TO OUR READERS. 



We know of one who would not have on the parlour chimney-shelf a dial with a second's hand, because 

 it made him see and feel how life lessens, as it were, drop by drop. What he would have said, or how 

 he would have felt, if he had to write these Prefaces surpasses our power of surmise, for they at once 

 tell of six months gone — and how quickly gone ! 



Grateful are we to record that truth, for miserable is he over whom time passes on heavily. But 

 no such weight has been upon us : no day has been long enough or slow enough — each day's evening 

 seemed to arrive before its morning had passed into noontide. 



This was not because there were no sorrows around us ; for we have had by our desk refugees from 

 the once United States, telling of homes crushed, and of brother in arms against brother in fratricidal 

 and suicidal war : we have had a blast from that war among our own homes, and our pages have told 

 of one small passage in the wide and deep amount of privation and sorrow which it whelmed over our 

 cotton districts. Death has not been less frequent than usual in his visits among those whose aid we had ; 

 nor have we found jealousies less jaundiced, nor envyings less detractive. 



But we have had compensations for all these ills. We were able to give occupation to the unemployed 

 and to point out to others those who deserved assistance. When a chasm occurred among our friends others 

 stepped forward to render the vacancy less observable ; and as for the jealous and the envious, we had 

 no leisure for being inconvenienced by them. 



Thus have we passed on through 1862 ; and over its close we will inscribe the hope that from its 

 days our readers, as well as ourselves, have passed on into 1863 wiser, happier, wealthier — wealthier 

 not merely in this world's gear. May its harvest of wisdom, happiness, and wealth be even more abundant 

 than that yielded by its predecessor ; and we will include in that prayerful hope our brethren across 

 the Atlantic. Many of our readers are there, and they may accept from us as truth that great is the 

 delusion which suggests that " Britishers wish nothing but evil to America." If that fiendish desire 

 actuated our countrymen, they would not so earnestly hope that the internecine war waging there may 

 speedily cease. 



Heartily do we join in that hope — nay, more, it is the most prominent in a cluster of good hopes E 

 including one for the well-being and well-doing of each and all of our contributors, arid another for the 

 vigour and endurance of those so abundantly recording themselves as our " Constant Readers." May 

 they all be evergreens, and then our concluding wish will be gratified, for we shall all have 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 



