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In these meagre Biographical Notes we have done but partial justice to Officer McWatters. Our readers were duly assured that no attempt would be made by us to write a fitting biography of the man; and we have only, in a hasty way, and in a manner wholly unsatisfactory to ourselves, alluded to certain incidents in our subject's life, which serve to stamp him as a man far above the average of even good souls, in his active, practical benevolence. But it is often in little things that the generous soul demonstrates itself most eloquently—in the usually unremarked, quiet acts of a man; and, in our judgment, a letter from Officer McWatters, which, in our search of the public journals for most of the material of these Notes, we found in the Evening Mail of October 23, 1869, bespeaks for him as much respect from the good and charitably inclined as anything he ever did.

We judge from the opening sentence of the letter, that some "good enough" fellow, "S. W. H. C.," soft of heart, perhaps, but limited in judgment, had found fault, through the columns of the Mail, with the poor organ-grinders' "plying their vocation" on the public streets. Of course there was nobody in all the great metropolis to come to their defence, except some man like Officer McWatters. And so he came, it seems, seasonably. The letter shows not only the tender, generous spirit of the man, but his ripe good judgment and comprehensive view of things as well, and is worthy of preservation here in these pages, along with the masterly efforts of his pen, which, in "Knots Untied," have not only given us—his present readers—the liveliest gratification by the mysteries they unfold in a lucid style, but have made one of the best possible records of certain phases of now current life, for the information of the future historian.

The old Romans (as well as other peoples) had their secret police service; and how interesting it would be to us, in these far off centuries, to read of their deeds in the empire, or during the kingdom of Rome. History, for the most part, is made up of the deeds of great conquerors, etc. We know too little of the domestic and "hidden life" of the past. But the future historian of these times will have all the materiel his ambition can desire for weaving the thread of his story. And what a resumé of crimes and outrages of all kinds will that of the 19th century be for the historian of the 40th century to make!

The letter to which we refer above, regarding the organ-grinders, will be found appended hereto, together with some other matters of interest regarding Officer McWatters, which we have collected in our examination of the public journals. We place them in connection with these biographical notes, as in some respects presenting our subject in a more graphic manner than we are able in this hurried writing, to make him known to the great reading public of his adopted country.

The concluding paragraph of the letter referred to regarding the organ-grinders, as will be seen by reference to it, is, "Until the country has reached out her helping hand to all to whom she owes assistance as a right, it is in bad taste to find fault with the mode in which the disabled soldier tries to earn a living for his family." In these words, so just and wise, is embraced more than the casual reader will be apt to perceive. They are, in our opinion, very remarkable, and involve a great principle, one which Officer McWatters, as a student of social science, as we have remarked him, must clearly understand.

"To all to whom she owes assistance as a right," are words eloquent with the great truth of social statesmanship which they suggest; which is, that a country, a government, should recognize the right of its subjects (or component parts, to speak more decently, for there is a hateful sound in that word "subjects") to life; and the great moral duty of all these parts to assist each other; a duty which is clear and imperative in the nature of things (but we cannot here go into the subtleties of the matter, and show why); a duty, however, which can never be fitly performed till some nation or people are so organized, politically and socially, that each shall receive all he merits therein; till the labor forces, the creators, the only really worthy, are honored and protected; and not, as now, when the chief villains and the worthless tyrants live upon the fat of the land, enjoy all the honors, and are shielded by the laws in robbing from and exploiting upon the poor, the laboring classes.

Healthful and buoyant of spirit, Officer McWatters doubtless has many years of active life yet to enjoy. The record of his past is abundant assurance that his future will be just, generous, brave in good deeds, sternly and patiently laborious, and benevolent to all mankind; and when he ceases to be, when the organized atoms which make what we call the man, and are discriminated by us from all other organized atoms as "McWatters," shall have been resolved into their original conditions, and his individuality is lost forever in the ceaseless processes of continuing creation, his good deeds shall live on still, and make for him a place in the reverence of those who honor good works far above that of most men; above that of all the talkers, the self-elected teachers, who heed not their own doctrines, however noble these be. One such man as Officer McWatters is worth more than an army of self-proclaimed saints, who do nothing but prattle about virtue, and preach, to use their own figure of speech, but live not out in their lives, nor exemplify in their deaths, "Christ and Him crucified;" but who think more of Christ on the Cross, in the "triumph of faith," than of the nobler Christ-come-down-from-the-Cross, and still battling, with untiring spirit, against the wrongs which men do to one another.

With this hasty sketch, and the appendices which we may see fit to make (as before indicated), we leave Officer George S. McWatters—the kind of heart, the merciful, the dutiful, the intelligent and honest man; the patriot of the true type; the practical and great philanthropist—in the hands of our readers, trusting that some able biographer will yet write his history, in a style and with a particularity commensurate with Officer McWatters' nobility of character and multifold great good works in the cause of humanity.