great-grandchild, a lad of twenty-five, came thundering into the room with forty-three daily papers under his arm. "Old man!" says he, in a transport, "there's great news." "Boy, boy!" says the aged patriot, "do not trifle with me. Can it be that--" "Bet your life--" "Is it then a fact that--" "Yes--" "Am I to believe that--" "ALL IS QUIET ON THE POTOMAC!" It was too much for the venerable Brutus; he clutched at the air, spun once on his left heel, sang a stave of John Brown's body, and stood transfixed with ecstacy. "Thank Heving," says he, "for sparing me to see this day!" After which he became hopelessly insane, my boy, and raved so awfully about all our great generals turning into Mud-larks that his afflicted family had to send him to the asylum. This veracious and touching biography will show you how dangerous to public health is reliable war news, and convince you that the Secretary's order to the press is only a proper insanitary measure. I am all the more resigned to it, my boy, because it affects me so little that I am even able to give you a strictly reliable account of a great movement that lately took place. I went down to Accomac early in the week, my boy, having heard that Captain Villiam Brown and the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade were about to march upon Fort Muggins, where Jeff Davis, Beauregard, Mason, Slidell, Yancey, and the whole rebel Congress were believed to be intrenched. Mounted on my gothic steed Pegasus, who only blew down once in the whole journey, I repaired to Villiam's department, and was taking notes of the advance, upon a sheet of paper spread on the ground, when the commander of Accomac approached me, and says he: "What are you doing, my bantam?" "I'm taking notes," says I, "for a journal which has such an immense circulation among our gallant troops that when they begin to read it in the camps, it looks, from a distance, as though there had just been a heavy snow-storm." "Ah!" says Villiam, thoughtfully, "newspapers and snow-storms are somewhat alike; for both make black appear white. But," said Villiam philosophically, "the snow is the more moral; for you can't lie in that with safety, as you can in a newspaper. In the language of General Grant at Donelson," says Villiam, sternly: "I propose to move upon your works immediately." And with that he planted one of his boots right in the middle of my paper. "Read that ere Napoleonic dockyment," says Villiam, handing me a scroll. It was as follows: EDICK. Having noticed that the press of the United States of America is making a ass of itself, by giving information to the enemy concerning the best methods of carrying on the strategy of war, I do hereby assume control of all special correspondents, forbidding them to transact anything but private business; neither they, nor their wives, nor their children, to the third and fourth generation.