WE have a receptacle for lost property, and many a strange article is picked up in these cars. It would astonish the curious to see the odd combination of waifs that lie in confusion in this treasury. The limbo of Milton is common-place in the comparison:

'Cowls, hoods, and habits,

tossed

And fluttered into rags: then relics, beads;' etc.;

such strange, incomprehensible little articles of female apparel! What abstruse mysteries are revealed! What fruitful suggestions are furnished to those curious in that way,' of the myriad appliances necessary to compose the female figure! What tell-tale discoveries of the fanciful wants and necessities of manly nature too! What odd juxtaposition of things abhorrent of each other! Fancy, for instance, a lady's silken garter lying in dumb unconsciousness cosily between the thumb and finger of the glove of some careless gentleman! But I will resist the temptation and not disclose too fully the secrets of our mystery."

The most marvellous thing that ever fell in my way in this manner (as no owner ever called for it) I took the liberty of laying violent hands upon. One day as I had just discharged my cargo at the end of the route, I was passing as usual through my car to pick up any estray that escaped from the passengers, when my attention was attracted to a crumpled mass of paper that seemed covered with curious marks as it lay at my feet. I stooped rather mechanically to examine it more closely as I passed, when the very strange characters inscribed upon it excited my curiosity and induced me to pick it up. Having gotten it into my possession, my curiosity was aroused more than ever. I now discovered the paper to be a very closely and minutely written manuscript on several sheets of very thin paper that had been folded into so many creases as to present a superficies scarcely more than two or three inches square on either side. It had partially lost its folds, and was soiled with marks of having been trampled under foot. From this I inferred that, like most lost MSS., it was thought by those who might have seen it, to be of no use except to the owner; but I looked at it more narrowly. The characters inscribed upon it looked very like the pot-hooks we used to make at school in our birchen days, when the 'twig was bent' for us. I could not satisfy myself to throw this paper away, although I could scarcely tell why I did not. Having a passion for scribbling in my early youth, I always entertained a kind of respect for manuscripts, and felt a twinge of compunction at the sight of a written page tossed and tumbled in the dust and mire. Be that as it

may, without puzzling my will further, I followed Hoyle's precept wherein he so very astutely says: 'When in doubt, take the trick.' ́ ̄`I knocked the dust from the paper, and, crumpling it in my hand, went on with my duties.

Going down-town that day I encountered a very ingenious scholar, who had often spoken kindly to me as he rode in my cars, and in whom I had early discovered a ready and eager eye for the marvellous. I showed him the document. He examined it with much care, and begged permission to take it. He felt assured it was written language, and he could decipher it. The next day he returned me the papers, and told me very triumphantly he had unravelled the whole matter. It was a letter or diary written by the two little AZTECS (who some years ago were in this city) for the benefit of their friends at home in IXYMAYA, and it had either miscarried or was a draft thrown away after having been copied. The manner of folding the paper was probably Ixymayan. It was wonderful how such an immense wilderness of marks and characters had ever been inscribed on these few pages. The chirography was peculiar, as I have stated, and also in some degree resembled writing backward and bottom-side upward. The language proved to be composed of exceedingly bad broken English, interspersed with a great many unpronounceable words, which, as my friend told me, he had only been able to fathom from their close resemblance to the dialect of ZOHAR MOSES the elder, an early Hebrew author, whom he was then studying, with whose literary remains he was familiar. His mode of arriving at the letters and spelling the words was rather novel, and he communicated the invaluable secret to me in a forcible whisper. He had stood upon his head and read the MSS. from the bottom to the top, and volunteered to put me in the same position that I too might read. I begged to be excused, and (with an ingenuity that my friend seemed never to be tired of admiring) I turned the MSS. upside down instead of myself, and then, by the aid of my friend, these mysterious and cabalistic words were gradually unravelled to my poor understanding.

There was something so striking and peculiar in the situation of these pigmy adventurers among us, that I have fancied a translation into readable English, of some parts of their MSS. would not be uninteresting. I purpose to give, without further preface, a few passages from it, such as I deem most worthy of notice. After some few common

places and exclamations of wonder at the strange sights presented to them their MSS. proceed: 'Since we set out upon our travels into this funny Empire we have been so bewildered with prodigious marvels we scarcely know whether we dream or are wide awake. We are now in a place the natives call A CITY.' [This is an ingenuous allusion to New-York.] 'It consists of a great many stones, of many colors, forms, and sizes, piled up together in various plain or fantastic shapes, and the people live in the holes left between them. They call these holes 'houses, and they have them arranged in rows adjoining each other, so that in case of fire a great many can burn together at the same time. For you must know that these creatures here worship FIRE as well as more enlightened mortals like ourselves.'

'On great festal occasions too, when they illuminate the city by burning up a hundred or two of these dwelling-places, to their credit we must say, they devoutly offer up to their gods some dozen or so of human beings (such as they are) beside. Indeed, of all people we have encountered, none seem so worthy your prayers, and in the matter of human sacrifices so much after the manner of our own faith. Though their offerings are shabby enough, they are as good as they can procure. They do not, as in some countries to the southward, through which we have passed, limit themselves to persons accused or suspected of crime or insolent language. Criminals (after a few months' imprisonment in the same cell with the witnesses arrayed against them) they put through a mock trial for the sake of vindicating the majesty of justice' as they term it, and then set them free as unfit offerings and unworthy of sacrifice. Self-destruction is one of their favorite religious ceremonies. They are, in this respect, very unlike the natives of many dull countries where we have been, in which this mode of divine worship is carried on, as it were, almost by stealth, under color of an occasional suicide or murder. These New-Yorker peoples' do understand this business better.'

'We will try and give you a little idea of their way of doing it. They use for this purpose a kind of large boats, propelled without sails, and sometimes wagons, moved without horses, by the mere power of 'the smoke of hot water.' Periodically, at short intervals, they load these boats or wagons,' as the case may be, as fully as they can be crammed with human beings, and then proceed with great pomp and rejoicing to the noble duty of immolating them. They resort to a pious fraud in obtaining victims, which may perhaps be pardoned in the barbarians, but cannot be justified. I refer to the questionable expedients resorted to for the purpose of filling the boats and wagons. They give out that a party of pleasure is to be gotten up, impromptu, for an excursion, and all persons are invited to participate upon payment of a nominal fee; or they cause it to be noised about that the 'wagons' will convey the passenger many hundred miles and return him safely for a petty sum of money, with only 'baggage at the risk of the owner.' By such means, I am persuaded, many are induced to embark upon board these boats and to ride in the wagons' who do not contemplate the 'pious uses' to which they are devoted.'

'But to proceed. These boats contain some powerfully explosive substance, and when the boat is fairly on the deep, so that the victims cannot escape, the whole concern is blown into the air in a million fragments. The priest who conducts the holocaust, disguised as captain of the vessel, generally manages to escape; but the passengers are very religiously prevented from such a profane sacrilege by the crew (instantly they discover the crisis at hand) seizing the boats and filling and capsizing them, they drowning themselves lest there should be a charge of partiality.'

The sacrifice by wagon' is more exhilarating still. The same propelling power urges two wagons,' from opposite directions, along an iron groove, upon which the wheels run with tremendous velocity; and when they come in collision, the crash is like the fall of a thunderbolt,

and not unfrequently an hundred victims are thus devoutly offered up at once to 'THE GREAT SOLAR RING.'

*

After this devout ceremony is over, the high-priests, called 'Coroners,' and twelve priests of a lower rank, called 'Jurors,' are assembled, and witnesses are examined as to the degree of merit and skill manifested by the respective managers of the opposing wagons.' It seems the cardinal point kept in view in conducting this sacrifice is, to effect the collision so instantaneously and unexpectedly, and with such entire destruction of each wagon' and contents, that it shall be impossible to detect who contributed least to the magnificent result. If the 'Jurors' find the performance to have been clumsily executed, and some of the victims mangled and not killed outright, the wagon' conductors are treated as common criminals in the manner we have before mentioned; nay, sometimes they are even degraded from their rank, and deprived of the insignia and emoluments of office. But if it be ascertained no body is to blame' (which is their slang expression of approbation) the conductors are continued or promoted in office, and rich presents are made them by the people who own the wagons.'

There is a scrap of these precious little wretches' view of the 'working of our institutions.' There is an immense deal more of the MSS. I think this will suffice at present, for a taste of the quality of the lilliputian monsters. I shall doubtless transcribe more of it hereafter.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE GREY-BAY MARE: and other Humorous American Sketches. By HENRY P. LELAND. With numerous Illustrations. In one volume: pp. 314. Philadelphia: J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND COMPANY.

HERE now is a book which is the very thing to take up in a rail-road caror on board a steam-boat, wherewith to' while away the hours.' It is run, ning over with a pleasant and various humor, and there is variety enough to satisfy the veriest lover of novelty, how studious soever of change he may be. Certain of the sketches under the writer's signature have already appeared in our pages, and been widely copied throughout the Union. There is much in common between Mr. HENRY P. LELAND, and his brother, (par nobile fratrum,) CHARLES G. LELAND. Both are accomplished scholars and travellers they have a similar eye for the ridiculous and the burlesque ; and a kindred ease and felicity of style. Our readers are too familiar with the manner of 'H. P. L.' to require more than a single 'touch of his quality' in a hitherto unpublished sketch—an admirable and effective satire upon the excessive 'hoop-a-doodle' follies of our time:

'HOOP HURRAH!

'PREFACE.

THINGS as they are.
Vive la Bizarre.

'INTRODUCTION.

'KEEP cool! and let me introduce you to Miss BLANCHE CERCeau.

CHAPTER I.

'AND I waited in the drawing-room, till I thought my hair would grow gray before she would appear. The carriage was at the door; it was a bitter cold night; I could hear the coachman swinging and slapping his arms to keep his hands warm. I had wound up the musical box for excitement, and listened to its soulless jingle for occupation; I had made the little King CHARLES spaniel stand on his hind legs till he began to think that was his normal position. I tried with my right hand to coax Uncle NED' out of the piano-much to the chagrin of that grand instrument, whose mission was classical music. I beat a retreat from the realm of sweet sounds to that of sweet feelings-my patent-leather boots were awful tight. In blissful agony I heard, at last, the opening of a door, a musical laugh, the rustle of silks, and there before me, just giving