Model of First-rate Advertisements for a Modern High-Pressure Sentimental Novel:—
Startling, terrific, paralyzing.—Ditchville Chronicle.
We understand that the publishers of this extraordinary work, in consequence of the immense demand, were obliged to issue three editions at once, and that the united energies of steam and manual labour in New York, have in vain been employed to satisfy the incessant applications for it. On various occasions the police have been called in to protect the booksellers against the insolence of disappointed customers, while several suits for libel are pending against persons who, in a paroxysm of rage, have vented their spleen on the innocent authoress. The excitement has reached a fearful pitch, and all business has been brought to a stand by the absorbing devotion of the public to this great work of genius. In some cases the engineers on the railroads, in perusing it, have been so lost to a sense of duty, as to let the fires of their locomotives go out, and cause the stoppage of trains for hours. Porters may be seen sitting on their wheelbarrows at every corner enjoying its contents. Omnibus horses are growing fat from the refusal of drivers to ply the lash, until they have read it through, line by line, to the fearful catastrophe of the last page, and even the clamorous voice of the newsboy is no longer heard, for he sits crouching over its fascinating pages in his cheerless garret. On the first day of the sale, the doors of the book-stores were strongly barricaded, extra clerks were provided, and yet, despite these precautions, fearful riots took place among the contending crowd, in which, as the historians say, "neither age, sex, nor condition were respected." The truth is, that if many more such books are written in the country, there is great danger that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will be abandoned, and we shall become nothing else than a nation of novel readers.—The Flambeau of Literature.
NOT PARTICULAR.—331.
A Western editor says:—"Wood, chips, coke, coal, corn-cobs, feathers, rosin, sawdust, shavings, splinters, dry leaves, old rags, fence-rails, barn-doors, flints, or anything that will burn or strike fire, taken on subscription at this office."
TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.—332.
A Down-Easter thus distinguishes between different sorts of patriotism:—"Some esteem it sweet to die for one's country; but most of our patriots hold it sweeter still to live upon one's country."
POETICAL PATCHWORK.—333.
Rock'd in the cradle of the deep,
Old Casper's work was done;
Piping on hollow reeds to his pent sheep,
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!
There was a sound of revelry by night,
On Linden, when the sun was low;
A voice replied, far up the height,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.