FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL:--"Thank you, sir; but I have a sister at
home as foolish as I am; can't you give me a dollar for her?"

Charles Browne was not successful as a NEWS reporter, lacking
enterprise and energy, but his success lay in writing up in a
burlesque manner well-known public affairs like prize-fights,
races, spiritual meetings, and political gatherings. His
department became wonderfully humorous, and was always a favorite
with readers, whether there was any news in it or not. Sometimes
he would have a whole column of letters from young ladies in
reply to a fancied matrimonial advertisement, and then he would
have a column of answers to general correspondents like this:--

VERITAS:--Many make the same error. Mr. Key, who wrote the "Star
Spangled Banner," is not the author of Hamlet, a tragedy. He
wrote the banner business, and assisted in "The Female Pirate,"
BUT DID NOT WRITE HAMLET. Hamlet was written by a talented but
unscrupulous man named Macbeth, afterwards tried and executed for
"murdering sleep."

YOUNG CLERGYMAN:--Two pints of rum, two quarts of hot water, tea-
cup of sugar, and a lemon; grate in nutmeg, stir thoroughly and
drink while hot.

It was during his engagement on the "Plaindealer" that he wrote,
dating from Indiana, his first communication,--the first
published letter following this sketch, signed "Artemus Ward" a
sobriquet purely incidental, but borne with the "u" changed to an
"a" by an American revolutionary general. It was here that Mr.