A steamboat burned to the water's edge last night, at one of the wharves, and a boy was consumed as he was sleeping in the cabin! It was a pleasure boat, and had been running to different points in the neighborhood of the city all the day previous. The unfortunate boy who lost his life was a wanderer from New York, and had been permitted by the captain to sleep and board in the cabin, until a vessel in which he was about to go to sea, was ready to sail. He had retired to rest, after a day of toil to him, though of pleasure to those upon whom he had been waiting, as one of the hands on board the boat; and met his horrible fate while sleeping in innocent unconsciousness of danger. The neglect of the watchman who had been entrusted with the care of the boat, was the cause of the fire, that unfaithful officer having left his charge to join in a carousal in the town. How fearful a thought, that all our enjoyments are obtained by others' pains! The smiles that deck the faces of the few are watered in their growth by the tears of the many. * * * * * How neglectful of the _minutiæ_ of comfort and convenience are most of those who cater for the traveller's enjoyment in his journeyings along these great thoroughfares of our country! Here are we, arrived in the city of brotherly love, upon one of the very hottest days in the year, and upon asking for rooms at a new and much vaunted hotel, are ushered into a suite of three flights of stairs, and glowing, almost _hissing_, with the concentrated rays of the meridian sun, shining through crimson curtains—“Think of that, Master Brook,”—_crimson curtains_, in weather to set the very mercury in the thermometer a bubbling! As honest Jack said upon a not dissimilar occasion, “it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation!” What salamanders must be the people of the M—— house! We could not stand it, and so, after one night's parboiling, we turned our backs upon the rectangular city, resolved never to “tarry” there, in summer time again, until she had her Tremont, her Page's, or her Astor's to receive and accommodate us. * * * * * Arrived at New York, I was told that half the town were “out of town”—a comfortable assurance, methought, for we can have our choice of quarters. Yet were we three hours in finding a place whereon to lay our heads! I soon learned that by “the town” was meant that wandering, gossipping, gadding, sight-seeking, lionizing, country-visiting portion of this great Babel, who make it a point to spend all “the months that have no R,” at the crowded watering places of their own and the neighboring states. But they have left the streets as noisy, as crowded, and as business-like as ever, and a stranger feels quizzed when told that they are empty.