rs
with his well-digested oration--addressed the multitude. Of course
similes and figures of rhetoric were lugged in by the heels in every
sentence, as is the all but universal practice on such occasions in
every part of the world. The moral of his speech was in the main
decidedly good, and he urged upon his audience strongly, "the undying
advantages of cultivating pluck and education" in preference to "dollars
and shrewdness." All went off in a very orderly manner, and in the
evening there were fireworks and a village ball. It was at once a wild
and interesting sight during the fireworks; the mixture of men, women,
and children, some walking, some carried, some riding, some driving;
empty buggies, some with horses, some without, tied all round; stray
dogs looking for masters as hopelessly as old maids seeking for their
spectacles when raised above their eyes and forgotten. Fire companies
parading ready for any emergency; the son of mine host tugging away at
the rope of the engine in his red shirt, like a juvenile Atlas, as proud
as Lucifer, as pleased as Punch. All busy, all excited, all happy; no
glimpse of poverty to mar the scene; all come with one voice and one
heart to celebrate the glorious anniversary of the birth of a nation,
whose past gigantic strides, unparalleled though they be, are
insufficient to enable any mind to realize what future is in store for
her, if she only prove true to herself.

Leave-takings do not interest the public, so the reader will be
satisfied to know that two days after found me in an open carriage on my
way to Rochester. The road lay entirely through cultivated land, and had
no peculiar features. The only thing I saw worth noticing, was two men
in a light four-wheel one-horse shay, attached to which were at least a
dozen others, some on two wheels, some on four. I of course thought
they were some country productions going to a city manufacturer. What
was my astonishment at finding upon inquiry, that it was merely an
American phase of hawking. The driver told me that these people will go
away from home for weeks together, trying to sell their novel ware at
hamlet, village, farm-house, &c., and that some of the shrewdest of
them, the genuine Sam Slick breed, manage to make a good thing of it.

The shades of evening closed in upon me as I alighted at a very
comfortable hotel at Rochester. The amiable Morpheus soon claimed me as
his own, nor was I well pleased when ruthlessly dragged fr