your part, reduce you to share the miserable lot of common prisoners of war. Reader! we beseech your sympathy and aid in behalf of the poor prisoner of war, no matter whether he is Englishman in Russia, or Russian in England. THE MONTH: THE LIBRARY AND THE STUDIO. THE LIBRARY. Memoirs and Political and Military Correspondence of King Joseph. By A. du Casse. Vols. ii. and iii.—It is curious to examine the correspondence between a great genius-who had raised himself from a subaltern to an emperor, and from being unable to get credit at a pastry-cook's shop at Valence on the Rhône, to holding all Europe, excepting England, at his feet and a weak-brained man whom he set upon a throne merely because he was his brother. Not one of Napoleon's instructions to king Joseph was ultimately carried out. The principal, indeed the whole of the interest of these pages, lies in the Emperor's dispatches. It is evident that he finds that he must think for both. For himself, he says he has a habit of thinking for himself for three or four months before, and always preparing for the worst'a striking proof of Napoleon's mental powers and determination. His dispatches are usually curt, and most emphatically to the point. The coolness with which he points out to his brother the manner in which he is to go about seizing the crown-lands, the family fiefs, and the property of the monks, by diminishing the number of convents, is amusing. He counsels him to range around him one hundred generals, colonels, and others, and settle upon them and their families the plundered fiefs, both of Naples and Sicily. He thinks that both Bernadotte and Massena ought to be fitted with large fiefs that would set up themselves and their families. This scheme he would adopt for Piedmont and Italy, and between these countries and Naples there would result a fortune for three or four hundred French officers, all holding by primogeniture. In a few years, the French families would intermarry with the great families of the country, and the crown would be so firmly established, that Joseph could dispense with a French army -a point at which it was necessary to arrive. 6 But though Napoleon could see through three or four months, and be prepared for the result, he could not see so readily through a few years. He writes to his brother, that Prussia, in spite of its protestations, shall be crushed or disarmed.' As for Russia, he did not care what it liked-it was too distant to be hurtful.' These last few words convey a striking proof of how signally Napoleon's passionate ambition overcame his reason. Prevented from attacking England by Trafalgar, he suddenly dashed at Russia, which was too distant to be hurtful.' Ladak, Physical, Statistical, and Historical, with Notices of the Surrounding Countries. By A. Cunningham. Allen & Co.- Here we have a sort of fairy-land, where, amid mountains of everlasting snow, you find, during the short summer, barley and wheat fields, and even such delicate fruits as apricots. In the comparatively small district of Ladak, the inhabitants are divided into four races, speaking different languages, holding different faiths, and practising different manners and customs. They are fond of ornaments and decorations, and are exceedingly convivial-singing and dancing mingling in all their festivities. A striking feature among the poorer classes in Ladak is-that one woman has several husbands, who must be all brothers. The rich, however, like other people in that region, have two or three wives. In respect to the Ladak shawls, the best kinds are sold at from L.10 to L.60 per pair. About 5000 of all sorts are generally exported on the backs of the Tibet sheep; indeed, all the merchandise of the country is carried down by them to Yarkland, a central market-place. One of the dreadful scourges of Ladak is the occasional formation of a huge glacier, high up among the mountains, and in the course of the Indus. This first dams back the water of the higher Indus, until it accumulates into a great lake, and then, unable to stand the pressure, and partially melted by the heat of the summer and the earth, it suddenly bursts, and lets loose a roaring wall of water through the steep valley of the river. The worst of these fearful inundations was the last, which took place in June 1841. First, there was heard a low murmuring among the mountains, which gradually increased, until some one said: 'Look, it is the river!' and suddenly it was perceived that the river was racing furiously down in an absolute wall of mud, carrying with it a whole camp of soldiers, peasants, tents, domestic animals, furniture, huts, trees, and everything that was movable. In Kadak, it swept off all the villages, trees, corn, and, in fact, all the property, and much of the arable soil, and then went roaring and spreading down into the low country, bearing desolation across the whole continent of India. In Ladak, most of the inhabitants escaped with their cattle up the hills; but below, the loss of life was as much as that of property. The public are much indebted to Major Cunningham for this work. It depicts, not in a very literary style, indeed, but with great minuteness, and in the greatest detail, the entire features, physical, moral, and social, of Ladak. Modern German Music, Recollections and Criticisms. By Henry F. Chorley. Smith, Elder, & Co. - This gentleman is well known in the musical world of London, by the peculiarity of his musical opinions, the fantastic nature of his phraseology, and his determined system of opposition on some point of harmony, melody, or general style, to every foreign musician except two-Mendelssohn, and a certain pianoforte playing Dr Liszt. Beginning with Bach and Gluck, he proceeds in a tone of condemnation through the whole bead-roll of immortal genius, including Spohr, whom he rails at most unmercifully, without understanding him, and Beethoven, on whom he pronounces the following judgment, apropos of the quartetts of the third period,' the most glorious of the series, to those who understand them: His ear had ceased to be able to keep account of or keep watch over the limits which separate sonority, suspense, and cacophancy.' Of Mozart he says, that there is no single work by Mozart in any style than which some other single work, having greater interest, by some other composer, could not be cited.'. These sentences suffice to shew the general tone of Mr Chorley's book, from which, however, we are happy to except his 'Last Days of Mendelssohn.' Professor Wilson of Edinburgh is dead. The voice of the redoubted Christopher North will be heard no more. Thus is one most remarkable man deducted from the lists of living genius, perhaps leaving no more remarkable successor. Wilson has been lost to us at sixty-nine. There was something arresting in the man, both physically and intellectually. A fine figure approaching six feet, a handsome countenance full of eloquent expression, vivid muscular movements, told, as he swept through the streets of Edinburgh, fully as much upon the eyes of men, as his brilliant articles in Blackwood's Magazine told upon their understandings and their feelings. He was one of those poets to whom the ordinary mechanism of poetry is only a bondage, and who do not bring their full force to bear till, breaking these fetters, they launch into the realms of prose. The floods of comic humour and lofty eloquence which he poured through the Noctes Ambrosiance of twenty years ago, gave him his strongest hold upon the public. At the same time his geniality of nature The people of Edinburgh have resolved to do him the honour of a public statue, and a subscription for that purpose is meeting with extensive support. THE STUDIO. the choicest pictures'-we hardly found the general run of the works to equal the description. True, there were many admirable works, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish school. The gem of the Madonnas was, in our estimation, a sketch or a study for a great work by Murillo. The Virgin and Child are represented amid clouds, with a company of child-angels most artistically grouped around. The holy beauty beaming from the mother's face is managed to be shewn in a wonderfully small space, and the graceful ease of her reclining attitude at once strikes the eye. The two principal Italian works of the Madonna class are a Mater Dolorosa by Carlo Dolce, the face of the Dolorosa having no more expression of anguish than that of the most unconcerned personage; the merits of the picture-if they are merits-being the intense vividness and richness of the colouring. The other was a Virgin in Prayer, by Domenichino. The Dutch and Flemish We had, a few days ago, the pleasure of witnessing, in the great hall in the Euston Square terminus of the London and North-western Railway, the inauguration of the statue of George Stephenson, the real Railway King, the originator of the locomotive, the thinker-pictures, however, form the largest and best part of out and worker-out of the whole detail of the railway system, from the grand discovery of the blast-pipe to the invention of the steam-whistle. The work is by Mr E. H. Baily, R.A.; and it exhibits, in a marble statue about eight feet high, a happy medium between the colossal and the idea of a man elevated above the average of humanity. The burly form and nobly intellectual countenance of the great railway hero, has been most successfully represented by Mr Baily, partly from the picture by Lucas, and partly from the sculptor's personal recollections of that great man, who rose from the lowest drudgery of the coal-pit to invent the magnificent principle of the blast-pipe, which, by making steam create speed, makes speed create steam, and vice versà; who threw a railway over the Chat Moss-a feat pronounced the triumph of engineering; a man who has designed and executed in all their details 5000 miles of railway, and on whose lines you may travel from London to the border; and through whose hands have passed, and usefully passed, more scores of millions of money than has yet been estimated. At the competition in Westminster Hall some seven years ago for high-art pictures on a large scale for the decoration of the Westminster Palace, Mr C. Lucy won a prize amongst an enormous number of competitors, for a picture containing nearly twenty figures of the leading men of the Pilgrim Fathers, with their wives and children--at the moment of being addressed by their pastor, Mr Robinson, before setting sail in the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The faces of the principal personages are portraits; while those of the others whose likeness was not attainable are skilfully turned away, rather adding to than detracting from the general effect. Among the portraits are those of Mr Carner, who was the first governor, but who perished in the dreadful pestilence which swept off more than half of the founders of America. Another of the portraits is that of Mary Chilton, who was the first who stepped upon the then desolate shore, and christened the bay New Plymouth, from the name of the last port the Mayflower touched at in England. Mr Lucy's work is a very noble one, and well deserves a place in a national institution. The grouping is marvellous at once perfectly artistic and perfectly natural, the whole assemblage being slightly divided into three groups, each harmonising with the other, the centre one being somewhat elevated upon a low ledge of rocks. Both the drawing and the colouring are admirable. The left arm and hand of Mr Robinson are remarkable specimens of fore-shortening, and altogether the work does great credit to English art. It has been in the hands of Mr Burnett, the well-known engraver, for a line representation, which we understand is nearly, if not entirely, finished. Looking in the other day at one of the Messrs Christie and Manson's private views-of a cabinet of the collection. We have often wondered that men of such undoubted genius as Teniers and Ostade should continually practise the abominable style of art representing the worst canaille of their country-the ugliest, dirtiest boors they can find out -drinking, gambling, smoking, seated on chairs with three legs, on forms and barrels, in a dark dirty hovel; while a drab of a woman draws the liquor, and boors as ugly and filthy as the others stand around, drink, smoke, and watch the game. Were it not for the consummate painting and extraordinary faithfulness to all minutiæ of detail, these pictures would never have endured so long. We prefer the Dutch and Flemish artists who depict the comfortable houses and the comfortable families of the substantial citizens of Ghent, Antwerp, and Liege, amid the elaborately carved furniture and the ancient hangings which the Flemings love--with perhaps a Rubens upon the wall-or the landscape, the river flowing lazily, poplars and willows clustering on its banks; villages, consisting of large one-story houses, built close to the river, with the willows before; and Dutch galiots, with drooping sails, waiting for the wind or the tide. Or again: sea- pieces, under sun and shade, calm and storm; the galiots equally at their ease in either-for these flat-bottomed craft, content to carry little sail, ride like ducks over the waves, are kept from drifting to leeward by what are called lee-boards, and are seldom or never wrecked. All Londoners, and very many who are not Londoners, have observed in passing along Piccadilly, close to the Burlington Arcade, a huge black wall, like that of a prison or a fortress. Within that hold long wonned the Earl of Burlington, in a gloomy seclusion-the huge gates only swinging open to admit or let forth his lordship, or his few aristocratic friends; but when passers-by stole a glance, they saw a great dreary court, and behind as great and dreary a façade, with, if our memory does not fail, a terrace and a magnificent sweep of stairs. Behind, it was known that there was a voluptuous garden, with all manner of decorations, ornamented walks, and statues, and fountains, and conservatories, and what not. Well, all this secluded magnificence is to be flung open to the public, for the purposes of art and science. The government have given L.140,000 for it; and as soon as the ultimate purpose or purposes have been decided on, and the design and plans arranged, it is to be presumed that the structure will be immediately put in hand. The artists are loud for a national gallery, with a better management and more pictures-the savans, for a hall of science; but within the space occupied by mansion and garden, there may be presumed to be ample room for both. At anyrate, there will be time for consideration; and doubtless the opinions both of artists and scientific men will be duly taken. -about eighty seamen and marines-and get them on board by sunset. At eight in the evening, all but six had returned, and these sent me the following laconic message:-"Tell the captain he knows he can depend on our word. We will be on board in the morning before the brig is out of the harbour.' They came on board, just as we were ready to go out. When I was first-lieutenant of the Queen Charlotte, on our voyage to Algiers, we had on board six or seven smugglers, a class I have always found to be fine stout men, and good sailors. In those days, smugglers were sentenced, as a punishment, to serve a certain number of years in the navy, and the orders were to put them in irons every night when the ship was at anchor. I proposed, however, to Sir James Brisbane to put these men on their honour, and to treat them like the others. He did so, and promised that if they behaved well, he would endeavour to procure a remission of their sentence; and this, in fact, was the result, for their conduct was so good, that the remainder of their sentence was remitted on the return of the Queen Charlotte to Portsmouth. It is gratifying to see springing up all around us, particularly in the suburbs, churches built and decorated in a very different style of architecture from that of the last generation, when an Erecthæum, in the shape of the St Pancras Church, was built-every detail of the Grecian architecture being carefully copied-and then disgraced for ever by a clumsy belfry, no part whatever of the original building, but supported by iron pillars. There really ought to be an act of parliament for taking down this deformity. At present, however, the taste is in favour of churches. Early English churches, three roofed compartments below, forming nave and aisles, a square tower, more or less decorated with Norman windows, and a spire, generally of delicately tapering lightness. The rules of architecture are not always preserved in these buildings. To give them more variety, Saxon arches are adopted in the principal entrance, when the arched Norman succeeds it in the windows, and the lancet in the higher regions. Some of the best of these are the Camden Square Church, a beautiful specimen of a tower; Miss Burdett Coutts's Church, built for a poor population in an obscure part of Lambeth, and also celebrated for During this same voyage, two London thieves were its tower; a new church near the entrance to Camden discovered in the ship, with all their implements, darkTown, on the mixed principle; a gem by Pugin, on the lanterns, skeleton-keys, &c. They were put into irons Hampstead Road, of pure Saxon; and the most beauti- previous to their being punished, and so continued, ful of all, the queen of the London spires-St Mar- until the bombardment of Algiers commenced, when garet's, in Margaret Square. This spire is very curi- some good-natured person released them, and the rogues ously designed. Flat slopes gradually widening extend ran to their guns, and fought like honest men. After from the top, blending into each other in the most the general thanksgiving for the success of our enterremarkable fashion, and upon strict mathematical prise, there was a general muster on the quarter-deck, principles; so that, upon walking round it, it seems the officers on one side, and the ship's company on somewhat as if you were contemplating a mathemati- the other, with the two thieves between them. cally cut prism or crystal. The church belongs to the Exmouth addressed the crew in the following words :extreme section of the Puseyites, and is being deco-These two London thieves I proposed to try by a rated by Mr Dyce. Every detail, both in the outside court-martial, and they were therefore put into irons: and inside of the body of the church, is purely monkish it was not my intention to permit them to fight along in its character, and the same character is carried with honest men. I will not inquire how they got to the tops of the squares. One other church, and we out of their irons, and reached their guns. They did have done. It has been begun on pure Norman so; and now you, my lads, shall decide their fate. I principles, and carried on up to about ten feet of the will try them by a court-martial, as I purposed, or square tower, where a pointed leaden roof has been send them to India in the Minden, just as you decide.' stuck on, and all further progress stopped. The structure belongs to the body of Latter-day Saints, over which Mr Henry Drummond, M. P. for West Surrey, is the Ruling Angel.' GOSSIP ABOUT SEAMEN. BY A NAVAL OFFICER. No men, in my opinion, are less selfish than our seamen, or more true to their word. When I commanded the Rifleman, we generally refitted at Malta, and were ready for sea before we obtained pratique; so that when the yellow flag came down, I used to give two or three days' leave to every one who wished to go on shore. There were always a sufficient number willing to remain to take care of the brig. We once came out of the quarantine harbour on a Saturday, when, on hearing from the senior officer that our services would not be required for a week, I permitted every one who chose to go on shore. The following morning, important dispatches arrived, and there was no vessel to take them on to the admiral but the Rifleman. The senior officer sent for me, and said: 'I know your men are all on leave for two days-when do you think you could get them together?' This night,' I replied; but I should not like to sail till the morning.' He expressed surprise at my thinking I could assemble the people so quickly. 'If you could but do it!' said he; 'but is it possible?' 'My men, sir,' I replied, 'have never yet failed me. They know that I never ask for exertion or self-denial but when the good of the service requires it.' I went on board, told the truth to the men who were not on leave, and bade them hunt out their messmates Lord 'Don't disgrace us, sir!' was the prompt and general reply; send them to India'-and to India they went in the Minden, ticketed as they deserved. When the action at Algiers was over, the best artist could not have done justice to the scene we were leaving behind us. The nine Algerine ships and the store-houses were still such a mass of flame, that the Mole, and the part of the town nearest to it, were as light as the most splendidly illuminated ball-room; while over the dark-green hills, behind and above the town, a heavy thunder-storm was advancing, the forked lightning rendering the darkness beyond awful. The storm burst upon us just as we had anchored, about nine o'clock, and had gone to our supper of bread and cheese. At this time, as R- -s passed the entering port, towards the place where his cabin had been, he saw a young seaman walking to and fro; and after he had passed, it struck him that the young man had lost an arm. He turned back, and said: 'How is it with you, my lad?' and found that the wounded man belonged to the Hebrus, and had been wounded in one of her boats close to the Queen Charlotte, into whose cockpit he had been taken; that his arm had been there amputated; and that, at the close of the action, all her wounded being placed in cots or beds, he, unwilling to give further trouble, had come to the entering port, and was watching in the hope that some boat might pass, in which he might be taken to his own ship. R- -s saw him safe in bed before he himself lay down. When I was first-lieutenant of the Rhin, and busy stowing the sheet-anchor, three times I made a very fine young man, working at my side like a Hercules, withdraw his left foot from a position of fearful peril; but as I turned to give directions for a pull of the forestay, he you Some years before this, in one of our boat-expeditions, I climbed over some rocks to cut the cable of the ship we were trying to take, and falling headlong into the sea, out of sight of my party, was supposed to be killed. When I recovered, and regained the rocks, I found-although the boat had pulled off, to secure our half-won prize-that two of our men had remained behind, under a fire of musketry, 'to bring off,' as they told me, my body.' I will give you an instance of the faith I have in the word of a sailor. The Rhin was fitting out in Hamoaze, during the war, at a time when men were most wanted, and the press was heaviest. A noble-looking young man, a perfect and able seaman, was pressed out of a transport-ship, in which he was second-mate, and sent to us from the flag-ship with the strictest injunctions to guard him, lest he should escape. I saw that he was heart-broken, and placing him in the gunner's crew, begged the gunner, a good man, to try to cheer him. The next day, his mother, sister, and a lad came on board to see him. They remained on the main-deck with him all the time the people were at dinner, and when the work recommenced, he came to me on the quarter-deck and said: 'Sir, I know you cannot grant what I ask, but to please my mother and sister, I come to say, that they wish you to allow me to go on shore with them. I would be off again by daylight to-morrow morning.' I started. 'Did you not hear,' I asked, 'the strict orders I received yesterday, to guard you well?' 'Yes, sir; I knew you could not grant their request;' and sorrowfully he returned to them. The young lad, an assistant in the post-office, was standing by, and as Honeyman left me, he said: 'If, sir, you would let me remain as his surety, I would gladly stay.' I looked at him, and replied: BARE the head to the windy morn; DAVIES'S PATENT PEDOMOTIVE CARRIAGE. This carriage consists of a single wheel of 6 feet 6 inches diameter, with a seat and winch attached to the centre on either side. The wheel, of 7 feet diameter, covers 21 feet at each revolution, and the weight of the whole averages 'Why, half a dozen such as you would not equal his from 80 to 90 pounds. A great merit in the invention is value to us.' He also left me; and as I walked away the small amount of friction, and the mode of suspending from the wretched party, my good genius whispered: the weights. The weight is thrown a little in front of the "Try him!' I turned back, and called Honeyman to me. axle. From various trials, it has been shewn that two I am going to put my commission into your hands,' persons can travel with ease at the rate of sixteen miles an said I. You said you would return by daylight to-hour; and that so little are the legs called into play-the morrow. If I let you go on shore, give me your word that you will be off at eight o'clock in the morning.' 'I will, sir.' Then go. He made but one bound to the gangwayladder, another into the waist, without touching one step of it, and spoke but a single word to his mother and sister as he passed them. Both of them lifted up their clasped hands. I could not stay to see more-and will only add, that Sam Honeyman was a first-class pettyofficer of my favourite old ship, when, nine months after this time, I left her, to join Lord Exmouth in the Boyne. THE TRANSITION FROM ANIMALS TO PLANTS. It has been long asserted by Bory de St Vincent and others, that there exist in nature organised bodies, which are animal at one period of their lives, and vegetable at another! This, if true, would for ever put an end to the possibility of distinguishing the two kingdoms when they shall each have arrived at their lowest forms. Its truth has, however, been denied. On the contrary, Kützing, in his recent magnificent work on Algae, insists that it happens in his Ulothrix zonata. He asserts that in the cells of that plant there are found minute animalcules with a red eyepoint and a transparent mouth-place; that they are not, in fact, distinguishable from Ehrenberg's Microglena monadina; these bodies, however, are animals only for a time; at least, they grow into vegetable threads, the lowest joint body being quite at ease, and supported by a padded cushion in front-that the fatigue of working the carriage sixteen miles is not so great as that of walking four miles. whole weight on, which raises the outer rider off his legs, In wheeling round, the person on the inner side throws his and others feel assured that thirty miles an hour might be and the wheel comes round instantaneously. The inventor accomplished without any great effort. The invention is altogether a great improvement on the original velocipede. -Year-book of Facts, 1854. NOTICE. A press of descriptive matter of interest belonging to the passing day, has necessitated the omission, in this Number, of Things as they are in America. The succeeding portion of the work, describing some things as they are in New York, will appear next week. CHAMBERS'S REPOSITORY of INSTRUCTIVE and AMUSING TRACTS.-This Illustrated Work resembles in some respects the MISCELLANY of TRACTS published a few years ago, it is hoped, the new requirements of the day in regard to literary aiming at a higher, though not less popular tone, and will satisfy, elegance-the papers being original compositions, prepared expressly for the work by popular and practised writers. A Number appears every week, a Part every month, and a Volume every two months. Ten volumes (1s. each) have now appeared. Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 3 Bride's Passage, Fleet Street, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. OF POPULAR LITERATURE Science and Arts. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. No. 22. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1854. THINGS AS THEY ARE IN AMERICA. NEW YORK. Ar length in New York-a city I had long wished to see, and to which the eyes of all Europe are directed as the actual metropolis of the New World. Arriving in this important emporium by railway, the city was taken at a certain disadvantage; for a true impression of the real character of its position can be obtained only when it is reached by sea. It is a very curious thing that nobody till he sees it, can properly understand the situation of New York. Accounts of it are not clear. Our minds are perplexed by two opposite circumstances. The city is said to be on an island-the island of Manhattan-and yet is connected with the mainland. I now got rid of this mystification. Coming by railway down the left bank of the Hudson, which is seen to expand into a fine broad estuary, with the picturesque elevations of New Jersey on the opposite shore, the train ran directly into the town; having crossed a narrow strait, which, according to topographers, makes the promontory on which New York is situated an island. As if, however, there was no end to the confusion of ideas on the subject, the Hudson, which is, in reality, on the west of the promontory, is locally spoken of as North River; a narrow arm of the sea which separates New York from Long Island is called East River; and the strait, little better than an artificial canal, which stretches from North River to East River, is named Haarlem River. The island of Manhattan, so formed by this environment of water, is about thirteen miles in length, by at most two in breadth, and terminates at its southern extremity in a narrow and level slip of ground, known as the Battery. From this defensible point the city has crept gradually northwards, covering the whole island in its progress, and is already from three to four miles long, with plans of extension that will finally carry it to the limits of the island, and, it may be, far beyond. Reaching the city by a back-way, as it may be called, we have the opportunity of seeing the worst side first-straggling half-built streets, with shabby stores, lumber-yards, heaps of rubbish, petty wooden houses, and a general aspect of disorder. At an assigned point the train stopped, and I imagined we had reached the principal terminus. No such thing. The delay was only to detach the locomotive, and to take the train piecemeal into town by horses. And so, drawn by a team of four horses at a trot, the car in which I was seated went smartly up one street and down another—the rails being laid in the causewaytill we reached the heart of the busy metropolis. Attaining the place of disembarkation at last, a scene PRICE 1d. of indescribable confusion ensued, and I began to experience the effects of those imperfect police arrangements for which New York unfortunately suffers in general estimation. No cabs of the ordinary kind, but hackney-carriages with two horses, presented themselves for hire; and the drivers seemed to be at liberty to do what they liked. After engaging one of them, the driver thrust another person in upon me, though bound for a different hotel; and I had considerable difficulty in at length inducing another driver to take me solus to my destination-the Astor House. I may say once for all, that on other occasions I had the same annoyance with the New York hackney-coachmen, who appear to stand at the lowest point in the scale of a class admitted to be troublesome in every community. Months previously, I had heard of the difficulty of procuring accommodation in any hotel in New York, and had adopted the precaution of bespeaking a room at the Astor, through a friend in the city. With nothing, therefore, to fear on this score, I was fortunate in at once finding myself settled in one of the largest and best-conducted hotels, and at liberty to study the working of a class of establishments which transcend anything of the kind in England, and are about the chief wonder in a country celebrated for the gigantic scale of its operations. At the first look, we see that New York very much resembles the more densely-built parts of London. The houses, tall, and principally of brick, are crowded into narrow streets, such as are seen in the neighbourhood of Cheapside, with the single difference, that many of the buildings are occupied in floors by different branches of business, with a profusion of large sign-boards in front. For the most part, the houses have sunk floors, accessible by a flight of steps from the foot-pavement; and these cellar-dwellings are very commonly used for some kind of small business, or as 'oyster saloons,' or 'retreats'-the names considerately employed to signify taverns and groggeries. Wherever any of these older brick edifices have been removed, their place has been supplied by tenements built of brown sandstone; and it may be said that at present New York is in process of being renewed by this species of structure, which is elegant in appearance, but, I fear, less substantial in many respects than a regard for security warrants. The more narrow thoroughfares are at the same time widened and paved according to modern taste. The more ancient, though much changed part of the city in which the throng of business chiefly prevails, is confined to the southern division, stretching from the Battery a mile northwards; and within this quarter the breadth occupied from the North to the East river is seemingly about the same as that from the |