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No. 1.-T. Flute, Esq., having resolved to allow himself a short vacation from business, during the hot summer months, determines upon a trip to Saratoga and Niagara: he packs his valise, and prepares his wardrobe. No. 2.-Being a young gentleman of method, and in order to be well "posted" upon travelling routes, he purchases at the neighboring stand that invaluable vade mecum, "Appletons' Guide."

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No. 8.-Thus completely prepared, he triumphantly proceeds down Cortlandt-street, at the foot of which lie those "floating palaces," yclept Albany boats. No. 4.-Which being constitutionally afflicted with periodical and spasmodical bell-ringing, our friend Theophilus is misled into the idea that they are just starting. Terrified, he accelerates his pace.

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No. 5.-But arriving at the dock, bathed in perspiration, he discovers to his indignation that it was but the first bell he heard, and that now for a mortal half hour he will be persecuted by the solicitations of precocious news-boys and aged orange-women. No. 6.-After a vast deal of bustle and commotion, to which the tower-building of Babel must have been but a murmur, the aforesaid "palace" departs. Our youthful traveller composes himself for a quiet siesta, when he is suddenly disturbed by a demoniacal negro and bell, who suggest to him the necessity of stepping up "to the Captain's office to settle."

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No. 7.-Having "settled" with the Captain, he is again notified by the same diabolical colored gentleman and bell that supper is ready, and he accordingly seats himself at the table. The boat not being crowded with passengers, Theophilus is well attended by waiters, who arrange themselves before him like ghosts of oriental caryatides.

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No. 8.-The river scenery not being particularly picturesque, with the moon hidden by heavy clouds, our hero determines to seek the arms of Morpheus, and accordingly retires. No. 9.-He is awakened towards morning (after having been most of the night unable to sleep for the thundering of walking-beams and rattle of machinery) by a fiend of a negro, who mistakes him for "the gentleman who wanted to stop at Hudson."

No. 10.

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No. 10.-The "palace" at last arrives at Albany, and our friend Theophilus congratulates himself that his trials are at an end. Alas! Sic transit! he but jumps from the frying-pan into the fire. Those American Arabs, i. e., Albany cabmen, receive him with shrieks and howls. To their fierce embraces we leave him.

RAILWAYS.

From "Heads and Tales of Travellers and Travelling." By E. L. BLANCHARD.

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AKING in the morning to go off by the first train, having previously gone off into a sound slumber, is the "Battle of Life" in sheets-a victory to boast of a display of physical prowess, the very memory of which we may leave as an heir-loom to our children to go with the rest of our astonishing achievements down to posterity. Ugh! ugh! to emerge from one's warm, comfortable bed, to brave the chilliness of the raw morning air-to abandon the billowy embrace of the heaving counterpane for the encircling frigidity of a clean-never mind what to desperately cram carpet-bags by candlelight, with a distressing recollection, at the period of padlocking, that the most important articles have been omitted; and to have, after all this, precisely fifteen minutes to spare for the journey of three miles and a half from your own domicile to the Railway Terminus -such incidental items form, in the aggregate, a trial of skill and a test of patience that sadly disturbs the system of susceptible humanity. It is perhaps as well for his reputation that Job knew nothing of early trains. Who has not felt the vexation of being aroused from a delightful dream about some caliph's palace, and some eastern princess, with whom you were on terms of great intimacy, to hear booming through the darkness the hour of four, at which period you had previously determined to rise for a quiet breakfast, as the train started at six? Who has not experienced the unutterable agony of finding, during the five minutes' doze into which you incontinently fall immediately after this discovery, that some undigested paring of cucumber, some rebellious crumb of an overnight's Welsh-rabbit, has become transformed into an impish incubus that amuses itself-we are not certain of the sex of night-mares, and prefer the neuter-by sounding the tocsin of the terminus immediately above your nose, and thundering forth its stirring tale of the times? If anybody is deficient in the personal knowledge of all this-"happy man be his dole."

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But, to speak honestly, transit by railroad can hardly be called travelling; you are here and you

are there you start, and you arrive at your destina-Aay

tion-the rest is a dream. The process is this. You

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wind your way to the terminus, and invest your coin in the purchase of a small slip of paper, in virtue

of which possession you may be wafted a certain number of miles. Your luggage is taken from you and another ticket is thrust into your hand. Remonstrance is useless; you must believe in locomotive laws, and have faith in it turning up again precisely at the right time and place. From a platform you step into the carriage you select from the train that appears before you, with the mighty engine fuming and fretting and fizzing at the head. You have hardly had time to arrange your coat-tails before, with a jolt, and a jerk, and a rumble, you are off. The engine is chafing, roaring, thundering onwards. You stop. What can be the matter? You remember horrible things. Psha! it is only the first station; and you have travelled ten miles from London before you have recovered breath to look around you. You crane your neck to admire the simple architecture of the building,-"all right" is shouted by the guard -a jet of steam, another roar of the engine-jerk, jolt, and rumble number two, and you are off again. But you roll onward in a mighty chaos; landscapes present puzzling peculiarities; and cows, cab

bages, and cottages become fused into one heterogeneous mass. All seems to teach that practical moral lesson that "nothing is certain," except in the transit through tunnels, when you are not even certain of that. You bob your head out of a window to obtain a prospect for yourself, and, speedily withdrawing it, you present some such prospect as this to your opposite companion.

On every line, and at every period of a train starting, there are certain passengers, characteristic of a class, that you are sure to meet. Thus you will always find among the passengers a stout, ruddy-faced, good-humored individual, with a carpet-bag slung upon one arm and a greatcoat thrown over the other, who seems to be always treating himself to short railway excursions, and bustling about the station in the

busiest and pleasantest manner imaginable. You never see any body with him, and are quite convinced he will not go farther than twenty miles along the line; but there he always is, blandly rubbing his hands together, and chuckling to himself as though impressed with a vague notion that the whole affair was a capital joke, devised for his especial gratification. Another prominent feature is the lady who has lost her bundle, and who will always insist on looking for it herself in the most unlikely and impossible places; rummaging under the bales of goods that came up with the last train; and obstinately believing that the little iron-door for the fire-place behind the engine, is the "boot" of the locomotive, in which the stoker surreptitiously stows away the small parcels that don't go on the top. Then we are sure to see two or three nervous people, diffidently disposed, who are so overcome with awe at the immensity of the building, or the nature of the journey, that they timidly perch themselves, when they enter, upon the extreme edge of the wooden bench that runs along the wall, and await with reverential submissiveness the instruction of the porter, whom they address as "Sir," to take their seats, turning very red indeed in the face if they sneeze, and regarding in the interim a subdued cough as a very heinous offence. if not a positive crime.

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Those strange telegraphic posts, forming the railway code of signals, have an eccentricity of movement that cannot fail to mystify the uninitiated. We never look upon one with its complicated apparatus in motion without tracing a caricature resemblance to a member of parliament making an enthusiastic speech to his constituents. One arm up--then the other arm down, and so on, with a variety of gestures appropriate to the wildest notions of modern electioneering oratory.

As to a railway tunnel, we have often thought, with a loving couple in the coupé, what a capital place it would be in which to pop the question. The rapidity of motion bracing up the fluttering heart, the darkness shrouding the flattering blushes, the whistle responding to the faltering words, and that

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