FEB. 49 
122 
to toe abroad. There wrh no rumbling or cars; no 
tramp of feet, no rattling or carriages, and clatter 
of horses hoofs upon the pavement; but every¬ 
thing betokened that quiet repose to which It was 
the custom of the city to devote the hours of 
nlcrht. 
There was little to Interest me at the window, 
so I soon turned from it and went to bed. It. was 
a long time, however, before my mind ceased to 
revolve the events of the evening, and I composed 
myself to sleep. 
CIIAPTER II. 
BREAKFAST HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. 
I awoke in the morning quite refreshed, and 
quickly making my toilet, I sought the breakrast- 
room, ror my long fast had made my appetite rav¬ 
enous. The large hall was already Oiled with 
guests—noble looking men and women—who gazed 
at me as 1 passed down the long hall with much 
the same curiosity that 1 suppose we would look 
upon a harmless and respectable inhabitant of the 
Islands of the Caribbean sea. I afTected to be In¬ 
different to their observation, however, and took 
the seat proffered me by a waiter with an air of 
much importance. 
* “ coffee, porter-house steak and a hot roll,” said 
I, sententlously, taking no notice of the bill of fare 
which the waiter placed before me. lie looked at 
me and shook his head dubiously. Evidently he 
thought, I was speaking In a foreign language, for, 
without saying a word, and looking at me slgnlfl- 
cantly. he pointed to the bill of fare. I looked It 
ever. It, was meagre and plain enough to suit the 
most, abstemious habit. So far as I could under¬ 
stand the dishes, they were composed chiefly of 
grains and vegetables. Mush seemed to be the 
favorite dish with the guests, for as I looked over 
the hall nine-tenths or the breakfasters were en¬ 
gaged wltn bowls and spoons. 
I called for a dish of nalrma, at a venture, and 
was about to supplement my order with several 
other dishes In order to give variety to my repast, 
but when I looked up the waller was gone. A 
minute afterward he returned,-bearing a bowl of 
milk and a dish which proved to be oat-meal. For 
oatmeal It was certainly very palatable, but my 
taste was not simple enough to relish it In the 
same degree that I saw those around me doiDg. I 
craved my cup of coffee and my hot roll. 
FIG. 101. 
“ Can you not give me a cup cf aoffee ?” I asked 
of the waiter. 
“ Coffee!” he repeated. “ No, sir; I have never 
heard of that dish.” 
“ Never heard of coffee 1” I exclaimed, “ and a 
waiter In such a grand hotel as this.” 
“ 1 must confess that the dish Is quite unknown 
to me,” he replied, *• and I doubt If you would be 
able to And It in the city. Perhaps, however, it 
may he a dish well known among us, but called 
by another name In your country, for I judge you 
to be a foreigner.” 
The fact is,” 1 said, “ it is not a dish at all, but a 
drink.” 
“ A drink I” he exclaimed, “ Then it certainly 
cannot be known among us; ror we never drink 
anything In this country but water and milk.” 
••Youdon't say so!” I exclaimed. “MUk and 
water, eh ! Really now, my good fellow,” 1 con¬ 
tinued, In a sly and conlldlng manner, “ you don’t 
mean to say that you never take a nip now and 
then when you are out of au evening, skylarking 
with your friends ” 
“Excuse me, Blr,”sa1d he, with an alrofdignity 
which would have become a statesman. “ You 
use terms which, are qultelncoraprebenslble tome. 
Bur. so far as 1 am able to judge from your man¬ 
ner, the idea which you intend to convey Is not at 
all complementary to my personal worthiness.” 
1 looked at the fellow In surprise, ills appear¬ 
ance was all that this language seemed to Imply, 
indeed, he had so much the look and maimer or a 
true born gentleman, that I felt constrained to ask 
his pardon for being so familiar. 
** is it not the custom or this count ry loeatmeat 
at breakfast V 1 asked, glad to change the subject 
into another channel. 
-Meat!” he repeated with a puzzled look, as 
though he did not comprehend the meaning of the 
word 
Yea, meat,” 1 replied, •• the flesh or animals.” 
Jle locked at mo with a horrified expression, as 
though l were a cannibal with my knife drawn to 
whip oil a tidbit from his plump, finely developed 
person. 
It is not the custom or our country to eat the 
flesh of animals at all,” said he. 
Well! well 1” 1 exclaimed. “Vegetarians, 
and yet a race or vigorous, muscular, aud finely 
developed people ! Surely you must have some 
substitute tor meat beside the fruits of the earth. 
Why in my oountry meat Is considered the very 
juice of life among articles of food.” 
THE 
NEW-YORKER. 
At this juncture the waiter went off to serve a 
newly arrived guest, and my query was left to be 
answered by my own observation. The substan¬ 
tial part of the meal seemed to be now pretty gen¬ 
erally finished, and the waiters were distributing 
among the guests dishes of various kinds of fruit, 
the largest and most luscious In appearance that I 
had ever seen. Though I had arrived late tn the 
breakfast hall, I was ready for the dessert as soon 
as any, for I was always a rapid eater, while the 
other guests seemed to devote themselves to the 
meal with a deliberation, which, for the morning 
repast, seemed to Indicate that business was not 
at all pressing. They talked and Joked and laugh¬ 
ed much after the manner of invited guests at an 
evening repast, after the cares and labors of the 
day have been concluded. But my surprise at the 
1-lG. 102. 
want of Impatience to get off to business which 
characterized the guests was Increased when, the 
last course of the meal being scarcely finished, the 
room was suddenly fllled with the most delightful 
music, which held the people to their seats for a 
full half hour after the meal had been concluded, 
l looked about me in every direction for the source 
of the music, but It was so etberlal that It seemed 
to pervade equally every portion of the room. To 
mo, at least, Its Influence was delightfully sooth¬ 
ing. Every mental faculty seemed lulled to re¬ 
pose, HLd, scarcely conscious of the existence of 
bodily organs, every necessary function was per¬ 
formed without a disturbing Influence. 
As soon as the music ceased the guestB left the 
hall with one consent, and departed to their vari¬ 
ous avocations. There was no lounging about the 
office of the hotel, smoking and gossiping, but each 
one seemed to have business to do and went di¬ 
rectly about it. 
CIIAPTER III. 
WHAT 1 LKABNED OF THE TEOPLE FROM THEIR 
NEWSPAPERS. 
I stepped up to my friend, the news- dealer, and 
asked him for a morning paper. 
“ wmch will you have,” he Inquired, “the Chron¬ 
icle, the Messenger or the Intelligencer ?” 
“ What are their politics?" 1 asked In return ; for 
It had always been the pride or our family that we 
never read any but Republican papers. 
“ Politics 1” he exclaimed, with a look of sur¬ 
prise. “ They have no politics; that Is, If i have 
a correct apprehension of the term. You refer, I 
suppose, to their opinions upon questions of gov¬ 
ernment.” 
“ Exactly. And do you mean me to understand 
that there la no diversity of opinion upon ques¬ 
tions of this character among your newspaper 
men?” 
“ None whatever. Our government Is very sim¬ 
ple, and founded upon axioms to which all the 
people give a unanimous assent.” 
•• indeed,” Bald I. “ Happy, then, must be your 
condition as a people. But pray, sir, what do your 
newspaper men And with which to All up their 
columns?” 
“They deal mainly with questions of science. 
In recording discoveries, sifting opinions and dis¬ 
cussing hypotheses they flud abundance of enter¬ 
taining information to impart to Their readers.” 
“ And do the people in general take au interest 
in these scientific discussions ?” 
“ Certainly. They have their preferences, of 
course, some are particularly Interested In what 
Is transpiring lu the worlds about us. These take 
ihe Chronicle; for, aside trom the general newB of 
the country, this is peculiarly the organ of the 
Astronomers Others take a special Interest In the 
pre adamlie world and Its inhabitants. These read 
the Messenger, as It Is devoted to the discussion 
ot questions relating to the early period of the 
eat ill's existence, so every leading paper Is the 
special organ of some branch of science, at the 
same time that It is the chronicler of the general 
news of the country.’ ’ 
A dozen questions at once arose In my mind re¬ 
lating to this peculiarity of newspaper enterprise, 
but, having some pride In not wishing to show my 
utter Ignorance of each common matters, I bought 
the three leading papers and sat down to give 
them an examination. 
I first took up ihe Chronicle. 11a leading article 
on the first page was au account of recent discov¬ 
eries in the planet J uplter. It seemed that a cer¬ 
tain Ingenious and asiute astronomer had lately 
perfected an improvement In astronomical Instru¬ 
ments by which the heavenly bodies were brought 
some millions of miles nearer the earth than they 
had ever been before. Thus the planet Jupiter, 
which had been enlarged from a twinkling star to 
a great disk, with valleys and mountains clearly 
discernible, was now brought so much nearer to 
the earth that moving objects could be discovered 
in the dark ground between the shining belts of 
the planet. 
owing to the rapid revolution ot the planet, and 
the obscuilty doubtless arising from the shadow 
or Jts rings, or the mists of Its atmosphere, It was 
a difficult matter to get a view of these moving 
objects sufficiently clear and continued to obtain a 
reliable Idea ot their forms and natures. Occasion¬ 
ally they would come out In strong relief, probably 
wnen a direct aspect was ^ivored by a clear at- 
mosph ere, and a favorable conjunction of light 
from the planet’s satellites. Then a rapid obser¬ 
vation brought out their outline with sufficient 
distinctness to make certain that they were largely 
made up of hideous-looking monsters of the sau- 
vlan order, something like those which Inhabited 
the earth In one of Its geological periods. They 
seemed to swarm In countless numbers, especially 
on the borders of what looked tike glistening 
plains, which was probably the water or other fluid 
peculiar to the planet. 
There were beside these, immense creatures 
which moved upon the laud, and which seemed to 
appear and disappear among what was undoubt¬ 
edly the foliage or tho planet: and others were 
more bid-ous and uncouth still, which seemed to 
move with much rapidity over the face of both 
land and water. From this fact, and the striking 
peculiarity which they presented of alternately 
diminishing and Increasing In size as they moved 
across the face of the planet, as well as the fact 
that they sometimes appeared as a moving mass 
behind which, as It moved along, every other ob¬ 
ject on t he planet disappeared, It seemed reason¬ 
able to conjecture that they must he winged mon¬ 
sters, analogous to the Ft erosauvlans of our own 
primitive world. 
In other respects the appearance of things on 
the planet seemed to indicate that It was In a very 
early period of Its existence. There were great 
ranges of mountains, dark with forests, and great 
rivers flowing tn the valleys, while now and then, 
as the planet revolved on Its axis, a volcano, 
belching forth fire and smoke was Drought into 
view. What appeared of the planet outside its 
lings was of a glistening brightness, variegated 
with darker shadings, which told of glaciers and 
great Helds of snow and Ice. But nothing which 
came within range ot the telescope spoke of an 
Inhabitant possessed of reason and intelligence. 
Such in brief was the gist of the article. I had 
to read It over several times to get a clear Impres¬ 
sion of it, it was so Incumbered with scientific 
terms which I did not understand, and contained 
so many allusions to matters of which I was 
wholly ignorant. 
The Inhabitants of Mars and the condition of 
things generally on that planet were spoken 
or in such familiar language that It certainly ap¬ 
peared to me that some sort or telegraphic com¬ 
munication must have been established between 
the astronomers of these two neighbors in the 
planetary system; while trom many allusions to 
Mercury aud Venus, l Inferred that the physical 
peculiarities or these planets were almost as well 
known as those of the earth Itself. 
Turning from the Chronicle to the Messenger. 
I found Its leadlDg article to be a long-winded and 
tome quite unintelligible dissertation on the re¬ 
mains of extinct anlmalB of prehistoric time. 
I marveled that such articles should be found of 
as much Interest to the general public as their 
place In a great dally paper seemed to Imply. 
But I was continually forgetting that I had fallen 
among a very superior people; whose vigorous 
minds were capable ot digesting such mental 
pabulum with the same facility aud gusto that 
the general public ot my own country devoured 
the political tirades, party glorifications, and pub¬ 
lic and domestic soandals with which they were 
dally regaled. 
I next took up the Intelligencer to learn some¬ 
thing of its peculiarities. But It was devoted to 
a science of which I had never even heard. It 
seemed to have some relation to the solar and 
lunar rays of light to connection with malarial 
emanations from the surface of the earth, but it 
was as profoundly dark and deep to my mental 
vision as a dessertatlon In protoplasm would be 
to a Ooshoot Indian. 1 therefore turned for re¬ 
lief to the general news of the day. And, mar¬ 
velous to relate, lu each of the three great dallies, 
which were much greater In size, though 
printed In much larger type than the leading 
papers of my own land, the news or the country 
which was not distinctively scientific was Included 
In a single page. And It was tame and uninter¬ 
esting enough to aeeord completely with the other 
matter of the paper. The blood curdling murders, 
and brutala assults to which whole columns were 
devoted In the periodical of my country; the drunk¬ 
en lawlessness,the suicide's, the robberies,the defal¬ 
cations, the fires and other cataatropfiles on land 
and s:>a, by which human life is destroyed and 
FIG. 10.1. 
happy homes mode desolate, the domestic scan¬ 
dals which the news mongers toll as sweet mor¬ 
sels under their tongues, tho party jealousies 
and animosities; the scurrilous attacks upon 
men of an opposite political fait la, lu flue all those 
Items of news gathered from near and far, with 
much assiduity and at great expense, which 
makes the newspapers of my own country in so 
large a degree a record of crime, human misery, 
Uuinau weakness anil tho activity of the debasing 
passions of our nature, all these were entirely 
excluded from the uews columns of tho papers 
Delore me, 
Is It possible, thought!, that there can be none 
ot these events to record, or are they excluded be¬ 
cause popular sentiment disapproves of Ibelr pub¬ 
lication. 1 Inclined to the latter opinion, for great 
as was my regard for the virtue and Intelligence 
of this people, I could not believe that they were 
raised so completely above the common accidents 
of life, and the common frailties of our nature, as 
the exclusion ot such matters from their dally 
papers seemed to Imply. 
What, then, was the character of the general 
news of the country? It was made up of such 
dry Information as marine Intelligence, mercantile 
Intelligence, agricultural intelligence, serial Intel¬ 
ligence; for it seemed that In this country travel 
by alr-shlps was as common as that by boats and 
railroads In my own. Dea’h and marriage notices 
of eminent persons, discoveries and Inventions of 
things generally useful, social Items ot popular 
Interest, and matters relating to the municipal and 
state governments. 
I could not but express surprise at the character 
and meagreness of this last class of news to which 
so much importance Is given In the papers of my 
own land, and which too often pays but a poor 
compliment to the charitableness, purity and In¬ 
tegrity of human nature. 
Rere Is a sample or two from the Chronicle: 
“Mr. Jasper J. Praiseworthy, who has filled so 
acceptably the position of treasurer to the city of 
Hopewell for flfly-seven years has resigned on 
account of the increasing infirmities of age, and 
has appointed his son, who has been associated 
with him in the performance of his official duties 
for the past eight years, his successor.” 
“ We learn from the semi-annual report of Gov¬ 
ernor Boyle that a surplus or $in,ooo remains In the 
treasury after all claims against the government 
have been satisfied ; and that be purposes devoting 
half of this amount to the relief of the sufferers 
toy the recent hurricane In the province of Ven- 
trolln. The remainder will be divided among those 
persons who sustained damage from the freshet 
on Hello Creek during last Spring, pro rata, to the 
amounts which they have severally reported.” 
“ Id accordance with the recommendation of 
the people of Menllth township, .Governor Wen¬ 
dell has made euch a modification of the regula¬ 
tions respecting the mrl&l postal service as the 
peculiar topography of that township seems to 
render necessary. 
My mental comments on these items of govern¬ 
ment news may be easily Imagined. They cer¬ 
tainly corroborated the statement of the news- 
dealer that the government was very simple, and 
founded upon uxloma to which the people give a 
unanimous assent. Such wonderful powers as 
Beemed to be granted to the rulers, certainly ap¬ 
peared to me to betoken great unanimity among 
the people.—[To be continued. 
A REMINISCENCE OF BOOTH, THE ACTOR. 
One day, while Booth, the father of the present 
world-renowned actor, was rusticating in the 
country, enjoying much-needed rest, he was ac¬ 
costed by a friend, and after the usual salutations 
were passed, conversation naturally turned to 
acting, recitation and kindred subjects. The 
friend remarked, “ Now, M r. Booth, I would like 
to ask If you have ever heard the Lord's Prayer 
read or repealed with anytlfing like the earnest¬ 
ness and heart-felt devotion which ought always to 
characterize the rendering of It?” “No,” replied 
Booth, “ I have not. NO one seems to enter heart 
and soul Into It as they ought.” “WeU, Booth,” 
said his friend, “ I should like to hear you try It 
some time. As one who has devoted much time 
and study to a proper rendering of both prose and 
poetry, you must have your ideas about this.” 
fig. 10-». 
After a moment’s consideration, Booth replied : 
“Now, sir, I do not know that I could do it with 
any greater effectiveness than a thousand others, 
hut 1 have my Ideas about It, as you say, so I’ll 
tell you what I’ll do. A while ago I overheard 
some of the church people of the village saying 
that they would like to raise some money for 
church purposes, so, to help them a Utile, If you 
wUl get their consent to open the church one week 
from to-night, I’ll recite the Lord’s prayer there. 
However, I must have the privilege of arranging 
the plattorm, desk, lights, etc,, as I wish. Put the 
admission fee at a dollar; they won’t lose much, 
If there’s no gain.” So. presently, the friend de¬ 
parted, talked the matter over with the village 
people, and advertised the reading of the Lord’s 
Prayer by Booth, the actor. 
The evening came, and the church was crowded 
to its utmost capacity. Booth’s world wide repu¬ 
tation assured him of a hearty welcome wherever 
he might go, and in whatever rote he might ap¬ 
pear. On the platform, lu the cemer, stood the 
small pulplt-desk, and on It. a single Dickering 
lamp cast a somber light over the scene. No other 
fight, was Id the house, and a heavy twilight, ap¬ 
proaching darkness, rested upon the audience. 
Precisely at the appointed time, a human figure, 
clad In the long, black vesture of a monk, came 
slowly and reverently upon the platform, from a 
side door, and moving toward the desk, knelt down 
before the open Bible, lying upon it, so that the 
lamp-light shone lull upon the upturned face aud 
eyes. The prayer began and all through from the 
“Our Father” to the last “ Amen,” no sound was 
heard save the solemn, awe-lnsplrlug voice, re¬ 
peating those precious words. 
A solemn stillness prevailed I No one seemed to 
breathe, lest a single syllable should be unheard! 
Every eye was riveted upon that almost divine 
face, and every ear was strained to catch the faint¬ 
est whisper. 
The “Amen” came, the last faint seund was 
wafted to those who listened In almost painful 
suspense, the mournful figure glided back to the 
entrance door and was lost to sight. Not until the 
click of the latch was heard, as the door closed be¬ 
hind him, did the audience recover rrom this al¬ 
most superhuman Influence, then, as one present 
said, a great sigh rose from every breast, as If a 
weighty burden were removed, and the people 
