with $25 in his pocket, and very little extra clothing in his bundle.

It was now midsummer, the weather dry and hot. He turned his face toward the Erie canal, by which he voyaged most of the way across the State of New York. But at Gaines, some forty miles westward of Rochester, lived the only friend he had in the long route. He traversed on foot the dusty "ridge road" eastward from Lockport the day before he reached this friend. It was a hot day, and the water he was compelled frequently to drink seemed to him very hard; so that by night-fall he fancied it had covered his mouth and throat with a scale like that often found incrusting a long-used tea-kettle. Though the region was gently rolling and very fertile, he should have more enjoyed, he says, a saunter over New England hills and rocks, sweetened by draughts from New England wells and springs. He remained with his friend Saturday night and Sunday till afternoon, when they walked down to the canal together and waited long for a boat. None coming before nightfall he bade his friend good-by, confident that a line-boat would soon heave in sight, bound in the right direction. After waiting till near midnight, he started down the tow-path and walked through the pitchy darkness to Brockport, about fifteen miles, where he took a line-boat in the morning. His sleepy tendencies much amused his fellow-pas gers, to whom "sparking Sunday night" afforded what was supposed to be the proper explanation.

The journeyman in search of work left the canal at Schenectady and proceeded on foot to Albany, whence he went by steamboat to New-York, arriving there on the morning of August 17, 1831. The city of New-York was then less than one-third of its present size, and had probably less than onetenth of its present commercial importance. Brooklyn, the greatest and most magnificent metropolitan development of New-York, was not incorporated as a city until three years afterwards. Not a single railroad reached the city. No line of ocean steamers brought passengers to her hotels nor goods to her merchants from any foreign port. "Still, to my eyes," says Mr. Greeley, "which had never till yesterday gazed on a

FIRST SEES NEW-YORK.

55

city of even 20,000 inhabitants, nor seen a sea-going vessel, her miles square of mainly brick or stone houses, and her furlongs of masts and yards, afforded ample incitement to a wonder and admiration akin to awe." He was not yet twenty-one years old; was tall, slender, pale, and plain; had ten dollars in his pocket; Summer clothing worth as much more, nearly all on his person; and as complete a knowledge of printing as could then be gained in country offices. He frankly admits that his unmistakably rustic manner and address did not favour that immediate command of remunerating employment which was his most urgent need.

However, he stepped lightly from the boat, not at all encumbered with luggage, his personal estate being all tied

up

in a pocket-handkerchief,-and, moving rapidly away from the detested hiss of escaping steam, presently found himself walking up Broad street in quest of a boarding-house. He entered one near the corner of Wall; but the price of board in that aristocratic establishment was $6 per week, and he followed the suggestion of the host by immediately proceeding in search of more democratic quarters. Wandering thence, he never could tell how, to the North River side of the city, he stopped at an humble edifice whereon the sign "Boarding" caught his eye, and forthwith closed a bargain for shelter and subsistence at $2.50 per week. His host was Mr. Edward McGolrick, of No. 168 West street, and his establishment was half boarding-house and the remainder grog-shop. It was quietly and decently kept, however, and Mr. McGolrick and family were kind and friendly.

The next motion in order, of course, was to procure employment; and the young printer had no sooner taken a hearty breakfast, without meat, than he went forth on the common errand of so many millions of men-asking leave to toil. In his ignorance of the city, he traversed many a street in which he might as well have looked for a shower of larks as for a printing-office. It might appear that he adopted the plan of going through the city street by street, which was an excellent plan, to give him a knowledge of the metropolis, but added many miles of useless walking to one in search of work in a

a

printing-office. In the course of this day (which was Friday) and the next, however, he must have visited, he thought, fully two-thirds of the printing-offices on Manhattan Island, and when the sun went down on Saturday night he had not caught a gleam of success. "It was midsummer," he observes, "when business in New-York is habitually dull; and my youth and unquestionable air of country greenness, must have told against me. When I called at The Journal of Commerce, its editor, Mr. David Hale, bluntly told me I was a runaway apprentice from some country office; which was a very natural, though mistaken, presumption. I returned to my lodging on Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, disgusted with New-York, and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next Monday morning, while I could still leave with money in my pocket, and before its almshouse could foreclose upon me. But that was not to be. On Sunday afternoon and evening several young Irishmen called at McGolrick's, in their holiday saunterings about town; and being told that I was a young printer in quest of work, interested themselves in my effort with the spontaneous kindness of their race. One among them happened to know a place where printers were wanted, and gave me the requisite direction; so that, on visiting the designated spot next morning, I readily found employment; and thus, when barely three days a resident, I had found anchorage in New-York."

And now it happened that the very "country greenness which appeared to tell so much against him on Friday and Saturday, was all in his favour on Monday. The establishment in which he had his first work in New-York was that of John T. West, over the publishing-house of McElrath and Bangs, No. 85 Chatham Street, and the work was at his call simply because no printer who knew the city would accept it. The nature of the work is thus described, and all printers will understand how annoying and "lean" a job it was:

"It was the composition of a very small (32mo) New Testament, in double columns, of Agate type, each column barely 12 cms wide, with a centre column of notes in Pearl, only 4 ems wide; the text thickly studded with references by Greek and superior letters to the notes, which