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PUBLISHED BY HALL & WILLSON,

115 AND 117 NASSAU STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1856, by

HALL & WILLSON,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY PETER DUNCAN, 22 Spruce Street.

INTRODUCTION.

In the month of May, 1856, I was walking leisurely toward the battery. A gentle breeze came from the west-the full moon was directly over my head, and the light was almost the splendor of a cloudless day. I sought the spot where once the stairs were placed on which the stranger steps as he lands on our soil. I found the place, and stood mute as I gazed in astonishment on all around me. What a change! was the exclamation that escaped from my lips!

Here, where I now stand, Washington once stood! An eminent poet has said that the spirit of Poetry, if the goddess ever visits the earth in a visible form, would here hold her court. Alas, he did not know what wicked aldermen could do!

The evening previous I had called with a friend at the house at which a spiritual medium had arrived, and a few believers had called to congratulate the empiric. To exhibit his powers as a revealing medium, he gave conversations with Bacon, Washington, Franklin, Clinton, Webster, and others; and he

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