THE TRUE STORY OF POE'S DEATH.

A native of Baltimore, now living In San Francisco, gives (saya the No Name Magazine of Baltimore) what he claims to be a true account of the poet's last days and death. This 1b his story :— " I was an intimate associate of Edgar Allen Poe for years. Much that has been said and written regarding his death is false. His habitual resort in Baltimore was the Widow Meagher's plaoe. This was an oysterstand and liquor-bar on the city front, corresponding in some respects with the coffee houses of San Franoisco. It was frequented muoh by printers, and ranked as a respectable place where parties could enjoy a game of earda or engage in social conversation. Poe was a great favourite with the old woman. His favourite seat was just behind the stand, and about as quiet and sociable as an oyster himßelf. He went by the name of 'Bard,' and when parties oame into the show It was, 1 Bard come up and take a nip,' or ' Bard, come and take a hand in this game.' Whenever the Widow Meagher met with any incident or idea that tickled her fancy she would ask the 'Bird' to versify It. Poe always complied, writing many a witty couplet, and at times poems of some length. These verses quite as meritorious as some by which his name was immortalized, were thus frittered into obscurity. It was in this little shop that Poo'b attention was called to an advertisement in a Philadelphia piper of a prize for the best story ; and It was there that he wrote his famous ' Gold Bug,' which carried off the hundred dollar prize. Poe had been ehif ting for several years between Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. He bad been away from Baltimore for three or four months, when he turned up one evening at the Widow Meagher's. I was there when he came in. He privately told me that he had been to Richmond, and that he was or his way north ro get ready for his wedding. It was drinking all round and repeat, until the crowd was pretty jolly. It was the night before election, and four of as, including Poe, started up town. We had not gone half a dozen squares when we were nabbed by a gang of men who were on the look-out for voters to 'coop.' It was the pactlce in those days to seize people, whether drunk or sober, lock them up until the polls were opened, and then march them around to every precinct, where they were made to vote the ticket of the parry who controlled the coop. Cur coop was in the rear of an enginehouse on Calvert street. It was part of the game to stuplfy the prisoner with drugged Uquor. Well, the next day, we were voted at thirty-one different places, and ever and over, it being as much as a man's life was worth to rebel. Poe was bo badly drugged that after he was carried on two or three different rounds, the gang said it was no use to vote a dead man any longer, so they shoved him into a cab and sent him to an hospital to get him out of the way. The commonly accepted story that Poe died from effects of dissipation Is all bosh. It was nothing of the kind. He died from laudanum, or some other poison, that was forced upon him ia the coop. He was in a *dying condition while he was being voted around the city. The story by Griawold of Poe'a having been on a week's spree and being picked up on the stree tis false. I saw him shoved into the cab myself, and he told me he had just arrived in the city."