The number which I hold in my hand contains instalments of four serials, as many complete stories, half a dozen poems, contributions by Henry Ward Beecher, James Parton, and Mary Kyle Dallas, and a number of short editorials and paragraphs, besides two solid nonpareil columns of “Notices to Correspondents.” One of the serials is called “The Haunted Husband; or, Lady Chetwynde’s Specter,” and deals exclusively with that superior class of mortals who go to make up what a great many of the old _Ledger_ readers would have called “carriage trade.” Another story, “Unknown; or, The Mystery of Raven Rocks,” bears the signature of Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth, a name venerated in every household in which a red-plush photograph-album is treasured as a precious _objet d’art_. The short stories are simple and innocuous enough to suit the most primitive of brain-cells. The fiction is embellished with three pictures, which are interesting as specimens of a simple and now happily obsolete school of art. The “Notices to Correspondents” are a joy forever, and reflect with charming simplicity and candor the minds of the thousands of anxious inquirers who were wont to lay all their doubts and troubles at Robert Bonner’s feet. It is here that the secrets of the maiden heart are laid bare to the gaze of the whole world. It is here that we read of the young man who is “waiting on” a young widow and formerly “kept company with” a lady friend who is the cashier of the laundry which he patronizes. Not knowing which of the two he ought to marry, he pours out his soul in this free-for-all arena of thought and discussion. “Mary X.” writes from Xenia, O., to inquire if she is a flirt because she has a new beau every two weeks, and is solemnly warned by Mr. Bonner that if she goes on in that way she “will soon have no beaux at all.” “L. L. D.” is a young girl of eighteen, whose parents are addicted to drink. She wishes to know if it is proper for her to correspond with a young gentleman friend who is a telegraph-operator in Buffalo and has made her a present of a backgammon-board last Christmas. That these letters are genuine is proved by their tone of artless simplicity, and by the fact that no single mind or score of minds could invent the extraordinary questions that were propounded from week to week. Careful perusal of the _Ledger_ lyrics reveals a leaning on the part of the poets of that period toward such homely themes as “The Children’s Photographs,” “The Mother’s Blessing,” and “Down by the Old Orchard Wall.” They are all written on the same plane of inanity, and are admirably well suited to the tastes of the admirers of Mrs. Southworth and Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.