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the Museum of the Institute. These consisted of purses, 

 work-bags, socks, skeins of thread of different colors, also 

 samples of paper from the macerated fibre, together with con- 

 siderable quantities of the prepared fibre, of great length, 

 (being the length of the stem,) and having, as all the man- 

 ufactured articles did, a silvery lustre, considerably resem- 

 bling, silk. 



There were also exhibited specimens of the living plant 

 with its novel and honey-laden flowers, and portions of the 

 stem and fibre in various stages, showing its manner of 

 growth and preparation. Specimens prepared by Mr. P. 

 from the fibre of otlier plants were also presented ; such as 

 that from the tall nettle, so plentiful about the stone walls, 

 Urtica gracilis, and Apocynum cannabium, or Indian Hemp, 

 Celastrus scandens or waxwork and other plants ; proving 

 conclusively that with these, in addition to Flax and Hemp, 

 under the ingenious appliances of cultivation and machi- 

 nery, we need not be dependent upon the South or any 

 part of the wide world for material with which to answer 

 that important and industrial question, " wherewithal shall 

 we be clothed." 



C. C. Coffin, Esq., of Maiden, known as " Carleton," 

 of the Boston Journal, being invited, entertained the meet- 

 ing with a vivid account of the memorable gunboat fight 

 before Memphis on the Mississippi. That famous engage- 

 ment ended the hopes of the rebels as to the production of 

 a Navy. But there were other things than Navies to be 

 conquered in this war ; and of these, not the least was that 

 remarkable female influence that from the first had sus- 

 tained and stimulated the rebellion. Only by an equal 

 awakening of the free born women of the north, can we 

 ever oppose a fit and sufficient instrument to this restless, 

 this powerful auxiliary of southern enormity. 



