"I tell you I've been in this country thirty-six years, and I went sparking before I came here, and I'm over forty-five." "Will you swear it?" "Yes, I'm over forty-five. D----d if I aint over forty-five." "Well, I will exempt you." "I don't care whether you do or not, for _I've got a wooden leg_." NEW USE OF BLOOD-HOUNDS. One fine summer's Sunday afternoon, as a steamboat was stopping at a landing on the Mississippi to take in wood, the passengers were surprised to see two or three young, athletic negroes perched upon a tree like monkeys, and about as many blood-hounds underneath, barking and yelping, and jumping up in vain endeavors to seize the frightened negroes. The overseer was standing by, encouraging the dogs, and several bystanders were looking on, enjoying the sport. It was only the owner of some blood-hounds training his dogs, and keeping them in practice, so as to be able to hunt down the runaways, who often secrete themselves in the woods. It was thought fine sport, and useful, too, in its way, ten years ago. But now the same hounds are being made use of, all through Alabama and Mississippi, and, we have no doubt, in other of the Southern States, to hunt down white men hiding in the woods to escape the fierce conscription act, which is now seizing about every man under sixty years of age able to carry a gun. Nor is this the worst. It is found that those camped out are supplied with food brought them by their children, who go out apparently to play in the woods, and then slip off and carry provisions to their fathers. To meet this exigency, blood-hounds are now employed to follow these little children on their pious errands, and the other day a beautiful little girl was thus chased and overtaken in the woods, and there torn in pieces, alone and unaided, by the trained blood-hounds of Jefferson Davis! Nor is this a solitary case. It appears that many white men, women, and children have thus been sacrificed, in order to carry out the conscription act in all its terrors.