North America

It was well for me that a mind at rest, on at least one very important point, was my portion that night, else the nightlong fight with the mosquitoes had been horrible indeed. They seemed to come out of the ground. When despair of getting any sleep had taken possession of me, I turned with such calmness as I could muster to the task of killing them off. By diligent application I hoped in the end to secure a little respite. To interest myself I began to count my kill; but when it had reached one hundred and fifty, and yet they came, I gave it up.

I awoke on Friday at 2.30 A.M. The morning was clear as diamonds, and from the open front of my tent I could see the eastern sky. It glowed a deep red gold, and I lay watching it. An hour later the sun appeared over the hills touching the peak of my tent with its light, and I got up to look out. The mists had gathered on our little lake, and away in the distance hung white over the river.

Gilbert was busy getting wood and preparing the breakfast. Soon I heard him at the door of the men's tent saying, "All aboard."

"Any mosquitoes this morning, Gilbert?"

The day following no one was astir early. I think no one slept much. I could hear from the other tent the low hum of the men's voices far into the night. Mosquitoes kept me awake. About 2 A.M. I got up, lighted my candle, and killed all I could find, and after that I had a little peace, but did not sleep much. It was then growing light.

It was the sun that did it, or else it was a scheme on the part of George and Job to work in an extra pudding. However that may have been, we found ourselves on Wednesday morning not yet on Lake Michikamau, and we did not reach it until 5.15 P.M. that day.

As we have said before, land for building purposes is very high and scarce in New York. In consequence of this, dwellings rent here for more than in other American cities. The laying off of the Central Park was a decided benefit to the city and its inhabitants, but the blessing had also its accompanying evil. It reduced the "house room" of the island by eight hundred acres, which would have afforded comfortable accommodations for seventy-two thousand persons, and naturally crowded the lower quarters of the city to a still greater extent.

Strangers coming to New York should always be on the watch for pickpockets, and even natives are not careful enough in this respect. Picking pockets has been reduced to a science here, and is followed by many persons as a profession. It requires long practice and great skill, but these, when once acquired, make their possessor a dangerous member of the community. Women, by their lightness of touch and great facility in manipulating their victims, make the most dangerous operators in the city.

Many years ago a sharp-witted scamp appeared in one of the European countries, and offered for sale a pill, which he declared to be a sure protection against earthquakes. Absurd as was the assertion, he sold large quantities of his nostrum, and grew rich on the proceeds. The credulity which enriched this man, is still a marked characteristic of the human race, and often strikingly exhibits itself in this country.

Those employment agencies whose advertisements may be daily seen in our city papers, are well exposed in the following experience of a young man in want of a situation.

Street musicians in New York are as plentiful as the leaves in Vallambrosa. One cannot walk two blocks in the entire City, without hearing from one to half a dozen street instruments in full blast. A few of the instruments are good and in perfect tune, but the majority emit only the most horrible discord.

                     THE ORGAN GRINDERS.

We cannot hope to do justice to this branch of our subject. To treat it properly would require a volume, for it is full of the saddest, sternest, and most truthful romance. A writer in Putnam's Magazine for April, 1868, presented an able and authentic paper on this subject, which is so full and interesting that we have decided to quote a few extracts from it here, in place of any statement of our own.