views and opinions; but, I can only throw
them together in a very imperfect and
unconnected form, as I have little experience in
writing, and, like many men who have led a
wandering and stirring life, have a great
dislike to it. It is seldom that a man can do
well what is disagreeable to him.

That my opinions remain exactly the same
as they were when my report to the Admiralty
was written, may be inferred from all I
have now stated.

That twenty or twenty-five Esquimaux
could, for two months together, continue to
repeat the same story without variation in
any material point, and adhere firmly to it, in
spite of all sorts of cross-questioning, is to me
the clearest proof that the information they
gave me was founded on fact.

That the " white men" were not
murdered by the natives, but that they died of
starvation, is, to my mind, equally beyond a
doubt.

In conclusion, let me remark, that I fully
appreciate the kind, courteous, and flattering
manner in which my name is mentioned by
the writer on the subject of the lost Arctic
Voyagers.

COLONEL QUAGG'S CONVERSION.

SOME of our religions in the States are not
over well paid. Down Punkington way, now,
they have a religion with a chandelier; at
least the chapel in which Reverend Rufus P.
Pillsbury officiates has one. That religion
has a bell, and a weathercock, and a flight of
steps of General Buffum's patent scagliola
adamant, and columns with Corinthian
fixings outside—bright and handsome. There's
another religion there, though, that has no
better chapel than a loft, formerly used for
warehousing dry goods; and our citizens
have to go to worship up a ladder, and
through a trap-door. Elder Peabody Eagle
proposed that they should have a crane
outside the building, as was the case in Baggby
Brothers', the former proprietors' time, and so
hoist the congregation up like cotton or
molasses; but the proposition, though practical,
was thought irreverent, and came to nothing.
Reverend Doctor Nathan Fowler, who
officiated over the dry goods, was very poorly
off. Indeed, people said that he had nothing
under his black doctor of divinity's gown
but a shirt and pants, and that his whole
income did not amount to two hundred dolls.
a-year; whereas Reverend Rufus P. Pillsbury
had a clear seven or eight hundred;
besides a store of silk gowns as stiff as
boards and that rustled beautifully ; white
cambric handkerchiefs by the whole dozen; a
real diamond ring; starched collars and
bands by scores; and better than all, the run
of all his congregation's sympathies and
houses, which was worth I don't know how
many corncakes, cups of tea every day; and
comforters, over-shoes, umbrellas, gold
watches, silver teapots, self-acting coffee-
biggins and select libraries of theology, given
or sent to him in the way of testimonials in
the course of the year, without end. Folks do
say, too, that when Reverend Rufus was in
the ministry down South, before he came to
Punkington, he was even still richer in
worldly goods, for that he owned something
mentionable in niggers. But you know how
folks will talk.

Punkington is in Buffum county, Mass.
There are a good many religions there.
They don't quite hate each other; strive,
speechify, write and talk against each other, as
seems to be indispensable with orthodoxy and
heterodoxy in Britain. Each religion gets along
pretty well as it can: some grandly, some poorly,
from Reverend Rufus P. Pillsbury, with his
chandelier, stiff silk gown and diamond ring,
down to Reverend Lovejoy Snowdrop, who is
quite black, and preaches to the coloured
people (they can sing, some—coloured people
can) down in a little crazy affair sot up with
planks and sailcloth down close to the wharf,
that is more like a wash-house than a chapel.

It may be ten years ago that there was a
religion in rather a small way in Punkington,
called the Grace-Walking Brethren. They
had originally been called the Punkington
Seceders; but, coalescing with Reverend
Pygrave Clapp—who had just sloped from Coonopolis,
Ga., where he had had a slight difficulty
with the citizens on the Freesoil (whole
ticket) question, which ended by his being
ridden on a rail out of the state, and a
report being spread abroad that the darkness
of his complexion came from his having
been tarred; and that under his clothes he
was feathered like a bird—coalescing with
this persecuted Testifier, the amalgamated
ticket was thenceforward known as Grace-
Walking. They encountered some little
opposition at first. The Baal-Peor congregation
(brass band connection) felt it incumbent
upon them to denounce and repudiate the
Grace-Walkers as Erastians, Arminians, Socinians,
nigger-saviors, money-diggers, and
traders in shin-plaisters. Reverend Lysander
Sphoon published a card in the Punkington
Sphynx and Commercial Advertiser, in which
he accused Reverend Barkley Baggs of the
Grace-Walkers of whittling in the pulpit,
chewing in the vestry, and having a bust of
Tom Paine over his bookcase. Reverend
B. B. retorted by another card in the
Punkington Sibyl and North and South Buffum
Oracle, in which he alluded to the well-
known story of Reverend L. Sphoon having
been in early life in Sing Sing penitentiary
for picking up things on the wharf; adding