years, in all the political villainy that has been concocted during this long and eventful period. No matter who succeeds in the elections, Gerard and Bennett are in the triumphant camps, as now: Bennett in Buchanan’s White House, and Gerard in Mayor Tiemann’s confidence, and both playing into each others hands, like Draper and Connolly. Picolomini is the last card that these jugglers will play. Gerard is a snob and a dandy, and an Opera exquisite, and it was he, (through Barnum,) who introduced Jenny Lind to the Americans, and got Bennett, for a large sum, to abuse Barnum and Jenny Lind, as an advertisement. Bennett did not get less than $20,000 from _Gerard_ and Barnum for his daily abuse of Jenny Lind and Barnum. I was daily in the _Herald_ office in those days, and I often saw Barnum closeted with Frederic Hudson, and James Gordon Bennett. And Gerard and Barnum have already arranged with Bennett, and paid him the cash down, to abuse Picolomini, while the _Times_ and _Tribune_ and many other journals are to be paid to praise her. And such a yell as we shall have on her arrival, will frighten the rats and cats. For, in this funny world, blarney is regarded as sincere praise and evidence of merit, while detraction is persecution, which verdant people won’t tolerate, and especially when hurled at such fascinating creatures as Fanny Elssler, or Jenny Lind, or Picolomini. This is certainly a very curious world, and, like Dr. Franklin, I am curious to know if our spiritual existence is to be as curious as our material; and I am extremely anxious to learn if Bennett, Barnum, and Gerard are to have an eternal abode in Heaven? Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator. ------------------------------------------------------ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1858. ------------------------------------------------------ STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S “ALLIGATOR” CAN BE obtained at all hours, (day or night,) at wholesale and retail, at No. 128 Nassau Street, Near Beekman Street, and opposite Ross & Tousey’s News Depot, New York. ------------------------------------ The Fourth of July—General Washington in Tears—The Decline of American Integrity and Patriotism.