"When I was a law-student out in Illinois, and wore spectacles to appear middle-aged and respectable, we had in our district-court the case of a venerable Sucker, who was prosecuting another man for spreading a report that he was insane, and greatly damaging his business thereby. The defendant made reply, that he had honestly supposed the plaintiff to be insane on one point, at least, and that was the motion of the world around the sun. This motion was denied _in toto_ by the plaintiff, who had frequently, of late, greatly astonished everybody and shocked the schoolmaster, by persisting in the assertion that the world did not spin round at all, inasmuch as _he_ had never seen it spin round. "Various witnesses were called for both sides," says the Honest Abe, pleasantly scratching his chin; "various ones were called, to testify as to whether such difference of opinion from all the rest of mankind would seem to prove the insanity of the venerable Sucker; but nothing decisive was arrived at until old Doctor Dobbles was examined. Old Dobbles," says the Honest Abe, winking softly to himself, "was not quite such a teetotaler as may be told about in the 'Lives of the Saints,' and when he took the stand we expected something. "Says the Court to old Dobbles: "'In your opinion, doctor, does a man's denial that the world turns round, inasmuch as he has never seen it go round, prove his insanity?' "'No,' says Dobbles. "'Ah!' says the Court, 'what then?' "'Why,' says old Dobbles, deliberately, 'if a man denies that the world goes round, and has never _seen_ it go round, it simply proves that he--_never was drunk_.' "As it happened," says the Honest Abe, balancing his jack-knife on the tips of all his fingers; "as it happened that the Court himself had frequently seen the world go round, the justice of the idea flashed upon him at once, and the defendant was found guilty of six dollars' damages, and ordered to treat the Court. "Now," says the Honest Abe, with a winning smile, "I am far from inferring, neighbor, that you have never been intoxicated; but it seems to me, that when you say the Proclamation has had no effect at all, it proves you can't be speaking soberly." The profound Democratic chap came away, my boy, with a singing in his head, and has been so tremendously confused ever since, that he asked me this morning at Willard's, if I thought, that what we of war see is anything like what Thaddeus of Warsaw. On Monday, while I was on my way to the Mackerel camp, before Paris, to be present at the usual Christmas song-singing and story-telling in the tent of Captain Villiam Brown, I met an affable young chap, driving a wagon, in which were some thousands of what appeared to be newly-printed circulars. I knew that the young chap came from a large printing-office in the lower part of the city, and says I: "Tell me, my young Phaeton, what have we here?"