Hem! The fact is, my boy, many respectable though married Mackerels entered the army of the Accomac when they were in the prime of life; and as old age steals softly upon them, as the seasons and the bases of operations run through their changes, and year succeeds year, the eye-sight of many of them waxes dim, and fails in the process of Nature. I know some thousands of Mackerels, my boy, who are already so blind that they have not seen a rebel for six months; and hence, no advance-movement can be judiciously made until the brigade is supplied with spectacles. Without these, the idolized General of the Mackerel Brigade will not do anything until he gets ready. It was the want of these, as I now discover, that prevented our troops seeing the Southern Confederacy when he made his late raid across Awlkwyet River. Let the spectacles be at once procured, my boy; or an indignant and bleeding nation will at once demand a change in the Cabinet. Company 3, Regiment 5, is the only Company yet fitted with glasses, and was therefore selected to make a reconnoissance toward Paris, under Colonel Wobert Wobinson, on Tuesday afternoon, for the purpose of discovering whether the Confederacies there were very tired of waiting yet. Glaring through their spectacles, these gallant beings advanced until they met a Parrot shell going the other way, and then returned with hasty discipline, bringing with them a captured contraband, who was so anxious to remain in their company that he actually ran very fast. Upon regaining the camp in Accomac, my boy, the colonel had the intelligent contraband brought before him, and says he: "If I mistake not, friend Africa, you were escaping from the bonds of oppression when we took you?" The intelligent contraband shifted a silver soup-ladle from one pocket to the other, and says he: "Yes, mars'r colonel, I hab left my ole mars'r for de good of his bressed soul." Here the attached bondman sniffed and shook his head. "Are you pious?" says Colonel Wobinson, much affected by such an example of humble devotion. "Yes, mars'r I is dat," says the fond creature, wiping his brow with a silk vest from his dress-coat pocket, "and I wished to save my ole mars'r from de sin of de wicked. I know dat it was wrong for him to own niggas, and dat he was more sinful de more he done it. And I run away, Mars'r Colonel, to save dat ole man's bressum soul from any more dam." Colonel Wobinson took off his spectacles in order that the steam from his tears might not dim them, and says he: "I had not looked for this in one so black. Leave those silver spoons with me, friend Africa, and I will send them to my wife. Sergeant, convey this dark being, who has taught us all such a lesson of self-sacrifice, to the chaplain; and tell the chaplain to look out for his pocket."