IN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation,once a month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinctsubject for talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There aresufficient reasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemento-day, it can easily happen that four of them--and possibly five--were not in the field at all. So the chances are four to two,or five to one, that the war will at no time during the eveningbecome the topic of conversation; and the chances are still greaterthat if it become the topic it will remain so but a little while.

If you add six ladies to the company, you have added six peoplewho saw so little of the dread realities of the war that they ranout of talk concerning them years ago, and now would soon weary ofthe war topic if you brought it up.

The case is very different in the South. There, every man youmeet was in the war; and every lady you meet saw the war.

The war is the great chief topic of conversation. The interest in itis vivid and constant; the interest in other topics is fleeting.

Mention of the war will wake up a dull company and settheir tongues going, when nearly any other topic would fail.

In the South, the war is what A.D. is elsewhere: they date from it.

All day long you hear things 'placed' as having happened since the waw;or du'in' the waw; or befo' the waw; or right aftah the waw;or 'bout two yeahs or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo' the wawor aftah the waw. It shows how intimately every individualwas visited, in his own person, by that tremendous episode.

It gives the inexperienced stranger a better idea of what a vastand comprehensive calamity invasion is than he can ever get by readingbooks at the fireside.

At a club one evening, a gentleman turned to me and said,in an aside--'You notice, of course, that we are nearly always talking about the war.

It isn't because we haven't anything else to talk about, but because nothingelse has so strong an interest for us. And there is another reason:

In the war, each of us, in his own person, seems to have sampledall the different varieties of human experience; as a consequence,you can't mention an outside matter of any sort but it will certainlyremind some listener of something that happened during the war--and out he comes with it. Of course that brings the talk back to the war.

You may try all you want to, to keep other subjects before the house,and we may all join in and help, but there can be but one result:

the most random topic would load every man up with war reminiscences,and shut him up, too; and talk would be likely to stop presently,because you can't talk pale inconsequentialities when you'vegot a crimson fact or fancy in your head that you are burningto fetch out.'

The poet was sitting some little distance away; and presentlyhe began to speak--about the moon.

The gentleman who had been talking to me remarked in an 'aside:'

'There, the moon is far enough from the seat of war, but youwill see that it will suggest something to somebody about the war;in ten minutes from now the moon, as a topic, will be shelved.'

The poet was saying he had noticed something which was a surpriseto him; had had the impression that down here, toward the equator,the moonlight was much stronger and brighter than up North;had had the impression that when he visited New Orleans,many years ago, the moon--Interruption from the other end of the room--'Let me explain that. Reminds me of an anecdote.

Everything is changed since the war, for better or for worse;but you'll find people down here born grumblers, who see nochange except the change for the worse. There was an old negrowoman of this sort. A young New-Yorker said in her presence,"What a wonderful moon you have down here!" She sighed and said,"Ah, bless yo' heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo'

de waw!" '

The new topic was dead already. But the poet resurrected it,and gave it a new start.

A brief dispute followed, as to whether the difference betweenNorthern and Southern moonlight really existed or was only imagined.

Moonlight talk drifted easily into talk about artificialmethods of dispelling darkness. Then somebody rememberedthat when Farragut advanced upon Port Hudson on a dark night--and did not wish to assist the aim of the Confederate gunners--he carried no battle-lanterns, but painted the decks of his ships white,and thus created a dim but valuable light, which enabled hisown men to grope their way around with considerable facility.

At this point the war got the floor again--the ten minutes notquite up yet.

I was not sorry, for war talk by men who have been in a waris always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who hasnot been in the moon is likely to be dull.

We went to a cockpit in New Orleans on a Saturday afternoon.

I had never seen a cock-fight before. There were men and boys thereof all ages and all colors, and of many languages and nationalities.

But I noticed one quite conspicuous and surprising absence:

the traditional brutal faces. There were no brutal faces.

With no cock-fighting going on, you could have played the gatheringon a stranger for a prayer-meeting; and after it began,for a revival--provided you blindfolded your stranger--for the shouting was something prodigious.

A negro and a white man were in the ring; everybody else outside.

The cocks were brought in in sacks; and when time was called,they were taken out by the two bottle-holders, stroked,caressed, poked toward each other, and finally liberated.

The big black cock plunged instantly at the little gray one and struckhim on the head with his spur. The gray responded with spirit.

Then the Babel of many-tongued shoutings broke out, and ceasednot thenceforth. When the cocks had been fighting some little time,I was expecting them momently to drop dead, for both were blind,red with blood, and so exhausted that they frequently fell down.

Yet they would not give up, neither would they die.

The negro and the white man would pick them up every few seconds,wipe them off, blow cold water on them in a fine spray,and take their heads in their mouths and hold them therea moment--to warm back the perishing life perhaps;I do not know. Then, being set down again, the dyingcreatures would totter gropingly about, with dragging wings,find each other, strike a guesswork blow or two, and fallexhausted once more.

I did not see the end of the battle. I forced myself to endureit as long as I could, but it was too pitiful a sight;so I made frank confession to that effect, and we retired.

We heard afterward that the black cock died in the ring,and fighting to the last.

Evidently there is abundant fascination about this 'sport' for suchas have had a degree of familiarity with it. I never saw peopleenjoy anything more than this gathering enjoyed this fight.

The case was the same with old gray-heads and with boys of ten.

They lost themselves in frenzies of delight. The 'cocking-main'

is an inhuman sort of entertainment, there is no questionabout that; still, it seems a much more respectable and farless cruel sport than fox-hunting--for the cocks like it;they experience, as well as confer enjoyment; which is notthe fox's case.

We assisted--in the French sense--at a mule race, one day.

I believe I enjoyed this contest more than any other mule there.

I enjoyed it more than I remember having enjoyed any other animalrace I ever saw. The grand-stand was well filled with the beautyand the chivalry of New Orleans. That phrase is not original with me.

It is the Southern reporter's. He has used it for two generations.

He uses it twenty times a day, or twenty thousand times a day;or a million times a day--according to the exigencies.

He is obliged to use it a million times a day, ............