In the fall of 1852 a proposition was made by certain parties to commence the publication of an illustrated weekly newspaper in the City of New York. The field seemed to be open for such an enterprise, and I invested twenty thousand dollars in the concern, as special partner, in connection with two other gentlemen, who each contributed twenty thousand dollars, as general partners. Within a month after the publication of the first number of the _Illustrated News_, which was issued on the first day of January, 1853, our weekly circulation had reached seventy thousand. Numerous and almost insurmountable difficulties, for novices in the business, continued however to arise, and my partners becoming weary and disheartened with constant over-exertion, were anxious to wind up the enterprise at the end of the first year. The good-will and the engravings were sold to _Gleasons Pictorial_, in Boston, and the concern was closed without loss. In 1851, when the idea of opening a World’s Fair in New York was first broached, I was waited upon by Mr. Riddell and the other originators of the scheme, and invited to join in getting it up. I declined, giving as a reason that such a project was, in my opinion, premature. I felt that it was following quite too closely upon its London prototype, and assured the projectors that I could see in it nothing but certain loss. The plan, however, was carried out, and a charter obtained from the New York Legislature. The building was erected on a plot of ground upon Reservoir Square, leased to the association, by the City of New York, for one dollar per annum. The location, being four miles distant from the City Hall, was enough of itself to kill the enterprise. The stock was readily taken up, however, and the Crystal Palace opened to the public in July, 1853. Many thousands of strangers were brought to New York, and however disastrous the enterprise may have proved to the stockholders, it is evident that the general prosperity of the city has been promoted far beyond the entire cost of the whole speculation. In February, 1854, numerous stockholders applied to me to accept the Presidency of the Crystal Palace, or, as it was termed, “The Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations.” I utterly declined listening to such a project, as I felt confident that the novelty had passed away, and that it would be difficult to revive public interest in the affair.