We perused this sentence more than once before we could fathom its meaning. Mr. Slidell wishes to say, that _narrowness of forehead in the rabble is owing to want of mental exercise--they being laborers not thinkers_. But from the words of our author we are led to conclude that some occupations (certainly very strange ones) rendered it unnecessary for those who worked, to administer food to themselves--that is, to eat. The pronoun "_it_," however, will be found, upon examination, to refer to "moral culture." The repetition of the word "only" is also disagreeable, and the entire passage is overloaded with verbiage. A rigid scrutiny will show that all essential portions of the intended idea are embodied in the lines Italicised. In the original sentence are _fifty-four_ words--in our own _eighteen_--or precisely one third. It follows, that if all the Lieutenant's sentences had been abridged in a similar manner--a process which would have redounded greatly to their advantage--we might have been spared much trouble, and the public much time, trouble, and expense--the "American in England" making its appearance in a duodecimo of one hundred and ninety-two pages, rather than in two octavos of five hundred and seventy-six. At page 122, vol. I, we have what follows. "My situation here was uncomfortable enough; if I were softly cushioned on one side, this only tended, by the contrast, to increase the obduracy of a small iron rod, which served as a parapet to protect me from falling off the precipice, over which I hung toppling, and against which I was forced with a pressure proportioned to the circumstances of my being compressed into a space somewhat narrower than myself; the seat having doubtless been contrived to accommodate five men, and there being no greater anatomical mistake than to suppose there would be more room because four of them were women."