Kossuth, come as the envoy plenipotentiary of a Hungary ambitious for freedom, was New York’s hero. Lola Montez, the champion heart-breaker of her century, danced hither and yon. The volunteer firemen of New York ran with their engines and broke one another’s heads. The Young Men’s Christian Association, designed to divert youth to gentler practices, was organized, and held its first international convention at Buffalo in 1854. Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, of the United States army, was in California, recently the scene of the struggle between outlawry and the Vigilantes, and was not very sure that he liked the life of a soldier. Messrs. Heenan, Morrissey, and Yankee Sullivan furnished, at frequent intervals, inspiration to American youth. The cholera attacked New York regularly, and as regularly did the _Sun_ print its prescription for cholera medicine, which George W. Busteed, a druggist, had given to Moses Yale Beach in 1849, and which is still in use for the subjugation of inward qualms. The elder Beach, enjoying himself in Europe with his son Joseph Beach, sent articles on French and German life to his son Moses Sperry Beach’s paper. Literature was still advancing in New England. Persons of refinement were reading Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” and “The House of Seven Gables,” Ik Marvel’s “Reveries of a Bachelor,” Irving’s “Mahomet,” and Parkman’s “Conspiracy of Pontiac.” Marion Harland had written “Alone.” Down in Kentucky young Mary Jane Holmes was at work on her first novel, “Tempest and Sunshine.” But brows both high and low were bent over the instalments in the _National Era_ of the most fascinating story of the period, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The writing of news had not gone far ahead in quality. Most of the reporters still wrote in a groove a century old. Every chicken-thief who was shot, “clapped his hand to his heart, cried out that he was a dead man, and presently expired.” But the editorial articles were well written. On the _Sun_ John Vance, a brilliant Irishman, was turning out most of the leaders and getting twenty dollars a week. In the _Tribune_ office Greeley pounded rum and slavery, while his chief assistant, Charles A. Dana, did such valuable work on foreign and domestic political articles that his salary grew to the huge figure of fifty dollars a week. Bennett was working harder than any other newspaper-owner, and was doing big things for the _Herald_. Southern interests and scandal were his long suits. “We call the _Herald_ a very bad paper,” said Greeley to a Parliamentary committee which was inquiring about American newspapers. He meant that it was naughty; but naughtiness and all, its circulation was only half as big as the _Sun’s_.