minstrels of the popular stage, who reflected the pervading sentiments of the time, and colored their rude comedy and cheap pathos with the thoughts and feelings aroused by the war. Thousands of these street songs were issued, to have their temporary vogue and disappear. The principal publisher of the penny sheets was H. de Marsan, 34 Chatham Street, New York, and he appears to have had almost a monopoly of the trade. They were printed on coarse paper, with an emblematic border in colors representing the American flag, and with a soldier and sailor under arms. Some of the more successful songs were copyrighted and published with their music, but this appears to have made little difference to the enterprising Chatham Street publisher, for he included almost everything that was singable, old Revolutionary ballads, English naval songs, and some of the more finished American poems of the war, as well as Ethiopian melodies, and ballads obviously of original contribution. It would be interesting to know whether he kept a staff of poets, like Jemmy Catnach of Seven Dials, or whether, as is most probable, he simply took what he could find, and conferred the honors of print, without remuneration, upon voluntary contributors. The most numerous contributors who bear the stamp of originality naturally came from the Irish element in New York, who were familiar with the street ballad at home, and reproduced its form and sentiment for a similar audience. There are dozens of ballads relating to the exploits of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, an Irish organization in the New York State Guard, of which Michael Corcoran, an ex-member of the Irish constabulary, was colonel, and Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irish revolutionist, and afterward a brigadier-general of volunteers, a captain. The regiment took part in the battle of Bull Run, during which Colonel Corcoran was taken prisoner and carried South. The bards were instantly inspired to sing the praises of the regiment and its commander, and ballads were written exactly reproducing the style and language of the Irish "Come, all yez," as thus:-- Come, all ye Gallant Heroes, along with me combine; I 'll sing to you a ditty about the Glorious Sixty-Ninth. They are a band of Brothers, from Ireland they came; They had a bold Commander, Michael Corcoran was his name. In one or two of them there is an improvement on this very primitive verse, gleams of humor and ebullitions of vigorous spirit. A song entitled The Jolly Sixty-Ninth has a rollicking rhythm and rude humor, of which the following is a specimen:-- It happened one fine day, Down by the rajin say, Quite convenient to the boilin' Gulf of Mexico, That some chaps hauled down our flag, And it through the dust did drag, Swearin' it should never float on Fort Sumpter, O.