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ons; a pig never kicks people, nor dashes out their brains, nor drags them by stirrups, nor does other such disagreeable things, but is gentle and sweet tempered; he is all good. A boar's head was the famous dish of antiquity; his hams, and shoulders, and sides enable nations to carry on war, ships to go to sea, and commerce to exist; his bristles help us to keep our heads and clothes clean; his skin bestrides his competitor--and then, upon the classic rule of a part standing for the whole, he is in his right place;

his petitoes are the delight of connoisseurs; his entrails are converted into delicious sausages; and who has not read the apotheosis of roast pig? Of a horse, the hide and bones perhaps are useful, but the worthless carcass is only fit for carrion; dangerous in life, while in death his boiling bones breed a pestilence. Which, then, is the nobler animal?

NOTE.-My horse has just run away again, and I must go and collect the wagon.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE COUNTRY, AND HOW TO GET THERE.

AVERY large portion of every man's life is ex

pended in transporting himself from one place to another, and there are several modes of doing it. The most disagreeable and disgusting is to crowd into a city railroad car, and the next is to ride in an omnibus; the dyspeptic rich use carriages, the healthy poor do not; you can go on horseback if you know how to stay there and your horse is agreeable; in cold weather skating is rapid, in warm weather steam-boats carry you luxuriantly; and, if time is an object, and life is none, you trust yourself to the locomotive. To reach Flushing, you must use both steam-boat and railroad.

"There is one thing," said Weeville, in the commencement of our enterprise, with his usual enthusiastic manner, "that you will appreciate the access to Flushing is most convenient; there are twelve trains each way daily, and they run with perfect

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regularity. No railroad in the country is so well managed as ours, and no trip could be pleasanter. You have a half hour on the ferry-boat, and almost twenty minutes in the cars, just a delightful variety and absolute safety. Why, they have never killed a passenger since the track was laid."

This was certainly satisfactory information, and I had to regret that the necessity of repairing this admirable road compelled its intelligent and exemplary managers to reduce the number of trains considerably the very day I commenced building. But it was certainly time the repairs were made, as a train had just broken through a bridge, and commenced the customary business of killing passengers; and the entire pile-work, which constitutes one half the track, was discovered to be utterly rotted out. I was not sorry the repairs were commenced, although I was sadly inconvenienced, as the speed and regularity had apparently both decayed with the woodwork.

Compared with other places, the superior accessibility of Flushing was apparent. The delay would be temporary, and for good purpose; whereas, if you wish to live on the North River, it is an even chance that you are dumped into the water every day or two; if you travel by the Long Island road, you must

carry a month's provision, and carefully avoid standing on the platforms or sitting in the front car-collisions, at the moderate speed of this road, rarely affect the rear cars; if you are on the line of the Erie, or Morris and Essex, you will have to clamber over Bergen Hill, and take the train after it comes out of the tunnel, provided you desire an approach to safety; and the weight and inconvenience of a lifepreserver on a hot summer day-even one of the patent portable blow-up-able vests of modern invention-render steam-boat travel unendurable. In going to Flushing you have a double cause for rejoicing-you are first thankful when you are safe off the steam-boat and on board the cars, and, in returning, doubly thankful when you are safe out of the cars and back again on the steam-boat.

There is an unreasonable prejudice in the public mind against being killed on a railroad. There are many worse deaths: there is hanging, for instance, but that, alas! is rare, or we should have fewer aldermen; there is being broken on the wheel on the French antique model, or sawed asunder after the Chinese fashion; lockjaw is unpleasant, apoplexy uncomfortable, and epilepsy repulsive. In fact, death is so disagreeable, and comes in so many ways, that a man hardly knows how to make a judicious choice.

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