A couple of well-known New York gentlemen called upon the President one day to solicit a pardon for a man who, while acting as mate of a sailing vessel, had struck one of his men a blow which resulted in his death. Convicted and sentenced for manslaughter, a powerful appeal was made in his behalf, as he had previously borne an excellent character. Giving the facts a hearing, Mr. Lincoln responded:-- “Well, gentlemen, leave your papers, and I will have the Attorney-General, Judge Bates, look them over, and we will see what can be done. Being both of us ‘_pigeon-hearted_’ fellows, the chances are that, if there is any ground whatever for interference, the scoundrel will get off!” Attorney-General Bates was once remonstrating with the President against the appointment to a judicial position of considerable importance of a western man, who, though once on the “bench,” was of indifferent reputation as a lawyer. “Well now, Judge,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I think you are rather too hard on ----. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, when ---- overtook me in his wagon. ‘Hallo, Lincoln!’ said he; ‘going to the court-house? come in and I will give you a seat.’ Well, I got in, and ---- went on reading his papers. Presently the wagon struck a stump on one side of the road; then it hopped off to the other. I looked out and saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat: so said I, ‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a drop too much this morning.’ ‘Well, I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset me half-a-dozen times since starting.’ So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted, ‘Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk!’ Upon which, pulling up his horses and turning round with great gravity, the coachman said: ‘Be-dad! but that’s the first rightful decision your honor has given for the last twelve months.’” Some gentlemen fresh from a western tour, during a call at the White House, referred in the course of conversation to a body of water in Nebraska which bore an Indian name signifying “weeping water.” Mr. Lincoln instantly responded: “As ‘laughing water,’ according to Longfellow, is ‘Minnehaha,’ this evidently should be ‘Minneboohoo.’” A farmer from one of the border counties went to the President on a certain occasion with the complaint that the Union soldiers in passing his farm had helped themselves not only to hay but to his horse; and he hoped the proper officer would be required to consider his claim immediately.