some lord of the blood, or some royal sovereign of literature, like Johnson or Addison, had chanced to write his name. The young clerk had a business man's as well as an artist's eye for these things, we found, and was said, by the old book-men, to make such excellent assortments of engravings, etc., which he bound together, as to be able to realize in their sale quite an advance on the original purchase. And so we found merit instead of crime in him, and felt very sure that he could be "counted out." But we had some singular experiences. One of the clerks, as did indeed three of them, boarded in Brooklyn. This one was a Sunday-school teacher, but he came over to New York one Sunday night to attend a religious meeting, and being particularly followed that night, he was found going into a disreputable "ladies' boarding-house." Some of the clerks were Sunday-school teachers, especially certain of them who were middle-aged, and married; but we discovered, in our scrutiny of these clerks, that these older ones especially, had a habit of taking their country customers and friends to see the sights of the city at night, and that in order to beguile these persons, in other words, to "show them proper attentions," they were not scrupulous about forgetting their Sunday-school teachings, and taking these customers into the most questionable dens in the city. In those days the vulgar phrase "seeing the elephant" was more common than now, and included participation in all sorts of small and impure vices. In my opinion, this greed for trade, which impells the competing clerks of different houses to show every possible attention of this kind to the young men (as well as old, for often the old are worse than the young) who come to the city to buy goods, has led to the downfall, the moral and financial ruin, of thousands who would otherwise have led honorable, and perhaps noble lives. But things in this respect are better now a days than they were many years ago in New York. The great advance which the fine arts have made in this country, even within the last ten years, has had much to do with this improvement. The theatre is "a thing of beauty" and attractive in comparison to what it used to be; and everywhere scattered throughout the city are many matters of the higher arts to attract and interest the stranger or frequent visitor even, and so in a measure keep him out of harm's way. The Central Park has been a great educator of the city people out of vices, and has an elevating influence upon country people coming to the city, many of whom "luxuriate" in a visit to it, instead of "dissipate," as in years ago, in the dens of the crowded city; for in winter even, when the cold is intense enough to make ice, joyous nights are spent in skating on the Park pond, or in beholding the witching gayeties of the accomplished skaters.