ure as the unsuspecting purchaser, who would
cheerfully have burned it rather than see such an instrument of the
Devil in the hands of its owner, little Sally Barnes.

[Illustration: Frontispiece.
Sr. Walter Raleigh and his man.]

Of Samuel Hall's reprints from the popular English publications, "Little
Truths" was in all probability one of the most salable. So few books
contained any information about America that one of these two volumes
may be regarded as of particular interest to the young generation of his
time. The author of "Little Truths," William Darton, a Quaker publisher
in London, does not divulge from what source he gleaned his knowledge.
His information concerning Americans is of that misty description
that confuses Indians ("native Americans") with people of Spanish and
English descent. The usual "Introduction" states that "The author has
chose a method after the manner of conversations between children and
their instructor," and the dialogue is indicated by printing the
children's observations in italics. These volumes were issued for twenty
years after they were introduced by Hall, and those of an eighteen
hundred Philadelphia edition are bound separately. Number one is in blue
paper with copper-plate pictures on both covers. This volume gives
information regarding farm produce, live-stock, and about birds quite
unfamiliar to American children. But the second volume, in white covers,
introduces the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his pipe-smoking
incident, made very realistic in the copper-plate frontispiece. The
children's question, "_Did Sir Walter Raleigh find out the virtues of
tobacco?_" affords an excellent opportunity for a discourse upon smoking
and snuff-taking. These remarks conclude with this prosaic statement:
"Hundreds of sensible people have fell into these customs from example;
and, when they would have left them off, found it a very great
difficulty." Next comes a lesson upon the growth of tobacco leading up
to a short account of the slave-trade, already a subject of differing
opinion in the United States, as well as in England. Of further interest
to small Americans was a short tale of the discovery of this country.
Perhaps to most children their first book-knowledge of this event came
from the pages of "Little Truths."

Hall's books were not all so proper for the amusement of young folks. A
perusal of "Capt. Gulliver's Adventures" leaves one in no doubt as to
the reason that so many