Again, in February, the publisher advanced before the public with a modest little speech: "We foresaw that our magazine would create a sensation, but we had no idea that it would produce such a commotion as it has done. Everybody is in rapture with it, and the whole town has been crowding to get a peep at it--for, to say the truth, such has been the demand that we could not possibly keep pace with it.... We have already received a larger number of actual subscriptions than were ever before obtained for any periodical in the same period; and we do not hazard anything in predicting that before the expiration of our first year we shall have a greater circulation than any other monthly publication.... And then our contributors are all persons of genuine merit--men and women who write understandingly, and who know how to mingle entertainment with profit. No mawkish sentimentality--no diluted commonplaces--no pompous parade of swollen words--no tumid prosiness can find admission into our columns, for we shall avoid alike the hackneyed author whose reputation takes the place of ability, and the unfledged scribbler whose crudities are utter abominations. We care nothing for mere names, though a good deed is none the worse for coming from a good hand; but the small fry of literature--the lackadaisical geniuses--Heaven bless the mark--who, scum-like, float upon the surface, soiling what they touch and disturbing by their presence what, but for them, might be free from offence--we hold in utter abhorrence." In _Miss Leslie's Magazine_ for April, 1843, appeared the first specimen of lithotinting that had been attempted in America. It was the work of an artist named Richards, who had seen several productions of Mr. Hullmandel, of London, who had been experimenting in this style. The first illustrated comic paper on an original plan published in America was the _John Donkey_. The editors of the paper were G. G. (Gaslight) Foster and Thomas Dunn English. Foster was a reporter on the _North American_ who had written sketches of New York, notably the account of the illuminated clock of the Seward House, and who had been brought to Philadelphia by Morton McMichael. English was born in Philadelphia, June 29, 1819, and in his seventeenth year was a contributor to Philadelphia newspapers. He was graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, and after studying law was admitted to the bar in 1842. His famous song, "Ben Bolt" first appeared in the _New York Mirror_ in 1843.