A few days after Hagar’s flight Dr. Taine died suddenly in his study at the Tabernacle from heart disease. He had been overcome with grief when the news first reached him that she was gone, but as the truth became more clear and he realized that in spite of his apprehensions he had permitted her to fall a victim to a scoundrel, the wound sank deeper, and reached a fatal spot when he learned that her betrayer was a rebel spy and that he had taken her to Canada. Mrs. Taine clung to her faith in her “dear Benjamin” up to this crisis. Then she repented her error in sackcloth and ashes, had the paper she had drawn up in favor of “Smiles” destroyed, and made a deed conveying the bulk of her property to James Taine if he survived the war. In case of his death it was to be devoted to the Union cause.

The dismissal of the charge against Adam Joyce was a natural result of current events. Knowing that all the prosecuting witnesses were out of reach, Mr. Amicus Fish pompously moved a nonsuit, and the court sustained the motion. The bloodless victory thus gained by circumstances for this shyster of the legal slums brought him many another such client, and from that day both he and Joyce became powers in local politics. The latter had long been distinguished as an effective “heeler” at the polls and now swore that Fish should go to Congress if he and the ‘boys’ had to ‘clean out’ the district to put him there. The ‘rise’ of Mr. Amicus Fish dated from this period, and was so rapid that, although he was still ignored by respectable members of the bar, he was soon very busy before the courts and made political capital by some of his achievements that promised to raise him to those golden advantages which so often fall to gentlemen of his stripe, under our glorious system of grog-shop politics.

On a bleak and dreary night in February a few days after the dismissal of Joyce, Charles Spencer, the apostle of Mormonism, arrived at Cincinnati. He had left Cleveland about the end of December, and had come the entire distance through snow and mire on foot, preaching the ‘new and everlasting covenant’ at every town and village by the way in which he could obtain a hearing.

Most people regarded him with curiosity or disgust and treated him with indifference; some thought him insane and pitied him. The fanatics of other sects, and the idle ruffians of country villages who were on the lookout for diversion, thought him an excellent target for ridicule and snowballs, and on a few occasions talked of amusing themselves by dressing him in tar and feathers. The very few persons who were fair enough to observe him without undue prejudice, were convinced that he was an intelligent and earnest young man who had, unfortunately, gone clean astray from truth and common sense. He was doubtless sincere, they said, else why did he tramp through the country at that inclement season to teach his doctrines, existing upon the charity of chance acquaintances to whom his missionary character was his only