COMIC. "YOUNG AMERICA" ON PROGRESS. DOW, JR. TEXT.-Drive on your horses MY HEARERS: The spirit of the age is drive ahead! If you upset your wagon, and spill your milk, keep up with the popular crowd, and leave the old, slow, careful coaches in the lurch. "Get out of the way, old Dan Tucker!" is all the go nowadays, musically, morally, and mechanically speaking. A flood is upon us that is fast washing all the old works of the old music masters into the dead sea of oblivion. The old heavy drama is too slow a coach altogether for the present day. A lighter and a faster one we must have — a regular trotting concern. Poor Shakspeare! his house is sold, and he has stepped out. His taper shines with a sickly glare in the misty moonlight of the past—a mere glowworm upon a dark and distant moor. Alas! I am afraid he was not for a time, but for all day; and it's now about to be all day with him. But good-by, Bill; I must drive on my horses, or take the dust of unpopularity. My friends, we are a fast people, and live in a fast age. Perhaps you may say we are only riding down hill on a handsled: the more we increase in velocity, the sooner we shal. reach the bottom; and then have to get back again the best way we can. No; the way is comparatively level, and the road is clear. All we have to do is to keep up steam, and push ahead-propel. When I speak of keeping up the steam, I do not mean that you shall fire up with that liquid, the effect of which is to "put a brick in your hat"— in other words, to intoxicate-for thereby you may burst your boilers; but I have reference to maintaining that ambitious spirit of rapid progression, to which neither the everlasting mountains, nor the eternal hills, can set any bounds. Ours is already a great country, but we want to make it a big country. No pent-up Blackwell's Island shall contract our powers; but the whole boundless continent must belong to us. Republicanism, with his new, big boots, is bound to travel - and no power on earth shall say, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further." Emperors, kings, princes, and potentates! get out of the way, for we are coming with our fast horses! Clear the track for Young America! We intend honestly to vote ourselves farms; but if voting do n't get them, by General Jupiter Jackson, we 'll take them whether or no! Shall we lumber along the road, and allow other nations to pass us with a whiz? No, never!-our horses are fast, and we must give the world an awing specimen of their speed. Take care then, by Basil! we are running a race with Britain for Cuba; and if you do n't look out, you may get injured. We must progress advance expatiate — till two-thirds of the globe is ours; and then if we are compelled to stop by some unforeseen circumstance, what will be the consequence? Why, we shall fall to fighting among ourselves, and be brough back to the borders of primitive insignificance. My friends, the world plays us a great game, and every man must look out for his handful. For my part, I take my time, and cheerfully accept of what providence assigns me But do n't be guided by me-a pauper dependent upon don't chance. Drive on your horses; keep ahead if possible, and let the laziest nation be the hindmost. So may it be! INDEPENDENCE. DOW, JR. TEXT. Independence is the thing, And we're the boys to boast on't. MY HEARERS: Next Thursday is the birthday of American Liberty- the day upon which our star-spangled banner first waved in the fair breeze of Freedom- the day that the proud eagle of the mountain first looked down from his eyry on a free and independent nation - the day upon which the fat, ragged, and saucy children of Columbia broke loose from the apron-strings of their mother-country, and kicked up their heels for joy, like so many colts released from the bondage of winter confinement. You ought, on this occasion, to be as full of glory as a gin bottle, that this blessed anniversary is about once more to dawn upon your heads, and find you reaping the harvest of those blessings which your fathers sowed in revolutionary soil, watered with their own blood, and manured with their own ashes. Yes, you ought to throw up your caps, and make the halls of Freedom ring with loud huzzas, and then sit down and meditate on the groans, and the pains of travail, which attended this mighty Republic during the delivery of her first-born- LIBERTY. My friends, next Thursday the celebration will take place. Then the whole nation will be alive like a beggar's shirt; there will be a general stirring up of the genus homo from one end of the nation to another. The fires of enthusiasm will be kindled in every breast; and many of those who look in patriotic glory will, doubtless, supply themselves with the Article at the booths round the Park. But, my dear friends, this sixpenny patriotism is most horrible stuff; it is patriotism of the head, and not of the heart. It makes yo feel too independent altogether. It induces |