"The 'Babes in the Wood,' to describe it, is--Well, those who listened to it know best. At any rate, they will acknowledge with us that it was a great success, and that Artemus Ward has a fortune before him in California. "And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'--But we will not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who came, consequently Mr. Ward will tell it over again at the Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening. The subject will again be 'The Babes in the Wood.'" Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood" lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became desirous of going over the same ground again. There were not wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold" his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a second time. But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes, incidental to new topics of the times. Just at this period General McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at Bull's Run had become matter of history. The forcible abolition of slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land. Artemus required a very slender thread to string his jokes upon, and what better one could be found than that which he chose? He advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and in all probability had never read a book on African travel. He knew nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose Africa for his subject. I believe that he carried out the joke so far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the lecture-room. It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number, and the evening was unusually warm. Artemus came on the rostrum with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding- whip for the same purpose. He commenced his lecture thus, speaking very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly disregard their laughter: