us that it was a great success, and that Artemus Ward has a fortune
before him in California.

"And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'--But we will
not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who
came, consequently Mr. Ward will tell it over again at the
Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening. The subject will again
be 'The Babes in the Wood.'"

Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood"
lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as
regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became
desirous of going over the same ground again. There were not
wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold"
his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a
second time. But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of
the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived
the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same
old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes,
incidental to new topics of the times. Just at this period General
McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at
Bull's Run had become matter of history. The forcible abolition of
slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton
Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at
every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the
position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land.
Artemus required a very slender thread to string his jokes upon, and
what better one could be found than that which he chose? He
advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in
Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and