daily paper, called _The Federal Orrery_, was issued three
hundred years after Columbus discovered America. It was not popular,
and killed off the news-boys who tried to call it on the streets: so it
perished.

There was a public library in New York, from which books were loaned at
fourpence ha'penny per week. New York thus became very early the seat of
learning, and soon afterwards began to abuse the site where Chicago now
stands.

Travel was slow, the people went on horseback or afoot, and when they
could go by boat it was regarded as a success. Wagons finally made the
trip from New York to Philadelphia in the wild time of forty-eight
hours, and the line was called The Flying Dutchman, or some other
euphonious name. Benjamin Franklin, whose biography occurs in Chapter
XV., was then Postmaster-General.

He was the first bald-headed man of any prominence in the history of
America. He and his daughter Sally took a trip in a chaise, looking over
the entire system, and going to all offices. Nothing pleased the
Postmaster-General like quietly slipping into a place like Sandy Bottom
and catching the postmaster reading over the postal cards and committing
them to memory.

Calfskin shoes up to the Revolution were the exclusive property of the
gentry, and the rest wore cowhide and were extremely glad to mend them
themselves. These were greased every week with tallow, and could be worn
on either foot with impunity. Rights and lefts were never thought of
until after the Revolutionary War, but to-day the American shoe is the
most symmetrical, comfortable, and satisfactory shoe made in the world.
The British shoe is said to be more comfortable. Possibly for a British
foot it is so, but for a foot containing no breathing-apparatus or
viscera it is somewhat roomy and clumsy.

[Illustration: CAUGHT BY FRANKLIN READING POSTAL CARDS.]

Farmers and laborers of those days wore green or red baize in the shape
of jackets, and their breeches were made of leather or bed-ticking. Our
ancestors dressed plainly, and a man who could not make over two
hundred pounds per year was prohibited from dressing up or wearing lace
worth over two shillings per yard. It was a pretty sad time for literary
men, as they were thus compelled to wear clothing like the common
laborers.

Lord Cornwallis once asked his aidy kong why the American poet always
had such an air of listening as if for some expected sound. "I give it
up," retorted the aidy kong. "