The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES.

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rcuesq, was law, gave siecial directions 'to care for this poor boy.'
The wan face of the little drummner lit up with a happy smile as he
received the paper, and he went away convinced that he had one good
and true friend, at least, in the person of the President."
Mr. Van Alen, of New York, writing to the Evening Post, relates
the following:"I well remember one day when a poor woman sought, with the
persistent affection of a mother, for the pardon of her son condemned to death. She was successful in her petition. When she
had left the room, lie turned to me and said: ' Perhaps I have done
wrong, but at all events I have made that poor woman happy.'
One night Schuyler Colfax left all other business to ask him to
respite the son of a constituent, who was sentenced to be shlt, at
Davenport, for desertion. He heard the story with his usual patience,
though he was wearied out with incessant calls, and anxious for rest,
and then replied:-" Some of our generals complain that I impair dis.
cipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but
it makes me rested, after a hard day's work, if I can find some good
excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as I think how
joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his
friends." And with a happy smile beaming over that care-furrowed
face, he signed that name that saved that life.
Said the Rev. Dr. Storrs, in his eulogy upon Mr. Lincoln, pronounced
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music:"Of course his sensibilities came gradually to be under the control of his judgment, and the councils of others constrained him
sometimes to a severity which he hated; so that at length the
order for the merited restraint or punishment of public offenders
was frequently, though always reluctantly, ratified by him. But
his sympathy with men, in whatever condition, of whatever opinions,
in whatever wrongs involved, was so native and constant, and so controlling, that he was always not so much inclined as predetermined
to the mildest and most generous theory possible. And something of peril as well as promise was involved to the public in this
element of his nature. He would not admit that he was in danger of
the very assassination by which at last his life was taken, and only
yielded with a protest to the precautions which others felt bound to
take for him; because his own sympathy with men was so strong that
he could not believe that any would meditate berious harm to him.