CONTENTS. The Battery in the Morning. Streets of Modern Babylon. Street PAGE 13 Music and Light. Instrument Invented by Guzikow. Music of the Planets. The Burning Bell-Tower of Hamburg. Mysterious The Little Match-Seller. Beautiful Anecdote of a Street Musician. Capital Punishment. Conversation with William Ladd. Circum- Mercy to Criminals. Mrs. Fry's Answer. Love-tokens from Friends. Made Good by being Beloved; a still higher joy to love others LETTERS FROM NEW-YORK. LETTER I. August 19, 1841 You ask what is now my opinion of this great Babylon; and playfully remind me of former philippics, and a long string of vituperative alliterations, such as magnificence and mud, finery and filth, diamonds and dirt, bullion and brass-tape, &c. &c. Nor do you forget my first impression of the city, when we arrived at early dawn, amid fog and drizzling rain, the expiring lamps adding their smoke to the impure air, and close beside us a boat called the 'Fairy Queen,' laden with dead hogs. Well, Babylon remains the same as then. The din of crowded life, and the eager chase for gain, still run through its streets, like the perpetual murmur of a hive. Wealth dozes on French couches, thrice piled, and canopied with damask, while Poverty camps on the dirty pavement, or sleeps off its wretchedness in the watch-house. There, amid the splendour of Broadway, sits the blind negro beggar, with horny hand and tattered garments, while opposite to him stands the stately mansion of the slave trader, still plying his bloody trade, and laughing to scorn the cobweb laws, through which the strong can break so easily. In Wall-street, and elsewhere, Mammon, as usual, coolly calculates his chance of extracting a penny from war, pestilence, and famine; and Commerce, |