xii INTRODUCTION. 



make one afraid; no man residing there has ever 

 had a case of chills and fever, no matter what may 

 have happened to his neighbor, where the boys are 

 forever out o nights and exposed to the dew ; and 

 the inhabitants are always ready to kindly take a 

 stranger in. 



It is a village, and yet country houses stand em 

 bosomed in majestic trees ; cows pasture in the va 

 cant lots and bellow in the streets ; nurseries for the 

 propagation of trees and shrubs give a condensed 

 edition of miniature forests, and furnish in one rod 

 the flowers that Nature, if left alone to her parsimo 

 nious way, would scatter over an acre ; gas is in the 

 residences, pigs root in the public roads, and early 

 peas are combined with plank side-walks. This un- 

 equaled concentration of attractions can be reached 

 in thirty minutes from either the upper or lower 

 part of the city of course New York city is meant, 

 as no one need leave Philadelphia or Boston to get 

 into the country and by a most delightful route, 

 partly on water and partly by railroad. The trains 

 run every hour all through the day, and the line is 

 the safest in the world. This spot, so desirable, so 

 infinitely superior to all others, is Flushing, Long 

 Island. 



I have some property at Flushing which I should 



