of his life, and perhaps his life itself, for far less than half of what she had received for the labors of a single one.  Deducting the expenses incident to his official life, Mr. Lincoln would have been required to labor for five and twenty years before he could have received as much as was paid to the author of the “Sketch Book.”  The labors of the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella have been, to himself and his family, ten times more productive than have been those of Mr. Stanton, the great war minister of the age.—­Turning now, from civil to military life, we see among ourselves officers who have but recently rendered the largest service, but who are now quite coolly whistled down the wind, to find where they can the means of support for wives and children.  Studying the lists of honored dead, we find therein the names of men of high renown whose widows and children are now starving on pensions whose annual amount is less than the monthly receipt of any one of the authors above referred to.

Such being the facts, and, that they are facts cannot be denied, let us now suppose a proposition to be made that, with a view to add one, two, three, or four thousand dollars to the annual income of ex-presidents, and ex-legislators, and half as much to that of the widows and children of distinguished officers, there should be established a general pension system, involving an expenditure of the public moneys, and consequent taxation, to the extent of ten or fifteen millions a year, and then inquire by whom it might be supported.  Would any single one of the editors who are now so earnest in their appeals for further grants of privilege venture so to do?  Would not the most earnest of them be among the first to visit on such a proposition the most withering denunciations?  Judging from what, in the last two years, we have read in various editorial columns, we should say that they would be so.  Would, however, any member of either house of Congress venture to commit himself before the world by offering such a proposition?  We doubt it very much.  Nevertheless it is now coolly proposed to establish a system that would not only tax the present generation as many millions annually, but that would grow in amount at a rate far exceeding the growth of population, doing this in the hope that future essayists might be enabled to count their receipts by half instead of quarter millions, and future novelists to collect abroad and at home the hundreds of thousands that, as we are assured, are theirs of right, and that are now denied them.  When we shall have determined to grant to the widows and children of the men who in the last half dozen years have perished in the public service, some slight measure of justice, it may be time to consider that question, but until then it should most certainly be deferred.