Mistress and Maid, 30, 78, 111, 154, 206, 293 | What I Heard at the Coffee-Party,

354, 545, 579 Water Babies, The,

50, 542, 482

390, 450, 495

66

TO THE READERS OF THE LIVING AGE."

THIS number of The Living Age concludes the second year of its war trials and perils. These have been severe, and have called for all possible economy; but they have been less than might have been anticipated.

The loss of all subscribers in the rebel States has been followed by a great scarcity of stock for making paper, and this has obliged the newspaper press to increase its price. The Living Age has suffered under the tyranny of King Cotton, as have all other periodicals.

It is a strong proof of the steady attachment of the readers of The Living Age,-and a proof for which we are very grateful,-that more than nine-tenths of our subscribers in the loyal States have stood by us through this "year of famine."

We have not been without anxieties, so that every letter enclosing a remittance is received as a special encouragement and personal favor.

May we venture so far as to ask every man who thinks well of the work (now approaching its thousandth number, and concluding its seventy-fifth volume) to take so much personal trouble as to induce one or more of his neighbors to order it, and thus to "fill up the old regiments."

Number 969, which is printed on the cover this week, is the number of years to which Methuselah attained. We do not expect to live so long, though we cannot but think how valuable a series of the Antediluvian Age he might have published, at the rate of four volumes to a year. If we can complete twenty-five more volumes of our Living Age, so as to make up an invaluable set of one hundred volumes, we shall be abundantly satisfied, and shall feel that we have left to posterity, as Milton said, a work "which it will not willingly" leave unread.