and hold it in their hands, so that there shall be a scarcity, and they can get a very large price for the wheat. Frequently, a great portion of all the wheat and flour in the country has been in the hands of speculators, which has had the effect to make flour so dear that poor people could hardly afford to buy it. This, I think, is wrong. Last fall, a man who lives on the line of this railroad-so I was informed by the conductor, a very obliging gentleman-bought wheat very largely, and held it through the winter, waiting for a higher price. The higher price did n't come, though the lower price did; and now he is obliged to sell at some rate or other. My informant told me that this gentleman assured him he should not lose less than fifty thousand dollars by last year's speculation.

ARRIVAL AT DETROIT-DISTANCES.

It was on the twenty-second day of February-a memorable day in American history-that I arrived at Detroit. I had proceeded from New York to Albany, by the Hudson River Railroad, about one hundred and fifty miles; from Albany to the Suspension Bridge, by the New York Central Railroad, three hundred miles; and from the Suspension Bridge to Detroit, by the Great Western Railroad, two hundred and thirty miles. How many miles does this make in all? Please add up the separate figures, and see.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF A STRANGER.

I was just about to talk of my sensations, on finding myself at Detroit, which, as you know, is one of the great doors through which the emigrants crowd to the Far West, "a stranger in a strange land." But it popped into my head, just in time, that such talk would have in it about a pound of the ludicrous to every ounce of the sublime. The truth is-I say it not boastfully but thankfully-let me go where I will in my native land, I am sure to find friends, and warm friends, too. It was so at the South last winter. It is so at the West, this spring. Aside, however, from the friends who learned to know Uncle Frank through his magazine, there were some others in Detroit with whom I had enjoyed a pleasant acquaintance for many years. Among these, was my obliging friend, Mr. Francis Raymond, and his pleasant and hospitable family. Under Mr. Raymond's roof I spent some weeks very agreeably, for the most part-though I was ill a part of the time-I do assure you. To the kind attention of Mr. Raymond particularly, as well as that of my other Detroit friends

generally, I am indebted for a pretty extensive budget of information about this part of the country, which shall be unpacked and exhibited for your benefit in due time. Mr. Raymond is the senior partner in the firm of Raymond & Selleck, publishers and booksellers. Their house is one of the most extensive and popular in the State. Detroit is sometimes called the "City of the Straits," as its name, which is French, signifies. You need not ask me why it is so called. A glance at your atlas will enable you to answer the question for yourself. You see it is built on the narrow strip of water which connects Lake Huron with Lake St. Clair.

ROUTE FROM DETROIT TO CHICAGO.

It is a very pleasant jaunt from Detroit to the mammoth city of the North-west. I went by the Michigan Central Railroad. The distance is two hundred and eighty-two miles. It seems long to some of you, I dare say. But there are a great many things interesting to be seen by the way, especially to a person living at a point so far eastward as New York. Not a few fine villages greet the eye, through the whole extent of the road. Let me see if I can recollect them. Some of them I can, I am sure; for I visited them, and made acquaintances in them which I could not easily forget if I would. There is Ypsilanti, a very pretty village, which looks as if every body was thriving, and where every body's face looks as if he hoped every body else was thriving too. Then we come to Ann Arbor, where one of the most flourishing colleges in the Union is situated, at the head of which is Professor Tappan, one of the friends of the Cabinet, who has said many a kind word for it. Then there are Dexter; Leoni, where a flourishing Baptist college is situated; Jackson, a wide-awake business place; Marshall, a place equally wide-awake and more populous; Battle Creek; Kalamazoo, a comparatively old and superlatively thriving village; Decatur; Niles; Michigan City. There is a vast amount of lumber exported from this part of the country. It would do you good to see such giant trees as grow here. The saw-mills are numerous and busy. I am afraid it will not be many years before these giant oaks, ashes, and beeches will all be laid low, and help build houses thousands of miles off. When I look upon a vast forest of trees, some of which have been standing many hundred years, it makes me sad to reflect that they must all be cut down. Oh, what an enemy to the grandeur and glory of these old woods, where the Indian hunter roamed in chase of the deer long before the white man appeared, is the keen edge of the woodman's ax!

I have seldom rode over a pleasanter railroad than the Michigan Central. The cars are fitted up with unusual regard to comfort. It fatigued me less passing over this entire road than it did riding from New York to Albany, which is but little more than half the distance. Those who visit Chicago from the East, should by all means go by the way of Detroit.

ARRIVAL AT CHICAGO.

Chicago is one of the most wonderful cities in the world. It has come up almost like Jonah's gourd, though there seems to be no evidence that it will share the gourd's fate. Twenty years ago, there were about a dozen families in Chicago, now there are seventy-five thousand people in it. Here, also, I found good, warm-hearted friends, one of the most valued of whom is the Rev. John Mason | Ferris, formerly pastor of the church where I worship in Tarrytown. In truth, his family welcomed Uncle Frank as a kind of representative from the hearts and homes of that little village.

MOORE

INFIRMITIES OF GENIUS.

says "the five most remarkable instances of early authorship are those of Pope, Congreve, Churchill, Chatterton, and Byron." The first of these died in his fifty-sixth year; the second in his fifty-eighth; the third in his thirty-fourth; the "sleepless boy" committed suicide in his eighteenth, and Byron died in his thirtyseventh year. Mozart, at the age of three years, began to display astonishing abilities for music, and in the two following years composed some trifling pieces, which his father carefully preserved, and, like all prodigies, his career was a short one-he died at thirty-six. Tasso, from infancy, exhibited such quickness of understanding, that at the age of five he was sent to a Jesuit academy, and two years afterward, recited verses and orations of his own composition-he died at fifty-one. Dermody was employed by his father, who was a schoolmaster, as assistant in teaching the Latin and Greek languages in his ninth year-he died at twenty-seven. The American prodigy, Lucretia Davidson, was another melancholy instance of precocious genius and early death. The ardor of Dante's temperament, we are told, was manifested in his childhood. The lady he celebrated in his poems, under the name of Beatrice, he fell in love with at the age of ten. Wordsworth was nineteen years completing "Peter Bell."

UNCLE FRANK'S MONTHLY TABLE-TALK.

LIFE IN MINNESOTA.

told one of the men that there was a bear out at the spring, and for him to take a gun and go out and see, but he did not think it was any thing, so he would not go. But after a while Mr. Bear came down from the spring, and made himself known in the door-yard.

I have got so I can shoot as well as most men, and I think there is need of it.

MARIA.

Sarah. How I do wish I could insert

cage, but have you ever seen one running wild in the woods? I think I hear you answer, No. But let me tell you there are thousands of bears, as well as other wild beasts, roaming in the forests of our western country. Why, here's my northwestern niece, Maria, living in the Terri- that "fancy enigma" of yours. But I am tory of Minnesota, who don't make any thing of having such animals for companions in her rambles. Listen to her story about life in that region. She talks as coolly of bears and wolves as we do

here of kittens and rabbits:

I like the place where we live, very much. It is rather wild yet, though; there is plenty of wood and water, beautiful meadow, good land, and all that could be expected of a wild place. The bears and wolves, and all other wild animals, are very thick. We saw two bears the other day in front of the door, about as far as it is from your house to the stable. The girl and one of the men, Frank and I, all ran after them. They bounded over the brush, I can tell you, as if they were used to it. Christine and I went to the spring last Sunday. We were sitting down on the ground, talking rather loud, when we heard a loud noise in the brush. We knew it was a bear, for if it had been a deer it would have been frightened and run, and there were no cattle near there; so we got our pail of water and came back to the house without stopping to see what it was, though we knew very well. We

afraid that the rule I have laid down respecting enigmas extremely complimentary to the editor and his magazine, must be enforced in this instance. Is it cruel, my child? I think not, for I don't love to re

fuse you.

You recollect that labyrinth which we had in the January number, don't you? Well, here's a boy that has got something to say about it. Suppose we hear him. Now, Master Russell, your remarks are in order:

Did you not, Uncle Frank, in a former number of the Cabinet, come down in an exterminating article on Shanghais, denouncing the whole race? and lo! here, called greatly improved, what do we see? in the first number of the new volume, Why, a stately Shanghai, right in the centre of a labyrinth, with the euphonious title over it, Shanghai Labyrinth. Don't you confess? Be careful, Uncle Frank, times. Your affectionate nephew, for we youngsters are great critics some

RUSSELL F. KULER.

To this stunning and almost annihilating