f Stars an

white wings; the stillness and repose were only broken by the occasional trumpet blast of some giant high-pressure steamer, as she dashed past them with lightning speed. Suddenly a floating island appeared in the bend of the river; closer examination proved it to be a steamer, with from twenty to twenty-five large boats secured alongside, many of them laden at Buffalo, and coming by the Erie Canal to the ocean. Around me was shipping of every kind and clime; enormous ferry-boats radiating in all directions; forests of mast

and high-bred ferret which you too often meet with in the Old World. He did not consider it requisite to tumble everything out on the floor, and put you to every possible inconvenience, by way of exhibiting his importance; satisfied on that point himself, he impressed you with it by simple courtesy, thus gaining respect where the pompous inquisitive type of the animal would have excited ill-will and contempt. Thank heaven, the increased i

gangway, extending half the length of the vessel; a platform accommodating itself to the rise and fall of the water, enables you to drive on board with perfect ease, while the little kind of basin into which you run on either side, being formed of strong piles fastened only at the bottom, yields to the vessel as she

port of Liverpool: but scarce had I left the quays, when the placards of business on the different stories reminded me of Edinburgh. A few minutes more, and I passed one of their large streets, justly called "Avenues," the rows of trees on each side reminding me of t

of being the first to offer hospitality, and had already prepared a most excellent spread for us at the far-famed Café Delmonico, where we found everything of the best: oysters, varying from the "native" siz

er, I am not going to inflict upon you a bill of fare; I merely mention the giant oyster and the sheep's head, because they are peculiar to the country; and if nearly my first observations on America are gastronomic, it is not because I idolize my little interior, though I confess to having a strong predilection in favour of i

y, I awoke, for the first time, in one of the splendid American hotels; and here, perhaps, it may be a

h an abundance of chairs, benches, &c., and decorated with capacious spittoons, and a stove which glows red-hot in the winter. Newspapers, of the thinnest substance and the most microscopic type, and from every part of the Union, are scattered about in profusion; the human species of every kind may be seen variously occupied-groups talking, others roasting over the stove, many cracking peanuts, many more smoking, and making the pavement, by their united labours, an uncouth mosaic of expectoration and nutshells, varied occasionally with cigar ashes and discarded stumps. Here and there you see a pair of Wellington-booted legs dangling over the back of one chair, while the owner thereof is supporting his centre of gravity on another. One feature is common to them all-busy-ness; whether t

ailed by applicants; moreover, from morning to midnight, there is a continuous succession of customers; not merely the lodgers and their friends, but any parties passing alo

ng his nose to the digital custody of that sable operator, and placing his throat at his mercy, or revelling in titillary ecstasy from his manipulations with the hog's bristles;-all this he enjoys in a semi-recumbent position, obtained from an easy chair and a high stool, wherein he lies with a steadiness which courts prolongation-life-like, yet immoveable-suggesting the idea of an Egyptian corpse newly embalmed. Never shaving myself more than once a fortnight,

to her a contradiction in terms; but what would be her feelings when she found the walls of her apartment furnished with fluted white silk and satin, and in the centre of the room a matrimonial couch, hung with white silk curtains, and blazing with a bright jet of gas from each bed-post! The doors of the sleeping-rooms are often fitted with a very ingenious lock, having a separate bolt

me religious community in the city; those that I saw duri

nd fifty servants of all kinds. Washing is done in the hotel with a rapidity little short of marvellous. You can get a shirt well washed, and ready to put on, in nearly the same space of time as an American usually passes under the barber's hands. The living at these hotels is profuse to a degree, but, generally speaking, most disagreeable: first, because the meal is devoured with a rapidity which a pack of fox-hounds, after a we

with us; but as you go further west, these comforts are most disagreeably deficient. One point in which the hotels fail universally is attendance; it is their misfortune, not their fault; for the moment a little money is realized by a servant, he sets

's bell, was told to get some warm water. He went away, and forgot all about

you to get me

d, your

ave you not

ell, you

and get it

the door scratching his head. In about

me

, and, with a most in

dhrink you want, your

n at a table-d'h?te is a ready way to ascertain the manners, tone of conversation, and, partly, the habits of thought, of a nation, especially when, as in the United States, it is the habitual resort of everybody; but truth obliges me to confess that, af

fixed hours and a mixture of every variety of cultivation of mind and cleanliness of person-which change is not likely, I trust, to take place in my day. It is a curious fact, that when the proprietor of the Adelphi, at Liverpool-in consequence of a remonstrance made by some American, gentlemen as to his charges-suggested to them that they should name their own hour and dine together, in which case his charges would be greatly diminished, they would not hear of such a thing, and wanted to know why they should be forced to dine either all together, or at one particular hour. An American gentlema

parallel with the Hudson; the streets cross them at right angles, and both are simply numbered; the masses of buildings which these sections form are very nearly uniform in area, and are termed blocks. The great place for lounging, or loafing, as they term it-is Broadway,

forty broad; rows of pillars on each side were loaded to the most outrageous extent with carving and gilding, and the ceiling was to match;

of one hundred and fifty feet frontage on Broadway, and runs back nearly the same distance: is five stories high, besides the basement; its front is faced with white marble, and it contains nearly every marketable commodity except eatables. If you want anything, in New York, except a dinner, go to Stewart's, and it is ten to one you find it, and always of the newest kind and pattern; for this huge establishment clears out every year, and refills with everything of the newest and best. Goods are annually sold here to the amount of upwards of a million sterling-a sum which I should imagine was hardly exceeded by any establishment of a similar nature

hould be, considering that the sum nominally spent on cleansing the streets amounts to very nearly sixty thousand pounds a year, a sum equal to one pound for every ten inhabitants; but the solution of this problem must be looked for in the system of election to the corporation offices, on which topic I propose to make a few observations in some future portion of these pages. While on the subject of streets, I cannot help remarking that it always struck me as very curious that so intelligent a people as the Americans never adopted the simple plan of using sweeping carts, which many of their countrymen must have seen working in London. If not thoroughly efficient, their ingenuity might have made them so; and, at all events, they effect a great saving of hum

atter in Chatham-street has made no small profit by advertising that, in addition to supplying hats at the same price as his rivals, he will take the portrait of the purchaser, and fix it inside thereof gratis. This was too irresistible; so off I went, and, selecting my two dollar beaver on the ground-floor, walked up to a six foot square garret room, where the sun did i

and as some of them are amusing enough, I select the f

CCIDENT.-OH, MA! I

ght, while dancing with

-Ring on the floor a

y dear. Just take th

et them made as

ve just learned, with

prained his back whil

ng, in consequence of

s to be hoped he will

e he undertakes it, h

pt the stooping postu

bt, will en

nt can be h

are not exempt from the f

by the Rev. Mr. ----

hip, which they bore w

sustained and comforte

onfiding belief in the

nother state, Mr. ----

i

on of the brain, F----

--, aged fou

aken to G---- for

d you that

ed his li

reddy, c

me a song

known in this country. According to that paper, he advertises in thirteen hundred papers in the United States, and has

his most rapturous visions; had they but good figures, they would excite envy on the Alamedas of Andalusia; in short, they are the veriest little ducks in the world, and dress with Parisian perfection. No wonder, then, reader, when I tell you that "loafing" up and down Broadway is a favourite occupation wit