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THINGS AS THEY COME.

We know of a matter we mean to write about, some

where between this and the bottom of the next column
somewhere within this half-cent's-worth, that is to say
(this page costs you not quite half a cent, dear reader!)
but we must first haul out two or three things that lie a-
top of it in our fact-drawer; facts being, as everybody knows,
obstinate as nails in a keg, when you want a particular one
from underneath.

history of Boston for the last twenty years, is a Utopian beau-ideal of efficiency and order, which will never be repeated. The authoritative break-up of the first formidable bold mayor Elliott quietly took the fire-engines from their symptom of mob-ccracy two years ago, for example,-when turbulent companies, and put them into the hands of a paid fire-police-could never have been done in any other city of this country; and ten years hence, (Boston continuing to increase and vitiate,) a similar pluck at the beard of mob license would be a dangerous experiment.

We have whims, (this lies a-top,) about the face of newspaper type. There are some most worthy and able pe- least a hundred thousand Irish in this city, twenty thousand But look at New-York in comparison. There are at riodicals that we could not read our own obituary in, with- French, sixty thousand Germans, and a miscellany of other out an effort the type is so unexplainably anti-pathetic. nations, that probably leaves scarce one fourth of the popu. Every editor who turns over exchange papers will know lation, (say a hundred thousand,) for indigenous and homeprecisely what we mean. There is no necessity for naming spirited New-Yorkers. One quarter too, of the general those which we should never open if we had them in our pocket "forty days in the wilderness," but we can, without-that of desperate extremity of livelihood, and readiness population, is in a condition that is scarce known in Boston offence, name an opposite example-the PICAYUNE-which, to do any thing for the moment's relief, vicious, turbulent, from the mere witchery of type, a man would like to take out of the post-office on his way to execution. The BOSTON TRANSCRIPT is another—(fact No. 2)—which we fatuitously read, and should read, even if it were edited by that broken mustard-spoon, the Portland Thersites. The type is captivating—a kind of insinuating, piquant, well-bred brevier, that catches the eye like a coquette in a ball-room. And this, be it noted, spite of the "burnt child's" prejudice, for the fair editress does not always put on her gloves, before taking a tweak at our immortality! And, apropos-there is an editor "down South" who sympathises with this typical weakness of ours-declaring in a late paper that the reputation of our letters to the Intelligencer "was entirely owing to the large type in which they were printed." And this we not only believe, but if we ever get rich, we will "fork over the swindle" to our deluded employers.

is, unfortunately, in some measure, a political tool, and or conspirative. The municipal government of New-York compelled to shape its administration somewhat with a view to politics. Harsh measures, used in Boston upon the first germ or symptom of license, are reserved in New-York for such signal instances as are melodramatically flagrant— such as cannot be perverted, by the party out of power, into is now remaining of the Knickerbocker influence in Newa counter-current of sympathy and resentment. What there York, is the degree in which New-York can compare with Boston-and this small remainder of the old Dutch character is, as to power and check, about equal to what will be left of Puritan character in Boston, when Boston by aid of railroads and inducements for foreign residence shall have four hundred thousand inhabitants. Look at the difference in twenty thousand people cross to Hoboken alone, to pass the the observance of Sunday in the two places! At least Sabbath in the fields-foreigners, mostly, who have been in would suppress the ferry, without the slightest hesitation! the habit of making it a holiday at home. The Bostonians There are four or five Sunday newspapers in New-York, and Boston will not support one. in various places in this city, on Sunday evening; and There are German balls oyster-shops, and bar-rooms, and the drinking-places in all The government of the city is, of course, in some directions in the suburbs, have overflowing custom on that degree, a reflex of this large proportion of the sovereign license, it is next to impossible to bring in a city governvoters, and when public opinion countenances a degree of ment that can control it. We have not room to follow out

The reader will see that we are trying to apologise for our dissipation in reading-newspapers being such very loose mental company, and we, as news-writer, having no more business with the luxury of news written, than a shoemaker with wearing the patent leathers he makes for his gentlemen customers. But we have read an article in the seductive type of the Transcript which led us to philosophise a little touching a point of contrast between Boston and New-York; and as we grew up in Boston, but were dug up, and trimmed and watered into flowering in New-day. York, we claim to know both places well enough to run a parallel with fairish fidelity.

The article we speak of was a letter, containing, among other things, a touch-up of the Astor-House; but the Astor is so much the best hotel in the world, that fault-finding, merited as it may be, will send nobody from its door in search of a better. Without alluding farther to the letter, let us jot down the speculation it suggested.

New-York is far more vicious than Boston, without a doubt. But it is not much more vicious than it was, when it was of Boston's size. We have often wished to preach a sermon to the Bostonians from Corinthians 1. iv. 7. "For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou, that thou didst not receive." Up to the present time, the Puritan obedience to authority, and the "power paramount" of good principles, have never been sapped or shaken in Boston. It is but one community, with one class of leading prejudices, and worked by one familiar set of moral, social and political wires. The inhabitants are nearly all Americans, all church-goers of some sect of other, implicitly subject to general and time-honoured principles, and as controllable by mayor and aldermen as an omnibus by passengers and driver. Indeed the municipal"

this comparison in detail—but we wished to outline it, as a reply to the condemnations of New-York, (for the sale of vicious publications, etc. etc.,) made from time to time, by our more virtuous brethren in the north. We shall take another opportunity to enlarge upon it.

We have received several truly delightful and gratifying letters from eminent clergymen of different persuasions, thanking us for the Sacred Numbers of the Mirror Library, and sending us the choice poems which they had severally laid aside, to add to another collection. We had no idea there was so much beautiful religious poetry in existence! This rich vein of literature has been unworked and overlooked, and we assure the religious world, confidently, that we are doing a most important work in the collection of these gems of piety and poetry in a cheap and accessible form. Our last number, "SONGS FOR THE SABBATH," falls behind none of them in interest, and will be a classic in religious books, as long as religious literature exists.

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goodness, or for depravity and sin; whose eyes sparkic at

our approach, and moisten when we leave them; whose Instead of multiplying our remarks upon in cus ears drink in the echoes of our homeward steps, as the propose, or rather, (dropping that solemn plura sweetest music of the day; and whose little feet fly rather belongs to royalty and editorship,) I propose t approach; and whose caresses are few sketches, drawn from real life, illustrative of

than run, to meet our

of sorrow, the exhilarating gas of existence! what matters better describe than by the phrase abandon the very medicine of life, the panacea of trouble, the opiate mischiefs which I have known produced by w it that those young candidates for eternity are abandoned household gods. These sketches, if they are 1

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