<h3>"IT PLEASES HER, AND IT DON'T HURT ME."</h3>
<p>April, 1862, closed brilliantly for the Union, as New Orleans was
captured. General Porter Phelps issued a proclamation which freed the
slaves. As on previous occasions, when this bomb was brought out, the
President had directed its being stifled and reserved for <i>his</i>
occasion, there was wonder that he took no official notice of the
premature flash. Taken to task by a friendly critic for his odd
omission, he deigned to reply:</p>
<p>"Well, I feel about it a good deal like that big, burly, good-natured
canal laborer who had a little waspy bit of a wife, in the habit of
beating him. One day she put him out of the house and switched him up
and down the street. A friend met him a day or two after, and rebuked
him with the words:</p>
<p>"'Tom, as you know, I have always stood up for you, but I am not going
to do so any longer. Any man may stand for a bullyragging by his wife,
but when he takes a switching from her right out on the public
highway, he deserves to be horsewhipped.'</p>
<p>"Tom looked up with a wink on his broad face, and, slapping the
interferer on the back with a leg-of-mutton fist, rejoined:</p>
<p>"'Why, drop it! It pleases her and it don't hurt me!'"
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