he history of New Orleans, written by George W. Cable, who is better
known as a novelist, but who has no mean abilities as an historian. His
familiarity with the Creole element in New Orleans past and present,
together with a very happy style of writing, have made for him more
than a national reputation, from which this sketch will not detract.
Originally his work was intended to occupy some ninety pages of the
report, but later, unfortunately, it had to be condensed into fifty.
Luckily it will not be found necessary to omit a number of interesting
maps that accompany it.

Next in value, perhaps from the purely historical point of view the most
valuable, or at least the most complete, of all, comes the sketch of the
early history of St. Louis, by Professor Waterhouse. The author became
greatly interested in his task, and spent a vast amount of time in
collecting materials for it. From the care bestowed on the work, it may
be taken for granted that this will be as full and accurate an account
of the settlement and early history of the "Philadelphia of the West" as
can possibly be compiled. It is expected that it will occupy fifty or
sixty pages of the report, and even then it will only bring the history
down to 1823, when the first city government was organized.

The largest of the Eastern cities furnish little chance for original
work in an historical line, but yet the sketch of New York by Martha J.
Lamb, of Philadelphia by Susan Cooledge, and of Boston by Colonel
Waring, will be acceptable additions to the very scanty stock of
American historical literature.

The words "very scanty" are used most advisedly, for in very truth the
American _historian_ is a _rara avis_. Of American compilers-of-facts,
to be sure, there have been and are very many, but an aggregation of
details is not a history, nor can a man who makes a book out of local
gossip and the biographies of local heroes and heroines be called an
historian. The truth of this fact has been most forcibly impressed on
the writer in the course of preparing for the Census Bureau historical
sketches of many of the leading cities of the country, and he has become
thoroughly convinced that of all the vulnerable portions of American
literature that which pertains to the history of American towns and
cities is the most vulnerable.

In the first place, American town and city _histories_ are few. In the
second place, the books that pretend to be such are many, and as a r