Select Poetry. LET'S SIT DOWN AND TALK TOGETHER.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 186, 11 March 1848, Page 4

Select Poetry. LET'S SIT DOWN AND TALK TOGETHER.

BY THOMAS MA.CKELLAR. Lei's sit down and talk together Of the tliing9 of olden day, When we, like lambkins loosed from tether, Gaily tripped along the way. T»rnebas touched us both with lightness, Leaving furrows here and there, And tinging with peculiar brightness, Silvery threads among our hair. Let's sit down and talk together •- Many years away have past, And fair and foul has been the weather, Since we saw each other last. Many whom we loved are living In a better world than this, And some nmonc; us still are giving Toil and the tight for present bliss. Let's sit down and talk together Though the flowers of youth are dead, Sweet ferns still grow among the heather, And for us their fragrance shed. Life has thousand blessings in it, Even for the aged man, For God has hid in every minute Something for our eyes to scan. Let's sit down and talk together 5 Boys We were, we no* are men ; We meet awhile, but know not whether We shall meet to talk agnin. Parting time has come: how fleetly Speed the moments, wl en their wings Are fanned by brenthings issuing sweetly, From a tongue that never stings !

Unclaimed Valuables in the Pcst-opfick.— An official return has just been printed, showing the number of letters now lying in the General Post-office, containing coin, bank-notes, bills of exchange, or other property. This return shows that 4,201 such letters are lying in the dead-letter- office, containing property % valued at the almost incredible sum of £40,410, ss, 7d. this too has accrued during the last three years. For the system pursued in such cases is, that when all inquiry after the destination of the misdirected letters is found unavailing, the letters are kept three years to give time for application for them, after which period, so much of the property as consists of money is paid into the revenue, and this has been doae up to the beginning of 1844. Any other description of property is periodically sold, and the proceeds also paid into the revenue. The articles now lying for claimants are of the most vaiied character, some of them of a bulk and description little calculated for transmission per post. There are trinkets of all kinds, silver spoons by the do zen, spectacles, watches, waistcoats, shirts, sodapowder, artificial flowers, books, snuff-boxes, fiddle strings, dish mats, petticoats, old clothes, fishing flies, razors, pictures, nightgowns, a clarinet, brass weights, buttons, window curtains, a whistle, Prayer and other books, bunches of leys, brad-awls, scissors, and a panorama. The more portable articles consist chiefly of lace, and Berlin work in the form of collars, cuffs, dollo 1 things, purses. Of documents and papers there are wills, railway and other shares, one Greek manuscript, subpoenas, a vast number of pawn tickets and, postage stampt innumerable. The number of moneyorders undelivered is 346, for cash to the amount of 56407, 12s. Bd. The return from Scotland is quite characteristic of our more careful neighbors. The valuables undelivered and remaining i» the General Post office in Edinburgh, on sth January, last, consist chiefly of coin and banknotes, £4 16s. Id. of the first, £13 10s. of the latter, and only 103. worth of other property, all contained in 89 letters. Only five epiitles containing money orders are arrong the "dead," for sums amounting to £3 1 7s. 9d. In the Irish General Post office are 457 undehtered letters, containing property valued at £462, 9a. lid. Several of these missives contain "a free passage to New York." The number of unclaimed money orders ii 64, for £38, 14s. 9J.— Watchman. I A Woman Buried Alive. — Two or three weeks ago, the daughter of an old stldier, who resides in "Miller-street, Glasgow, was seized with fever, and I conveyed to one ol the hospitals. The old man of course, made frequent inquiries at the hospital as to | the progress of the disease, and was pained to learn j on every visit that his daughter was getting worse, i At last he received the melancholy information that she was dead. The necessary arrangements were | made lor the funeral, and the body was> interred in Sighthill Cemetery, on Thursday of last week. On Tuesday last, while the mother of the buried woman ■was engaged m her usual household avocations, the door slowly opened, and lo 1 there entered, pale and emaciated, the figure of her dead daughter, which uttered the word " Mother." "Ye canna get in ]icre-»ye canna get in here!" exclaimed the affrighted mother, "your father buried you last week." And having thus endeavoured to lay the ghost, fainted. On coming to her senses, and observing the unwelcome visitor sitting in the house, she rushed down stairs to the workshop of her husband, exclaiming, in the same voice of extreme terror, " Oh, the daughter ye buried last week is sitting up stairs !" — and went oft in another fit. When the old couple had recovered a little self possession, neighbours were called in, the hannted house was entered, and there sat, not an intrusive, ill-bred ghost, but the veritable daughter, pale and thin, but as truly in life as ever she was. Here was a mystery not easily to be solved at the moment, but subsequent inquiries showed that the daughter and an Irishwoman of nearly a similar name lay in the hospital next bed to each other. — Hence the mistake of the father, being; misinformed as to the state of the daughter's health ; and when the Irishwoman died, her body was given to the supposed father, who is, we learn, a Scotchman, and irom tbe circumstance of the virulence of the disease interred without identification. We have been informed that the father of the recovered daughter is about to institute legal proceedings against tbe manager of the hospital for tbe expense incurred by him in the interment of a stranger. — Glasgow Examiner. The Strange Young Lady.— The editor of the Boston Post says,— lt is now going on eight years since we then'mere boys, began to use ahe scissors ; but though inexperience in the ways of the world, wa haven't been often hoaxed— nor should we have been "sucked in" by the Hickman, Ky., Standard, had it not been for a very bad head-ache in the morning of cutting out the editor's paragraph stating that. 41 A young lady, whoie name he has not been able to ascertain, came into his dwelling two days before, and has since remaintd with his family. She has not spoken a word since her arrival, but she weeps almost incesgintly, Six weeks affer publishing the above, our waggish brother relieves public anxiety by this admission— "We have since found out her name, and can guen pretty well ' where she comes from.' Miss Lucy Hannah is a bouncing pirl, and when she gets a it* tie older , will call üb father''