io6 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



In connection with airships the editor remarks : " We perceive 

 that Mr. Rufus Porter has not yet abandoned the project ... of 

 building a machine for navigating the air against the wind. . . . 

 We are not among those who deny the possibihty of practical 

 aerial navigation. ..." 



The great theatrical star at that time was Jenny Lind, and 

 while her popularity did not, apparently, result in having a brand 

 of cigars named after her, the editor notes " all manner of goods 

 and chattels bearing the name of the Nightingale. We have 

 Jenny Lind hats, umbrellas, shoes, cabbages, apples and chestnuts ; 

 but the last article that we have seen, laying claim to this popular 

 soubriquet, was a Jenny Lind Ash-box." 



Incidentally it is interesting to imagine what our modern 

 Japanese residents would think of the following item of foreign 

 news : " The recent movements for sending a fleet to this out- 

 landish empire [Japan], with sealed orders, has raised quite a din 

 among the politicians." 



In the issue of June, 185 1, there is an account of the great fire 

 in New York on December 16, 1835, with a full-page engraving, 

 which are of interest in connection with the two framed pictures 

 of the conflagration on display in our Museum. 



The editor scores the city on having no public library and says 

 "it is true, that in the south wing of the City Hall is a corner 

 dignified with the cognomen of ' the library room.' . . . there is 

 no library there ; but in its stead, a beggarly array of dusty cases, 

 into which are thrown ... a few odd volumes of proceedings of 

 the Boards of Aldermen and Assistants, a law book or two, and a 

 large concrete of dust. . . . 



" P. S. — Since the above was written we perceive that the 

 Board of Aldermen have passed a resolution authorizing the 

 Clerk of the Common Council to employ a librarian at a salary 

 not exceeding $2^0 per annum!" 



