The lower parts of the town, adjacent to the Hudson, are about as odoriferous and architecturally beautiful as a sixth-rate seaport in "the old country." While, as for Broadway itself--that much be-praised- boulevard--Broadway, the "great," the "much pumpkins, I guess"--to see which, I had been told by enthusiastic Americans, was to behold the very thirteenth wonder of the world!--Well, the less I say about it, perhaps the better! If you are still inquisitive, however, and would kindly imagine what your feelings would be on beholding Upper Oxford Street on a November day--with a few draggling flags hung across it, one or two "blocks" of brown-stone buildings interspersed between its rows of uneven shops, and a lofty-spired church, like Saint Margaret's, jutting out into the roadway by the Marble Arch--you will have a general idea of my impressions when first looking at the magnificent thoroughfare that our cousins love. It has evidently secured its reputation, from being the only decent street in New York--just as Sackville Street in Dublin is "a foine place entirely," on account of its being the only one of any respectable length or width in the city on the Liffey--if you will kindly permit the comparison for a moment? I was disappointed, I confess. Ever since boyhood I had pictured America, and everything belonging to it, from Fennimore Cooper's standpoint. I thought I was going to a spot quite different from any locality I had previously been accustomed to; and, lo! New York was altogether commonplace. Nothing original, nothing tropical, nothing "New World"-like about it. It was only an ordinary town of the same stamp as many I have noticed on this side of the water--a European city in a slop suit--"Yankee" all over in _that_ way! In regard to its extent, which I had been led to believe was quite equal to, if not surpassing, our metropolis, I found that I could walk from one side of it to the other in half an hour; and traverse its length in twice that time--the entire island on which it is built being only nine miles long. "Why," thought I, when I had arrived at this knowledge, "some of our suburbs could beat that!" When bright days came, Broadway undoubtedly looked a little better-- Barnum's streamers, "up town," floating out bravely over the heads of the "stage" drivers--but I was never able to overcome my first impressions of it and New York generally; and, to make an end of the matter, I may say now, that the longer I stayed in the "land of the settin' sun," north, south, east, and west--I had experience of all--the less I saw to like in it. The country and the scenery are well enough; but the people!