ith a whole column of New Yorkers to be
shown up, and all their names printed! Here's the Sewer's article
upon the Judge that tried him, day afore yesterday, for libel, and the
Sewer's tribute to the independent Jury that didn't convict him, and the
Sewer's account of what they might have expected if they had! Here's
the Sewer, here's the Sewer! Here's the wide-awake Sewer; always on the
lookout; the leading Journal of the United States, now in its twelfth
thousand, and still a-printing off:--Here's the New York Sewer!'

'It is in such enlightened means,' said a voice almost in Martin's ear,
'that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.'

Martin turned involuntarily, and saw, standing close at his side, a
sallow gentleman, with sunken cheeks, black hair, small twinkling eyes,
and a singular expression hovering about that region of his face, which
was not a frown, nor a leer, and yet might have been mistaken at the
first glance for either. Indeed it would have been difficult, on a much
closer acquaintance, to describe it in any more satisfactory terms than
as a mixed expression of vulgar cunning and conceit. This gentleman wore
a rather broad-brimmed hat for the greater wisdom of his appearance; and
had his arms folded for the greater impressiveness of his attitude. He
was somewhat shabbily dressed in a blue surtout reaching nearly to
his ankles, short loose trousers of the same colour, and a faded buff
waistcoat, through which a discoloured shirt-frill struggled to force
itself into notice, as asserting an equality of civil rights with
the other portions of his dress, and maintaining a declaration of
Independence on its own account. His feet, which were of unusually
large proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned
against, half sat upon, the steamboat's bulwark; and his thick cane,
shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal
knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist. Thus
attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity, the
gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his right
eye simultaneously, and said, once more:

'It is in such enlightened means that the bubbling passions of my
country find a vent.'

As he looked at Martin, and nobody else was by, Martin inclined his
head, and said:

'You allude to--?'

'To the Palladium of rational Liberty at home, sir, and the dread of
Foreign oppression abroad,' retur