is no small boon. Americans are always ready to
enter into conversation, and though many queer fish will doubtless be met
with in such interviews, still as one is certain to fall in with persons
from all parts of the Union--easters, Southerners, Western men, and
Californians--the experiment of "knocking around the cars" is well worth
the trial of any person who is not above taking human nature, as we take
the weather, just as it comes.

The individual known by the title of "train-boy" is also worth some
study. He is oftentimes a grown-up man, but more frequently a most
precocious boy; he is the agent for some enterprising house in Chicago,
New York, or Philadelphia, or some other large town, and his aim is to
dispose of a very miscellaneous collection of mental and bodily
nourishment. He usually commences operations with the mental diet, which
he serves round in several courses. The first course consists of works of
a high moral character standard English novels in American reprints, and
works of travel or biography. These he lays beside each passenger,
stopping now and then to recommend one or the other for some particular
excellence of morality or binding. Having distributed a portion through
the car, he passes into the next car, and so through the train. After a
few minutes delay he returns again to pick up the books and to settle
with any one who may be disposed to retain possession of one. After the
lapse of a very short time he reappears with the second course of
literature. This usually consists of a much lower standard of excellence
--Yankee fun, illustrated periodicals of a feeble nature, and cheap
reprints of popular works. The third course, which soon follows, is,
however, a very much lower one, and it is a subject for regret on the
part of the moralist that the same powers of persuasion which but a
little time ago were put forth to advocate the sale of some works of high
moral excellence should now be exerted to push a vigorous circulation of
the "Last Sensation," "The Dime Illustrated," "New York under Gas
light," "The Bandits of the Rocky Mountains," and other similar
productions. These pernicious periodicals having been shown around, the
train-boy evidently becomes convinced that mental culture requires from
him no further effort; he relinquishes that portion of his labour and
devotes all his energies to the sale of the bodily nourishment,
consisting of oranges and peaches, according to season, of a very s