Not even the five-legged calves missed their share of plunder at Niagara, according to Mr. Howells, who paid his money out to assure himself, as he affirms, that this marvel was in no wise comparable to the Falls. "I do not say that the picture of the calf on the outside of the tent," he observes, "was not as good as some pictures of Niagara I have seen. It was, at least, as much like." A writer of a decade before this (1850) speaks very strongly of the impositions to which a traveller is subjected at Niagara. How early in the century complaints began to appear cannot be stated; it would be interesting to be able to get information on this point since it would determine a more important matter still--the time when the Falls began to attract visitors in sufficient proportions to bring into existence the evils we find very prevalent at the middle of the century. The latter writer observes: It would be paying Niagara a poor compliment to say that, practically she does not hurl off this chaffering by-play from her cope; but as you value the integrity of your impression, you are bound to affirm that it hereby suffers appreciable abatement; you wonder, as you stroll about, whether it is altogether an unrighteous dream that with the slow progress of culture, and the possible or impossible growth of some larger comprehension of beauty and fitness, the public conscience may not tend to ensure to such sovereign phases of nature something of the inviolability and privacy which we are slow to bestow, indeed, upon fame, but which we do not grudge, at least, to art. We place a great picture, a great statue, in a museum; we erect a great monument in the centre of our largest square, and if we can suppose ourselves nowadays building a cathedral, we should certainly isolate it as much as possible and subject it to no ignoble contact. We cannot build about Niagara with walls and a roof, nor girdle it with a palisade; but the sentimental tourist may muse upon the chances of its being guarded by the negative homage of empty spaces, and absent barracks, and decent forbearance. The actual abuse of the scene belongs evidently to that immense class of iniquities which are destined to grow very much worse in order to grow a very little better. The good humour engendered by the main spectacle bids you suffer it to run its course.