THE BAR AT HICKS'S HALL.

OULD HICKS rise from his grave and look on at the forensic squabbles which now disgrace his Hall, he would turn in sorrow and disgust from the mournful spectacle. MR. SERJEANT ADAMS, the assistant judge, seems only to occupy the bench as a mark for the impertinence of the barristers. Every sentence he passes, and indeed almost every observation he makes, is accompanied by an under-current of contemptuous annotation from the small fry of advocates below, who fancy that by exclaiming coarsely, "Stuff!"" Nonsense!" "JACK is a greater fool than ever this morning!" they show their own superior wisdom. The fact is, "JACK," as the learned judge is familiarly and facetiously called by the Hicks's Hall Bar, is a great deal too good-natured, and much too lenient in his treatment of the attacks made upon his dignity. The independence of the Bar is a fine thing enough; but calling the judge "an ass "almost to his face-or rather quite to his face, and nearly in his ear-proves an independence of nothing but the feelings and manners of a gentleman.

MR. SERJEANT ADAMS has his eccentricities, particularly when he has got a lot of little criminals before him, and exclaims-"Gentlemen of the Jury! what am I to do with this batch of boys?" but he is not obliged to submit to the ill-bred insolence to which he is continually subjected. It is true enough that JACK will bore a lot of grand jurymen to death with an harangue of half-an-hour on their antiquity, and that he will keep those jurymen who are not wanted, merely to hear his speech; but these foibles are not to expose him to the ill-disguised contempt of a portion of the Bar, practising or plying for practice at the sessions.

66

We have seen and heard amusing instances of MR. SERJEANT ADAMS'S mode of dispensing justice; and the celebrated Boy and Pudding Case" is fresh in our recollection, when he summed up by observing to the jury-"Now, gentlemen, you have the boy and the pudding both before you, so consider your verdict." But if the learned judge prefers this concise plan of adjusting the facts, there is no reason why he should

endure a course of systematic insult. There can be no doubt that he means well always, and does well nearly always, though an occasional mistake is a thing to which we are all liable. If the Bar would mind their own business, and leave "JACK ADAMS" as they call him, to attend to his own, the ghost of HICKS would not have to blush for the scenes by which his Hall is being made notorious.

The Vampyre.

(NO SUPERSTITION.)

THE bloodshot moon glares on the close-crowded graves,
Through the foul mist that over the sepulchres waves,
On the tombs where the City, with people o'erspread,
In the midst of the living hath buried its dead.

A glimmering vapour creeps over the ground,

You may see whence it issues-yon newly-raised mound;
Mark what spectre ascends in that horrible light-
Lo, the Vampyre Infection is rising to-night!

The Vampyre! The Vampyre! Avoid him! His breath

Is the reek of the charnel, the poison of death:
He has broken his prison of pestilent clay,
And the grave yields him up, on the living to prey.

The Vampyre! The Vampyre! Behold where he flics
To the couch where his wife, in her widowhood, lies:
Of her lost one-her husband-she dreams in her rest,
Whilst the Vampyre is fixing his fangs in her breast.

The Vampyre! The Vampyre! His infant child sleeps ;
To its innocent cradle he stealthily creeps,
And his bite its pure cheek with a plague-spot distains,
And corrupts his own blood in his little one's veins.

The Vampyre! The Vampyre! Nor mercy, nor ruth,
Saves his kindred and friends from his venomous tooth:
He is bound to a task which he cannot evade;
He is sent by a mandate which must be obeyed.

The Vampyre! The Vampyre! Beneath a stern doom,
On his terrible errand he breaks from the tomb;
To work vengeance and woe is his mission of dread,
Upon those 'mid the living who bury their dead.

Effect of the Panic.

EVEN the omnibus-drivers complain of the pressure being now so dreadful stoppage. Some of the experienced drivers do their best to great in the City that there is no knowing how to turn round, and they drive things off, but they are nevertheless brought frequently to a say that almost every minute is marked by the occurrence of some stand-still.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE LAST OF THE MULLIGANS," "PILOT," &c. EATHERLEGS and TOM COXSWAIN did not accompany TATUA when he went to the Parisian metropolis on a visit to the father of the French pale faces. Neither the Legs northeSailor cared for the

L

"Amen and amen!" said TOM COXSWAIN.

gaiety and the crowd of cities; the stout mariner's home was in the puttockshrouds of the old Repudiator. The stern and simple trapper loved the sound of the waters better than the jargon of the French of the old country, "I can follow the talk of a Pawnee," he said, or wag my jaw if so be necessity bids me to speak, by a Sioux's council-fire; and I can patter Canadian French with the hunters who come for peltries to Nachitoches or Thichimuchimachy, but from the tongue of a Frenchwoman, with white flour on her head, and warpaint on her face, the Lord deliver poor NATTY

PUMPO."

little force; when a rifle-ball from the shrouds of the Repudiator shot
CAPTAIN MUMFORD under the star of the Guelphic Order which he
wore, and the Americans, with a shout, rushed up the companion to the
quarter-deck, upon the astonished foe. Pike and cutlass did the rest of
the bloody work. RUMFORD, the gigantic first lieutenant of the Det-
tingen, was cut down by COMMODORE BOWIE's own sword, as they
engaged hand to hand; and it was TOM COXSWAIN who tore down the
British flag, after having slain the Englishman at the wheel. Peace be to
the souls of the brave! The combat was honourable alike to the victor
and the vanquished; and it never can be said that an American warrior
depreciated a gallant foe. The bitterness of defeat was enough to the
haughty islanders who had to suffer. The people of Herne Bay were
lining the shore, near which the combat took place, and cruel must
have been the pang to them when they saw the Stars and Stripes rise
tow of the republican frigate.
over the old flag of the Union, and the Dettingen fall down the river in

Another action BOWIE contemplated; the boldest and most daring perhaps ever imagined by seaman. It is this which has been so wrongly described by European annalists, and of which the British until now have maintained the most jealous secrecy.

Portsmouth Harbour was badly defended. Our intelligence in that town and arsenal gave us precise knowledge of the disposition of the troops, the forts, and the ships there; and it was determined to strike a blow which should shake the British power in its centre.

That a frigate of the size of the Repudiator should enter the harbour unnoticed, or could escape its guns unscathed, passed the notions of even American temerity. But upon the memorable 26th of June, 1782, the Repudiator sailed out of Havre Roads in a thick fog, under cover of which she entered and cast anchor in Bonchurch Bay, in the Isle of Wight. To surprise the Martello Tower and take the feeble garrison thereunder, was the work of TOM COXSWAIN and a few of his blue jackets. The surprised garrison laid down their arms before him.

It was midnight before the boats of the ship, commanded by LIEUTENANT BUNKER, pulled off from Bonchurch with muffled oars, and in another hour were off the Common Hard of Portsmouth, having passed the challenges of the Thetis, the Amphion frigates, and the Polyanthus brig.

There had been on that day great feasting and merriment on board the Flag-ship lying in the harbour. A banquet had been given in honour of the birthday of one of the princes of the royal line of the GUELPHS-the reader knows the propensity of Britons when liquor is in plenty. All on board that royal ship were more or less overcome. "There was a woman in The Flag-ship was plunged in a death-like and drunken sleep. The our aft-scuppers when I went a whalin in the little Grampus-and Lord very officer of the watch was intoxicated; he could not see the love you, PUMPO, you poor land-swab, she was as pretty a craft as ever Repudiator's boats as they shot swiftly through the waters; nor had dowsed a tarpauling-there was a woman on board the Grampus, who he time to challenge her seamen as they swarmed up the huge sides of before we'd struck our first fish, or biled our first blubber, set the the ship. whole crew in a mutiny. I mind me of her now, NATTY-her eye was At the next moment Toм COXSWAIN stood at the wheel of the sich a piercer that you could see to steer by it in a Newfoundland fog: Royal George-the Briton who had guarded, a corpse at his feet. The her nose stood out like the Grampus's gib-boom, and her woice, Lord hatches were down. The ship was in possession of the Repudiator's love you, her woice sings in my ears even now:-it set the Captain crew. They were busy in her rigging, bending her sails to carry her a quarrelin with the Mate, who was hanged in Boston harbour for har- out of the harbour. The well-known heave of the men at the windlass, poonin of his officer in Baffin's Bay;-it set me and BOB BUNTING a woke up KEMPENFELT in his state cabin. We know, or rather do pouring broadsides into each other's old timbers, whereas me and BOB not know the result; for who can tell by whom the lower-deck ports was worth all the women that ever shipped a hawser. It cost me three of the brave ship were opened, and how the haughty prisoners below years' pay as I'd stowed away for the old mother, and might have cost sunk the ship and its conquerors rather than yield her as a prize to the me ever so much more, only bad luck to me, she went and married a Republic! little tailor out of Nantucket, and I've hated women and tailors ever since!" As he spoke, the hardy tar dashed a drop of brine from his tawny cheek, and once more betook himself to splice the taffrail.

Though the brave frigate lay off Havre de Grace, she was not idle. The gallant BowIE and his intrepid crew made repeated descents upon the enemy's seaboard. The coasts of Rutland and merry Leicestershire have still many a legend of fear to tell; and the children of the British fishermen tremble even now when they speak of the terrible Repudiator. She was the first of the mighty American war-ships that have taught the domineering Briton to respect the valour of the Republic.

The novelist ever and anon finds himself forced to adopt the sterner tone of the historian, when describing deeds connected with his country's triumphs. It is well known that during the two months in which she lay off Havre, the Repudiator had brought more prizes into that port than had ever before been seen in the astonished French waters. Her actions with the Dettingen and the Elector frigates form part of our country's history; their defence-it may be said without prejudice to national vanity-was worthy of Britons and of the audacious foe they had to encounter; and it must be owned, that but for a happy fortune which presided on that day over the destinies of our country, the chance of the combat might have been in favour of the British vessels. It was not until the Elector blew up, at a quarter past 3, P. M., by a lucky shot which fell into her caboose, and communicated with the powder-magazine, that COMMODORE BOWIE was enabled to lay himself on board the Dettingen, which he carried sword in hand. Even when the American boarders had made their lodgement on the Dettingen's binnacle, it is possible that the battle would still have gone against us. The British were still seven to one; their carronades, loaded with marline-spikes, swept the gun-deck, of which we had possession, and decimated our

Only TOM COXSWAIN escaped of victors and vanquished. His tale was told to his Captain and to Congress, but WASHINGTON forbade its publication; and it was but lately that the faithful seaman told it to me, his grandson, on his hundred and fifteenth birthday.

WHO'S GOT ALL THE MONEY?

Ir is very evident that some avaricious fools are playing the same game with the gold that was played a little while ago with the corn, and that people are holding, and holding, and holding their cash, even at its present high value, in the hope that it will become more valuable still by the increase of the panic. We give them notice that they will burn their fingers; for, some fine morning, the panic will begin to subside, and money will become as plentiful as it now is scarce, when they will turn round and say what fools they have been not to part with their money at a good profit when they had the opportunity. The fact is, that people are frightening each other out of their wits by a mutual want of confidence, and the shock rebounds to the quarter in which it originates.

Punch is disgusted at seeing all the people shaking, trembling, and screaming round him because there happens to be a little bit of a pressure, which only requires a little steadiness and nerve to go through it all very smoothly; as they say at a rush to the pit of a theatre, "Take your time, gentlemen, take your time: you won't get on any better for trying to squeeze each other to death, so you may as well all go on together firmly and quietly."