Years before, when at school in England, I had made some acquaintance with shorthand, in order to save me trouble in noting down lectures--for the purpose of afterwards writing themes thereon, as we had to do at Queen's College, under "old Jack's" rule; and, having kept up the acquisition, I found it now of considerable use, for, it caused me to be sent about much more than might otherwise have been the case--to report the speeches of prominent public men, whether they were "stumping the provinces" throughout the Union, or basking in the blazing "bunkum" of the capital at Washington. What an enormous amount of empty talk have I not had to attend to, noting it down carefully, as if it were of the most vital importance that not a syllable should be lost! I have listened, with amused ears often, and busy pencil, to the diabolical denunciations of our poor ill-used country, which have long since made famous Senator Sumner--the greatest Anglophobist in the States; hearkened to Horace Greeley's eager utterances, delivered in thin falsetto voice, wherein he urged, as he urged to the last, universal brotherhood and reconciliation between the North and South; heard Andrew Johnson, the whilom president and one of the ablest who ever occupied that position for ages, defend himself against impeachment--that had been promoted through the bitter animosity of a hostile faction--with the eloquence and legal ability of a Cicero and the fearlessness of a Catiline:-- Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans, where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never desert him--"The Beast," as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him-- pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York "rowdies," who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and eggs that had seen their better days:--reported Frederick Douglas, the tinted expounder of "advanced Ethiopianism," who regularly tells his audiences--of sympathising abolitioners--that he had been "bought for three thousand dollars when a slave"--a precious deal more than he was worth, to judge by his appearance--although, he somehow always forgets to speak of the present price he asks, for his "vote and interest!"