of the darker suicidal
inclinations incident to first-class Humorous Journalism in America.
Reading the 'proof' of an instalment of a comic serial now publishing in
my paper, I contracted such gloom, that a frantic rush into the fresh
air was my only hope of on escape from self-destruction. Let us walk,
if you please."

Led on, in the profoundest melancholy, by this chastened character, Mr.
DIBBLE and the Flowerpot were presently toiling hotly through a
succession of grievous side-streets, and forlorn short-cuts to dismal
ferries; the state of their conductor's spirits inclining him to find a
certain refreshingly solemn joy in the horrors of pedestrianism imposed
by obstructions of merchandise on side-walks, and repeated climbings
over skids extending from store doors to drays. Inspired to an
extraordinary flow of malignant animal spirits by the complexities of
travel incident to the odorous mazes of some hundred odd kegs of salt
mackerel and boxes of brown soap impressively stacked before one very
enterprising Commission house, Mr. BENTHAM lightened the journey with
anecdotes of self-made Commission men who had risen in life by breaking
human legs and city ordinances; and dwelt emotionally upon the scenes in
the city hospitals where ladies and gentlemen were brought in, with
nails from the hoops of sugar-hogsheads sticking into their feet, or
limbs dislocated from too-loftily piled firkins of butter falling upon
them. Through incredible hardships, and amongst astounding complications
of horse-cars, target companies, and barrels of everything, Mr. BENTHAM
also amused his friends with circuits of several of the fine public
markets of New York; explaining to them the relations of the various
miasmatic smells of those quaint edifices with the various devastating
diseases of the day, and expatiating quite eloquently upon the political
corruption involved in the renting of the stalls, and the fine openings
there were for Cholera and Yellow Fever in the Fish and Vegetable
departments. Then, as a last treat, he led his panting companions
through several lively up-hill blocks of drug-mills and tobacco firms,
to where they had a distant view of a tenement house next door to a
kerosene factory, where, as he vivaciously told them, in the event of a
fire, at least one hundred human beings would be slowly done to a turn.
After which all three returned from their walk, firmly convinced that an
unctuous vein of humor had been conscien