CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE. G7 



some watch and chain from Miss Ethel Johnson, the 



daughter of Eastman Johnson, the artist. Various 

 amusing anecdotes of William are related. One of 

 them (the compiler does not hold himself responsible 

 for it) is to the effect that during the war, — then, as 

 now, comhining the business of newsboy with that of 

 town crier, — he had occasion to announce a meat-auc- 

 tion; Manassas Junction had just been evacuated, and 

 William, upon the arrival of the boat, with that zeal 

 which has always characterized him, seized his papers 

 and rushed through the streets vociferously shouting: 



u Great battle at Molasses Junction!!! " 



" Great many killed and wounded!!! " 



" Meat auction to-night!!! " 



Drake, in his " Nooks and Corners of New England," 

 thus speaks of the Nantucket town crier: — 



" This functionary I met, swelling with importance, 

 but a trifle blown from the frequent sounding of his 

 clarion, to wit, a japanned fish- horn. Met him, did I 

 say? I beg the indulgence of the reader. Wherever 

 I wandered in my rambles, he was sure to turn the 

 corner just ahead of me, or to spring from the covert 

 of some blind alley. He was one of those who, Macy 

 says, knew all the other inhabitants of the island; me 

 he knew for a stranger. He stopped short. First he 

 wound a terrible blast of his horn: T-o-o-t, t-o-o-t, 

 t-o-o-t!! it echoed down the street like the discordant 

 braying of a donkey. This he followed with lusty 

 ringing of a large dinner-bell, peal on peal, until I was 

 ready to exclaim with the Moor, ' Silence that dreadful 

 bell: it frights the isle from her propriety!' Then, 

 placing the fish-horn under his arm, and taking 



