I saw one or two more purchasers, before I left my concealment.

And now I may as well observe, that the sale of those works is not confined to one place; wherever I went on board a steamer, I was sure to find boys with baskets of books, and among them many of the kind above alluded to.

In talking to an American gentleman on this subject, he told me that it was indeed but too common a practice, although by law nominally prohibited; and he further added, that once asking a vendor why he had such blackguard books which nobody would buy, he took up one of the worst, and said, "Why, sir, this book is so eagerly sought after, that I have the utmost difficulty in keeping up the requisite supply." It is a melancholy reflection, that in a country where education is at every one's door, and poverty at no one's, such unblushing exhibitions of immorality should exist.
We embarked in the "Lady Franklin," and were soon "floating down the river of the O-hi-o." The banks are undulating, and prettily interspersed with cottage villas, which peep out from the woods, and are clotted about the more cultivated parts; but, despite this, the dreary mantle of winter threw a cold churlishness over everything.

The boat I shall describe hereafter, when I have seen more of them, for their general features are the same; but there was a specimen of the fair sex on board, to whom I must introduce you, as I may never see her like again.
The main piece was the counterpart of a large steamer's funnel cut off at about four feet two inches high, a most perfect cylinder, and of a dark greyish hue: a sombre coloured riband supported a ditto coloured apron.

If asked where this was fastened, I suppose she would have replied, "Round the waist, to be sure;" yet, if Lord Rosse's telescope had been applied, no such break in the smooth surface of the cylinder could have been descried.