“So, it’s true that when ‘the Quakers are out’ the man they support is apt to go in.” HAD CONFIDENCE IN HIM--“BUT--.” “General Blank asks for more men,” said Secretary of War Stanton to the President one day, showing the latter a telegram from the commander named appealing for re-enforcements. “I guess he’s killed off enough men, hasn’t he?” queried the President. “I don’t mean Confederates--our own men. What’s the use in sending volunteers down to him if they’re only used to fill graves?” “His dispatch seems to imply that, in his opinion, you have not the confidence in him he thinks he deserves,” the War Secretary went on to say, as he looked over the telegram again. “Oh,” was the President’s reply, “he needn’t lose any of his sleep on that account. Just telegraph him to that effect; also, that I don’t propose to send him any more men.” HOW HOMINY WAS ORIGINATED. During the progress of a Cabinet meeting the subject of food for the men in the Army happened to come up. From that the conversation changed to the study of the Latin language. “I studied Latin once,” said Mr. Lincoln, in a casual way. “Were you interested in it?” asked Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. “Well, yes. I saw some very curious things,” was the President’s rejoinder. “What?” asked Secretary Seward. “Well, there’s the word hominy, for instance. We have just ordered a lot of that stuff for the troops. I see how the word originated. I notice it came from the Latin word homo--a man. “When we decline homo, it is: “‘Homo--a man. “‘Hominis--of man. “‘Homini--for man.’ “So you see, hominy, being ‘for man,’ comes from the Latin. I guess those soldiers who don’t know Latin will get along with it all right--though I won’t rest real easy until I hear from the Commissary Department on it.” HIS IDEA’S OLD, AFTER ALL. One day, while listening to one of the wise men who had called at the White House to unload a large cargo of advice, the President interjected a remark to the effect that he had a great reverence for learning. “This is not,” President Lincoln explained, “because I am not an educated man. I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books.” “Men of force,” the visitor answered, “can get on pretty well without books. They do their own thinking instead of adopting what other men think.” “Yes,” said Mr. Lincoln, “but books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new, after all.” This was a point the caller was not willing to debate, and so he cut his call short. LINCOLN’S FIRST SPEECH. Lincoln made his first speech when he was a mere boy, going barefoot, his trousers held up by one suspender, and his shock of hair sticking through a hole in the crown of his cheap straw hat.