last drunkard has toppled home, and the last debauchee has skulked like a thieving hound to his own bed; for the wickedness of the night has been done, and the work of the day is beginning. There is something in the aspect of the city at this hour-the stars glittering over-head-the long lines of gas-lights that stretch away in every direction-the few wayfarers stealing in and out among them in silence, like spirits-the myriad sign-boards so staring now, and useless-the houses all magnified in the imperfect light-so many evidences of intense life around, and yet so little of life visibly present-which, to one who sees it for the first time (and few of us have ever seen it), is strangely impressive.

The Tribune building is before us. It looks as we never saw it look before. The office is closed, and a gas-light dimly burning shows that no one is in it. The dismal inky aperture in Spruce street by which the upper regions of the Tribune den are usually reached is shut, and the door is locked. That glare of light which on all previous nocturnal walks we have seen illuminating the windows of the third and fourth stories, revealing the bobbing compositor in his paper cap, and the bustling night-editor making up his news, shines not at this hour; and those windows are undistinguished from the lustreless ones of the houses adjacent. Coiled up on the steps, stretched out on the pavement, are half a dozen sleeping newsboys. Two or three others are awake and up, of whom one is devising and putting into practice various modes of suddenly waking the sleepers. He rolls one off the step to the pavement, the shock of which is very effectual. He deals another who lies temptingly exposed, a 'loud-resounding' slap, which brings the slumberer to his feet, and to his fists, in an instant. Into the ear of a third he yells the magic word Fire, a word which the New York newsboy never hears with indifference; the sleeper starts up, but perceiving the trick, growls a curse or two, and addresses himself again to sleep. In a few minutes all the boys are awake, and taking their morning exercise of scuffling. The basement of the building, we observe, is all a-glow with light, though the clanking of the press is silent. The carrier's entrance is open, and we descend into the fiery bowels of the street.

We are in the Tribune's press-room. It is a large, low, cellar-like apartment, unceiled, white-washed, inky, and unclean, with a vast

folding table in the middle, tall heaps of dampened paper all about, a quietly-running steam engine of nine-horse power on one side, twenty-five inky men and boys variously employed, and the whole brilliantly lighted up by jets of gas, numerous and flaring. On one side is a kind of desk or pulpit, with a table before it, and the whole separated from the rest of the apartment by a rail. In the pulpit, the night-clerk stands, counts and serves out the papers, with a nonchalant and graceful rapidity, that must be seen to be appreciated. The regular carriers were all served an hour ago; they have folded their papers and gone their several ways; and early risers, two miles off, have already read the news of the day. The later newsboys, now, keep dropping in, singly, or in squads of three or four, each with his money ready in his hand. Usually, no words pass between them and the clerk; he either knows how many papers they have come for, or they show him by exhibiting their money; and in three seconds after his eye lights upon a newlyarrived dirty face, he has counted the requisite number of papers, counted the money for them, and thrown the papers in a heap into the boy's arms, who slings them over his shoulder and hurries off for his supply of Times and Heralds. Occasionally a woman comes in for a few papers, or a little girl, or a boy so small that he cannot see over the low rail in front of the clerk, and is obliged to announce his presence and his desires by holding above it his little cash capital in his little black paw. In another part of the pressroom, a dozen or fifteen boys are folding papers for the early mails, and folding them at the average rate of thirty a minute. A boy has folded sixty papers a minute in that press-room. Each paper has to be folded six times, and then laid evenly on the pile; and the velocity of movement required for the performance of such a minute's work, the reader can have no idea of till he sees it done. As a feat, nothing known to the sporting world approaches it. The huge presses, that shed six printed leaves at a stroke, are in deep vaults adjoining the press-room. They are motionless now, but the gas that has lighted them during their morning's work still spurts out in flame all over them, and men with blue shirts and black faces are hoisting out the 'forms' that have stamped their story on thirty thousand sheets. The vaults are oily, inky, and warm. Let us ascend.

The day has dawned. As we approach the stairs that lead to the upper stories, we get a peep into a small, paved yard, where a group of pressmen, blue-overailed, ink-smeared, and pale, are washing themselves and the ink-rollers; and looking, in the dim light of the morning, like writhing devils. The stairs of the Tribune building are supposed to be the dirtiest in the world. By their assistance, however, we wind our upward way, past the editorial rooms in the third story, which are locked, to the composing-room in the fourth, which are open, and in which the labor of transposing the news of the morning to the form of the weekly paper is in progress. Only two men are present, the foreman, Mr. Rooker, and one of his assistants. Neither of them wish to be spoken to, as their minds are occupied with a task that requires care; but we are at liberty to look around.

The composing-room of the Tribune is, I believe, the most convenient, complete, and agreeable one in the country. It is very spacious, nearly square, lighted by windows on two sides, and by sky-lights from above. It presents an ample expanse of type-fonts, gas-jets with large brown-paper shades above them, long tables covered with columns of bright, copper-faced type, either 'dead' or waiting its turn for publication; and whatever else appertains to the printing of a newspaper. Stuffed into corners and interstices are aprons and slippers in curious variety. Pasted on the walls, lamp-shades, and doors, we observe a number of printed notices, from the perusal of which, aided by an occasional word from the obliging foreman, we are enabled to penetrate the mystery, and comprehend the routine, of the place.

Here, for example, near the middle of the apartment, are a row of hooks, labeled respectively, 'Leaded Brevier;' 'Solid Brevier;' 'Minion;' 'Proofs to revise;' 'Compositors' Proofs-let no profane hand touch them except Smith's;' 'Bogus minion-when there is no other copy to be given out, then take from this hook.' Upon these hooks, the foreman hangs the 'copy' as he receives it from below, and the men take it in turn, requiring no further direction as to the kind of type into which it is to be set. The 'bogus-minion' hook contains matter not intended to be used; it is designed merely to keep the men constantly employed, so as to obviate the necessity of their making petty charges for lost time, and thus com

plicating their accounts. Below the 'bogus-hook,' there appears this 'Particular Notice:' 'This copy must be set, and the Takes emptied, with the same care as the rest.' From which we may in. fer, that a man is inclined to slight work that he knows to be useless, even though it be paid for at the usual price per thousand.

Another printed paper lets us into another secret. It is a list of the compositors employed in the office, divided into four "Phalanxes" of about ten men each, a highly advantageous arrangement, devised by Mr. Rooker. At night, when the copy begins to "slack up," i. e. when the work of the night approaches completion, one phalanx is dismissed; then another; then another; then the last; and the phalanx which leaves first at night comes first in the morning, and so on. The men who left work at eleven o'clock at night must be again in the office at nine, to distribute type and set up news for the evening edition of the paper. The second phalanx begins work at two, the third at five; and at seven the whole company must be at their posts; for, at seven, the business of the night begins in earnest. Printers will have their joke—as appears from this list. It is set in donble columns, and as the number of men happened to be an uneven one, one name was obliged to occupy a line by itself, and it appears thus-"Baker, (the teat-pig.)"

The following notice deserves attention from the word with which it begins: "Gentlemen desiring to wash and soak their distributing matter will please use hereafter the metal galleys I had cast for the purpose, as it is ruinous to galleys having wooden sides to keep wet type in them locked up. Thos. N. Rooker." It took the world an unknown number of thousand years to arrive at that word 'GENTLEMEN.' Indeed, the world has not arrived at it; but there it is, in the composing-room of the New York Tribune, legible to all visitors. Passing by other notices, such as "Attend to the gas-meter on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and to the clock on Monday morning," we may spend a minute or two in looking over a long printed catalogue, posted on the door, entitled, "Tribune Directory. Corrected May 10, 1854. A list of Editors, Reporters, Publishers, Clerks, Compositors, Proof-Readers, Pressmen, &c., employed on the New York Tribune."

From this Directory one may learn that the Editor of the Tribune is Horace Greeley, the Managing-Editor Charles A. Dana, the Asso

ciate-Editors, James S. Pike, William H. Fry, George Ripley, George M. Snow, Bayard Taylor, F. J. Ottarson, William Newman, B. Brock way, Solon Robinson, and Donald C. Henderson. We perceive also that Mr. Ottarson is the City Editor, and that his assistants are in number fourteen. One of these keeps an eye on the Police, chronicles arrests, walks the hospitals in search of dreadful accidents, and keeps the public advised of the state of its health. Three report lectures and speeches. Another gathers items of intelligence in Jersey City, Newark, and parts adjacent. Others do the same in Brooklyn and Williamsburgh. One gentleman devotes himself to the reporting of fires, and the movements of the military. Two examine and translate from the New York papers which are published in the German, French, Italian and Spanish languages. Then, there is a Law Reporter, a Police Court Reporter, and a Collector of Marine Intelligence. Proceeding down the formidable catalogue, we discover that the 'Marine Bureau' (in common with the Associated Press) is under the charge of Commodore John T. Hall, who is assisted by twelve agents and reporters. Besides these, the Tribune has a special 'Ship News Editor.' The 'Telegraphic Bureau' (also in common with the Associated Press) employs one general agent and two subordinates, (one at Liverpool and one at Halifax,) and fifty reporters in various parts of the country. The number of regular and paid correspondents is thirty-eight-eighteen foreign, twenty home. The remaining force of the Tribune, as we are informed by the Directory, is, Thos. M'Elrath, chief of the department of publication, assisted by eight clerks; Thos. N. Rooker, foreman of the composing-room, with eight assistant-foremen (three by day, five by night), thirty-eight regular compositors, and twentyfive substitutes; George Hall, foreman of the press-room, with three assistants, sixteen feeders, twenty-five folders, three wrapper-writers, and three boys. Besides these, there are four proof-readers, and a number of miscellaneous individuals. It thus appears that the whole number of persons employed upon the paper is about two hundred and twenty, of whom about one hundred and thirty devote to it their whole time. The Directory further informs us that the proprietors of the establishment are sixteen in number-namely, seven editors, the publisher, four clerks, the foreman of the compos