TOO MUCH OF INDIAN. Take away the dish; I have had my fill of Modoc; have had buck for breakfast, squaw for dinner, and papoose for supper, until at the very name of Indian my appetite forsakes me. The appellations that for a season fell upon my ears, like a new poem from the lips of some sweet bard, have poetry for me no longer. The names, “Captain Jack,” “Scarfaced Charlie,” “Shacknasty Jim,” “Rain-in-the-face,” “Old-man-afraid-of-his-horse,” “Sitting Bull,” or “Ellen’s Man,” have lost their charm. They have become dull and uninteresting, and I would hear them no more forever. I have been duped, deceived, defrauded, on account of these rascally Indians. I have gazed in silent awe upon what I supposed to be the scalp of no less a personage than “Old Sconchin,” and it now transpires that the redoubtable old chief turns up among the Indians recently captured. Oh! Oh! how this world is given to lying! I have journeyed long and far, by water and by rail, on horseback and on foot, and purchased at an extravagant price an Indian’s scalp which the seller under oath, with lifted hand, assured me was the veritable crown lock of that same “Old Sconchin.” With tears coursing down his sunburned cheeks he informed me, that with his own eyes, in the full light of day, he saw it plucked smoking from the sconce of the expiring brave. I have consequently braided watch chains of the hair, fashioned a money purse of the skin, and then withdrawn into a private apartment to shed bitter tears of sorrow, because the material didn’t quite hold out to make a tobacco pouch. And now the distressing intelligence reaches me that the renowned “Old Sconchin” stands manacled in the camp of his foemen, with an unscarified top and as luxuriant hair as ever drew nourishment from an Indian head. Oh! where shall we turn, or where shall we look for honesty, since it is not found in the breast of the Indian scalp peddler? GOING UP THE SPOUT. Rats and mice, like ourselves, often labor at a great disadvantage while endeavoring to make a livelihood. They often make a miss of it altogether by not knowing the proper time to set out upon an expedition. Their life is a perpetual skirmish. They have to take chances and be upon their guard continually. Their mortal enemy and dread, the cat, may be asleep in the fourth story, and the poor mouse knows not of it as he looks wistfully across the intervening space between the ash barrel and the basement stairs; but after weighing the chances of escape or capture, he scurries across the opening with as much haste as though the sharp claws of pussy were raking the stunted fur from his wiry tail. The sun may pour down its genial rays and the planks which his way lies over be warm and inviting, but he cannot loiter to enjoy its warmth or survey the beauties of nature. Oh! who would be a mouse? sigh I, as I sit and ponder over his life of inherent fear and uncertainty.