is of doubtful origin. Some authorities give the credit of its invention to Joseph Smith, while others do not hesitate to ascribe its origin to a gentleman whom the mind naturally associates with sulphuric gases. However that may be, Mormonism is one of the institutions of the country, and Brigham Young is its prophet, his present address being Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. Young makes a specialty of matrimony, and has taken strict precautions to guard against widowhood, as will be seen by reference to our illustration, in which are seen Mr. and Mrs. Young on their bridal tour. [Illustration: MR. AND MRS. BRIGHAM YOUNG. ] Brigham makes it a point of etiquette to marry every unmarried lady to whom he happens to be introduced, and his life is a perennial honeymoon. To the merely Gentile man, whose matrimonial experience has been conducted on monogamic principles, the hardihood of Mr. Young is simply appalling. AN APPARATUS to keep hens from setting is an effervescence of the fertile brain of, well, no matter who. It speaks for itself. For further information on the interesting subject of Yankee ingenuity we commend the reader’s careful perusal of the United States Patent Office Report, a work unequaled for the brilliancy of its conception and startling dramatic situations, and which, for its conscientious adhesion to facts, only has a rival in the present work. [Illustration: _AN INGENIOUS INVENTION._ ] ART MATTERS. The visitor to the Capitol, at Washington, will be struck with the paucity of American art, as evinced by the specimens of painting and sculpture to be seen in the Rotunda and immediate vicinity of that structure. Barrels of paint and whole quarries of marble have been sacrificed by an inscrutable Congress, whose sole object seems to have been to frighten its constituency away from the scene of its dark plottings with grotesque Washingtons, fantastic Lincolns, thinly-clad Indian ladies, and unprincipled looking Puritans. Some meritorious works of art, however, have lately found their way to the Capitol by accident, but let us have more of them. We humbly submit a few designs for equestrian statuary, which only await a misappropriation by Congress, as follows: [Illustration: PLATE I.—Statue for a great American military hero who always kept his face to the foe. ] [Illustration: PLATE II.—Is for another great military hero (a member of militia) who would have kept his face to the foe if circumstances had been favorable. ] [Illustration: PLATE III.—Equestrian statue of a public gentleman who kept his face wherever it suited his convenience. ] [Illustration: PLATE IV.—A statue (also equestrian) for a great politician of foreign origin who rose from humble beginnings to great achievements. ] _CHAPTER XXVII._