called. My mother, not liking to relinquish her authority, and yet unwilling to leave it optional with me to tell a lie or speak the truth, did not say to me when I returned from school, during the summer months, "You have been swimming!" but she would call me to her, and, after receiving the respectful bow (then deemed the parent's right,) would run her hands hither and thither through the golden locks (now gray enough), to ascertain if they were dry or moist. If I had been careless about drying my hair, I was punished; otherwise, I escaped. Both parties seemed satisfied; for, if I was punished, I never whimpered. — N.B. One of my brothers was so docile as to be taught the art of swimming on a table, going through the motions, and seemingly as well satisfied as were the disobedient children with their actual aquatic exercises. But then he never had been dipped.

If there had been a phrenologist in my mother's day, he would have said that her bump of caution was largely developed. One day when I was amusing myself with some revolutionary relics left by my father, which were

lying in confusion on the garret-floor, my mother, suspecting that my busy fingers might lead to harm, asked from the stairs what I was doing. When I answered that I was playing with my father's gun, she said, very decidedly, "Let it alone." "Why, mother," said I, "the gun has no lock on it." To this she answered, "I say, let it alone: it may go off, even if it has no lock on it." To this sage decision I made no other reply than by dropping the dangerous weapon upon the garret-floor.

Many years after, a phrenologist asked leave to examine my head. Though I had no faith in the science of which he was an adept, I consented, and was told that the bump of caution was wonderfully large. It brought to my mind my mother's warning voice over the gun affair, and almost in detail a great number of instances of caution on my own part, such as being a timist from childhood; never neglecting an appointment; never entering, or alighting from, a car, when in motion; saving more than one boy from drowning; and catching many a child from under cart-wheels.

The most painful event in Newport, within

my recollection, was the death of a beloved relative, caused by the accidental explosion of a fowling-piece, upon the farm of Mr. Irish, on the Beach Road. The spot is still designated by suitable memorials.

Another violent death occurred near my mother's house. It was that of Mr. Myers, of Richmond, Va. He was riding, one dark evening, through a narrow pass at the north of our house, rendered exceedingly dangerous by its roughness, and which the town council wilfully neglected to repair; and, meeting some unseen obstacle, was thrown upon the sharp edge-stones or flagging, receiving an injury in his head, which, after a few days of acute suffering, terminated his life. He was buried according to Jewish custom; and hence the funeral took place early the evening following. I shall never forget the scene. It was in the midst of a thunderstorm, and by torchlight. All the male Jews of the town were present, and assisted at the ceremony, which mainly consisted in the nearest of kin filling the grave. The attendance of citizens, notwithstanding the tempest, was very large. At every flash of lightning, the ghastly pallor

on each countenance was fearfully strange to me. After this sad event, the grade of the passage was made safe. I often thought, in my school-days, upon the satirical saying, "Put a lock upon the barn-door after the horse is stolen," but never fully apprehended its meaning, until this catastrophe, and when the "fathers of the town" awoke to long-neglected duty.

AMUSEMENTS.

My playmates were quite numerous; not, perhaps, as select as is deemed necessary at the present day, but quite as respectable, only less showy in externals. There was genuine heartiness in the juvenile exercises of my day, but which sometimes ran into excess, and demanded rebuke, if not discipline and correction. That the reader may see the marked difference between the variety of methods for promoting physical diversions when "we were young," and such as prevail at the present day, I will as briefly as possible narrate my own experiences and recollections.

Foot-races were deemed of primal importance. Although the word "athlete" may not have had place in our spelling-books or dictionaries, its

meaning found expression day by day. No definite distances were marked out; but the challenge, "Catch "Catch me, if you can," put every sinew

and muscle in motion, and soon determined who were to be the successful runners in the schools. We had base-ball contests, but without the systematic terminology of the present day. Instead of such bats as are in common use now, a small, round, and sometimes gnarled stick, without any prominent head, constituted the club, and tested the skill of the combatants. I was reminded, a few years ago, of a similar play at Westborough, in Massachusetts, where the instrument was of the same ungainly shape, and where the fight was most admirably sustained, and the game in the end a drawn one. Pitching quoits was very common, both by young and old. It put in exercise the whole muscular frame. There were frequent trials of strength in the lifting of weights. I remember a young lad being challenged in this way; viz., a bet was offered that he could not lift from the floor three fifty-sixpound weights secured together by a cord. He accomplished it with apparent ease. I do not suppose Dr. Windship would consider it much

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