CHAP. XXIL] NEWSPAPER PRESS. 41 



before they know that the rate acquired by the train 

 will be dangerous. I never witnessed an accident, 

 but as the locomotive usually runs only fifteen miles 

 an hour, and is some time before it reaches half that 

 pace, the urchins are not hurried as they would be in 

 England. One of them was calling out, in the midst 

 of the pine-barren between Columbus and Chehaw, 

 &quot; A novel, by Paul le Koch, the Bulwer of France, 

 for 25 cents all the go ! more popular than the 

 Wandering Jew,&quot; &c. Newspapers for a penny or 

 two-pence are bought freely by the passengers ; and, 

 having purchased them at random wherever we went 

 in the Northern, Middle, Southern, and Western 

 States, I came to the conclusion that the press of 

 the United States is quite as respectable as our own. 

 In the present crisis the greater number of prints 

 condemn the war party, expose their motives, and do 

 justice to the equitable offers of the English ministry 

 in regard to Oregon. A large portion of almost 

 every paper is devoted to literary extracts, to novels, 

 tales, travels, and often more serious works. Some 

 of them are specially devoted to particular religious 

 sects, and nearly all of this class are against war. 

 There are also some &quot;temperance,&quot; and, in the 

 North, &quot; anti-slavery &quot; papers. 



We at length arrived at Montgomery, on the river 

 Alabama, where I staid a few days to examine the 

 geology of the neighbourhood. From the high 

 ground near the town there is a distant view of the 

 hills of the granitic region around Wetumpka. But 

 the banks of the river at Montgomery are composed 

 of enormous beds of unconsolidated gravel, thirty 



