The Wilmington Star relates the following incident of "Human Progress":

The following is said to have occurred at Union Superior Court. A colored gentle

man on the jury is objected to on the ground of incompetency-the following questions propounded by the counsel to a juror:

"Sam, are you a free-holder?"

"Yes, sar.

"Have you any land?"

"No, sar."

"What do you mean, then, by saying you are a free-holder ?"

"I means bein' free and holdin' on and so on."

"What is a verdict, Sam?"

"I dun no, sar.
"What is a plaintiff'?”
"I dun know, sar."
"What is a defendant?"

"I dun know, sar; I'se green 'bout dese things."

Here Gen. Canby's order was read, from which it appeared that he was competentso the man and brother was duly "cussed" in and took his seat.

The best sewing machine is one that can sew on a shirt button, fix up a coat, cook a steak, make a bed, and give you a kiss in the morning as you leave for business. This sort may cost a little more than others in the long run, but it will be found they are worth tenfold the most. Try each kind and see.

Why is a pretty young lady like a locomotive engine? Don't give it up-there are lots of reasons. She sends off the sparks, transports the mails (males,) has a train following her, and passes over the plain.

All human nature should be prized for its intrinsic value, and not by the attractions of outward show. Too many, alas! are valued at a rate for which they were never valuable, save in their own conceit, while thousands worthy pass unheeded by.

Never insure your life for the benefit of your wife for a greater sum than ten thousand dollars. A widow with more money than that is a dangerous legacy to leave posterity.

THACKERAY tells us of an Irish woman begging alms from him, who, when she saw him put his hand in his pockets, cried out, "May the blessing of God follow you all your life;"-but when he only pulled out his snuff-box, immediately added, "and never overtake ye."

PAT, fresh from the Emerald Isle, taking his first dinner in America, was served with a fine roasting ear of boiled Indian corn. Watching his elbow neighbor, he soon learned the modus operandi of eating it from the cob. Having dispatched his ear, with the relish of a hungry man, he called to the waiter, at the same time handing the cob over his left shoulder, "Waiter, will ye be afther putting some more paes upon me sthick."

A COUNTRYMAN stepped into a store on Broad street, a few days ago, and enquired for "half-jacks." The obliging clerk confessed his ignorance of the article desired. Upon an explanation, it appeared that the stranger wanted demi-johns.

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A CHANTICLEER THAT KNEW SOMETHING.A Democrat in a neighboring rural district says that on the evening of the election, just about six o'clock, the time for closing the polls he was about sitting down to tea, when he told his wife he believed he would go to the city to hear the election news. may be bad," said she. "If I thought so I wouldn't go," he replied. Just then an old rooster, that spends his nights on a tree close to the house, commenced crowing lustily, and continued it for some time. This occurrence was such an unusual one for a cock to crow when he had just gone to his roosting place, that the wife said, "Yon' need not fear to go. I'll bet the news is good; this old rooster knows it ;" and he did go, and was so elated at finding the old cock was right, that he didn't get home till next morning. --Cin. Enq.

There are some inconsistencies in this world that I don't exactly understand. Everybody is anxious to go to heaven, but nobody is in a hurry about it.

It a man is without enemies I wouldn't give ten cents for all his friends. The man who can please everybody hasn't got sense enough to displease anybody.

THE CROOKED TREE.-A little child, when asked why a certain tree grew crooked, replied: "Somebody trod on it, I suppose, when it was a little fellow." How painfully suggestive is that answer? How many with aching hearts can remember the days of their childhood, when they were the victims of indiscreet repression, rather than the happy objects of some kind direction and culture! The effects of such misguided discipline have been apparent in their history and character, and by no process of human devising can the wrong be now rectified. The grand error in their education consisted in a system of rigid restraints, without corresponding efforts to develope, cultivate, and train in a right direction.

DO IT WITH THY MIGHT.-Fortune, success, fame, position, are never gained but by piously, determinedly, bravely sticking, growing, living to a thing until it is fairly accomplished. In short, you must carry a thing through if you want to be anybody or anything. No matter if it does cost you the pleasure, the society. No matter for these. Stick to a thing and carry it through! believe you were made for the matter, and that no one else can do it. Put forth the whole energies. Stir, wake, electrify your self, and go to your task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all its completeness and proportions, and you'll become a hero. You will think better of yourself; others will think better of you. Of course they will. The world in its very heart admires the stern, determined doer. Drive right along, then, in whatever you undertake. You'll be successful, never fear.

THE rainbow arches the heavens in token of the covenant of God; the bridge, the river, in testimony to the work of manthe one painted in prismatic colors upon the sky, the other traced in iron bands across the earth. Yet the one shall perish in mockery of man, whilst the other shall endure a herald for Deity.

PRIDE.-Pride emanates from a weak mind. You never see a man of strong intellect proud and haughty. Just look about you. Who are the most given to this folly? Not the intelligent and talented, but the weak minded and the silly.

SCOLDING.-I never knew a scolding person that was able to govern a family. What makes people scald? because they cannot govern themselves. How, then, can they govern others? Those who govern well, are generally calm. They are prompt and resolute, but steady and mild.

If you should give me a dish of sand and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the most invisible particles, by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my fingers in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find every hour some heavenly blessingsonly the iron in God's sand is gold.

Dr. Holmes.

To every man there are many, many dark hours, when he feels inclined to abandon his best enterprise-when his heart's dearest hopes appear delusive-hours when he feels unequal to the burden, when all his aspirations seem worthless. Let no one think that he alone has dark hours. They are the common lot of humanity. They are the touch-stone to try whether we are current coin or not.

The song, "Dear Mother, I've Come Home to Die," always struck me as a happy illustration of American assurance. Our young go abroad to spend the hard earnings of the old folks, and when they are dead broke return home to be buried at the expense of their impoverished parents.

"Nancy," said a girl to her companion, "which railroad train do you like best?" "That one," replied Nancy, "which furnishes a spark catcher ?"

When an acquaintance says, "How are you?" and rushes by you without pausing for a reply, I wouldn't, if I was you, follow him more than a mile to tell him I was well.

MANNER.-There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world, either to get a good name or to supply the want of it.

-A Mississippi physician professes to have invented a new kind of ink. The appearance of a letter written with it is thus described by the New Orleans Picayune:

"The portion of the letter written with this ink has the appearance of having been written with a golden fluid. Let the reader imagine that a letter written with the ordinary black ink be suddenly dashed with gold dust, which adheres only to the letters, and he will have some idea of the singular brilliant effect of this chemical writing fluid."

There has been an addition to the already numerous family of insurance companies. A "Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company " has lately been formed at Hartford, Conn. It is the first of its kind in this country, but boiler insurance is well established in England.

John T. Hoffman has been elected Mayor of New York by a majority over both Wood and Darling Full returns give the following result: Hoffman, 62,931; Wood, 22,862; Darling, 18,405. Hoffman's majority over Wood, 40,909; Hoffman's majority over Darling, 44,466; Hoffman's majority over both Wood and Darling, 21,634. Total vote of the city, 104,228. Mr. Hoffman was the regular nominee of the Conservative organization of New York.

- General McClellan, who is residing temporarily in Paris, will not return to this country until next spring. The General will then resume his former business as an engineer. He tells his friends that he desires a return to the active duties of life, that he is still a young man, and feels that he may have a future outside of politics.

-In New York, lately, a woman stopped a man she met on the street, and asked him the time. While pulling out his watch, she clapped a handkerchief to his nose saturated with chloroform, and when he recovered he found that he had been relieved of his watch and six hundred dollars in greenbacks.

- Ex-President Jefferson Davis and Gen. R. E. Lee met lately for the first time since the close of the war, in Judge Ould's parlor, in Richmond. The meeting was very cordial. Half an hour was spent in pleasant conversation.

The Boston papers poke all sorts of fun at the new statue of Edward Everett, on the "common." The Post says that it is "taken for almost everybody and anybody. The committee ought to have inscribed on the pedestal, 'This is Edward Everett,' and it is never too late to mend,' especially botchwork."

-Two women in Kansas fought a duel recently, and one shot the other dead. This is drawing the "woman's rights" business to a point.

All the companies of infantry and artillery in the United States army will be reduced to the minimum fixed by law-fifty privates.

- A new Catholic church was dedicated n Macon on the 15th ult. Solemn Pontifical High Mass was celebrated by Bishop Verot, of Savannah. The dedication sermon was preached by Father A. J Ryan.

- Wendell Phillips says the eloquence of O'Connell was equal to that of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Choate and Everett combined.

The happy inventor accidentally made this ink while compounding a wash for the care of cancer. He says the colors are permanent, and that the ink will become a favorite with printers and sign painters.

The bottom of the Tennessee River, between Paducah and Eastport, is said to be filled with Government property, and a contract to raise it has been taken by an east

ern man.

In Little Compton, R. I., is the grave of "Elizabeth, wife of Wm. Peabodie, who dyed May 31, 1717, aged 94." The inscription adds that she was the first white female born in this country.

- Theodore Parker left a thousand sermons and lectures unpublished. Among them a series of lectures entitled "Great Americans." They are to be edited and a selection from them printed.

A Southern paper reports a most extraordinary yield of corn-two hundred bushels and twelve quarts from a single acre. This bountiful crop was grown in Richland District, South Carolina.

-During the year 1866 no less then 205 persons were killed by wheeled vehicles in the streets of London. This represents the deaths only; the number of accidents was, of course, far greater.

- A monument has been built on Plymonth Rock: the last stone was placed up. on the structure a short time since, when the ashes of some of the Pilgrim Fathers were deposited in one of the chambers.

-Canada must be credited with an invention. A defeated candidate for one of the local legislatures has instituted about forty suits against various people for accepting bribes to vote against him, claiming two hundred to four hundred dollars in each case.

- In Pittsburg last Tuesday, just after an old gentleman of seventy-six years had been married to a young woman of twentythree, he was observed counting his fingers. The alderman asked him if he was counting how much he intended paying for the job. The old fellow said no, he was counting how many times he had been married, and that this was only the sixth. He soon left with his bride, promising to return during the week and settle his bill.

- Mademoiselle Wilson, the celebrated young cantatrice, who receives now a salary of one hundred thousand francs, and is the great rival of Adelina Patti, was five years ago a little Swedish peasant girl, wearing a coarse, homespun dress and wooden shoes. Her parents employed her to carry milk from their small dairy farm to the houses of the neighbors. One day, in the winter time, her merry warblings, her beautiful voice, and her intelligent face, attracted the attention of a distinguished musician from Stockholm, who prevailed on her parents to send her to the Conservatory at Stockholm, where her teachers discovered at once her surpassing talents, and stated that another Jenny Lind had been found.

- Philadelphia is said to be the greatest manufacturing city in the United States. Her operatives number 96,683, and their annual earnings amount to $135,969,797.

- A Chicago man refused to pay $800 for a pair of horses because they did not suit him, but afterward paid $2,000 for them at a horse fair, not knowing that they were the same.

-Juarez' army contains three hundred American officers.

-Dogs are vaccinated in France and England to cure distemper.

-King Theodore's Abyssinian subjects go to church at the sound of a kettle-drum.

-A fancy fair in aid of the orphans of Savannah, Georgia, was opened in that city last week.

-Rich gold-bearing quartz is said to have been found in Stanley county, North Carolina.

-There are nine hundred and eighteen children in Kokomo enrolled as Sunday School children.

-Dickens is to write a new novel for the Atlantic next year, entitled "George Silverton's Explanation."

-A. T. Stewart recently retailed $35,000 worth of silks in a single day

- Three hundred and thirty-four thousand emigrants have arrived at New York from Europe during the past year.

The cause of the frightful East Indian famine was the planting of cotton instead of rice.

-The managing editor of the London Times is paid the same salary as the President of the United States.

-The kid glove dealers of Boston are said to have sold $16,000 worth of "kids " to the audiences of Mr. Dickens.

It is said that Edwin Booth realized over $11,000 from his recent twelve nights' entertainment in St. Louis.

- Buffalo meat at wholesale is down to six cents per pound in the Hays City, Kansas, market.

- The New York Tribune, 11th ult., states that not a single distillery is known to be in operation in that city.

One of the new lobby members in Washington is said to be the loveliest woman on earth, and dresses like an Empress. Woe to the Treasury!

Three-fourths of the Republican National Committee are said to be Grant men.