per session, made a tolerable afternoon's work.

Any one witnessing this scene would certainly have supposed that _now_
the militia regiments of the City of New York were provided with
colors. What was our surprise to hear, a few days after, a member
gravely propose to appropriate eight hundred dollars for the purpose of
presenting the Ninth Regiment of New York Infantry with a stand of
colors. Mr. Pullman repeated his objections, and recounted anew the
generosity of the State Legislature. The eighteen, without a word of
reply, voted for the grant as before. It so chanced that, on our way up
Broadway, an hour after, we met that very regiment marching down with
its colors flying; and we observed that those colors were nearly new.
Indeed, there is such a propensity in the public to present colors to
popular regiments, that some of them have as many as five stands, of
various degrees of splendor. There is nothing about which Councilmen
need feel so little anxiety as a deficiency in the supply of regimental
colors. When, at last, these extravagant banners voted by the
Corporation are presented to the regiments, a new scene of plunder is
exhibited. The officers of the favored regiment are invited to a room
in the basement of the City Hall, where City officials assist them to
consume three hundred dollars' worth of champagne, sandwiches, and cold
chicken--paid for out of the City treasury--while the privates of the
regiment await the return of their officers in the unshaded portion of
the adjacent park.

It is a favorite trick with these Councilmen, as of all politicians, to
devise measures, the passage of which will gratify large _bodies_ of
voters. This is one of the advantages proposed to be gained by the
presentation of colors to regiments; and the same system is pursued
with regard to churches and societies. At every one of the six sessions