As to a "residence on the banks of the Hudson," do you think I would so sacrilegiously and audaciously familiarize myself with its glorious beauty? I decline on the principle that the lover, who had pleasurably wooed for years, refused to marry, "because he should have nowhere to spend his evenings;" where, oh, where, I ask, should I spend my summers? Yes, a month's board on a Hudson river steamboat! a floating boarding-house! why not? I claim the idea as original. First stipulation—meals and mattresses on deck, in fair weather.

What a curious study are travellers! How the human nature comes out! There are your men and women, bound to get their money's worth, to the last dime, and who imagine that bullying and bluster is the way, not only to do this, but to deceive people into the belief that they are accustomed to being waited upon at home. Of such are the men who wander ceaselessly upstairs and downstairs and in my ladies' cabin, smoking and yawning, poking their walking-sticks into every bundle and basket from sheer ennui,—and ever and anon returning on deck, suspiciously wiping their mouths. Of such are they who light a pipe or cigar in the immediate proximity of ladies, who have just secured a comfortable seat on deck, that they may revel in the much-longed-for fresh sea-breeze; dogged, obstinate, "deil take the hindmost," selfish, ruffianly cubs, who would stand up on their hind legs in a twinkling at the insinuation that they were not "gentlemen."

Yes, there are all sorts on board a steamboat; there is your country-woman in her best toggery; fancy bonnet, brass ear-rings, and the inevitable "locket;" who, when the gong sounds, takes out a huge basket to dine off molasses-cake, drop-cake, doughnuts, and cheese; who coolly nudges some man in the ribs "to lend her the loan" of his jack-knife, wherewith she dexterously cuts up and harpoons into a mouth more useful than ornamental, little square blocks of "soggy" gingerbread, with a trusting confidence in the previous habits of that strange jack-knife, that is delicious to witness! Then there are quicksilver little children, frightening mothers into fits, by peering into dangerous places, and leaning over the deck into the water; shaking their little flossy lap-dog-curls, and singing as they go, asking you with innocent straightforwardness, as they decline your offered cracker, "why you didn't buy candy instead." Then there are great, puffy, red-faced Britons, with strong white teeth, most astonishing girth of limb, and power of sleep in uncomfortable places; broad in the shoulders and sluggish in the brain; "not thinking much of America," but somehow or other keeping on coming here! Then there is your stereotyped steerage-passenger, rubbing one eye with the corner of her apron, who has "niver a penny to get to her daughter," and she might add niver a daughter, and come nearer the truth.

Then there is the romantic young-lady traveller, got up coquettishly, and yet faultlessly, for the occasion in that ravishing little hat and feather, becoming only to young beauty, or at least to fresh youth, whose wealth of hair threatens instant escape from the silken net at the back of her head, and of whose fringed eyes all bachelors should beware. Let her have her little triumphs, ye that have had your day, and let no censorious old maid, or strait-laced matron, look daggers at her innocent pleasure in being beautiful. Then there is a gentleman and lady, cultivated and refined, if faces may be trusted, with a sweet boy, whom you would never know to be blind, his face is so sunny, were it not that they guide his steps so carefully; and why shouldn't his face be sunny, when his infirmity calls forth such riches of love and tenderness? How gently his mother smooths his hair, and places his little cap upon it, and how one loves his father for holding him so long there upon his knee, and whispering to him all about the beautiful places we are passing, instead of leaving him to his mother, and going selfishly off to smoke uncounted cigars. Nor is our steamboat without its wag, who has his own way of passing the time. Having possessed himself of a large plate of ice-cream as bait for a group of youngsters, who are standing expectant in a row before him, with imperturbable gravity he maliciously feeds them with such huge spoonfuls that little feet dance up and down, and little hands are clapped to chubby cheeks, to ease the ache, which they are not quite sure is pain or pleasure, but which, anyhow, they have no idea of foregoing.

And now night comes on, and travellers one by one—or two by two, which is far better—disappear in those purgatorial state-rooms, and peep like prisoners through the grated windows, and try to sleep to the monotonous plash-plash of the waves, while male nocturnal pedestrians walk very slowly past the hurricane-deck state-room windows (innocent of curtain or blind), while denunciatory epithets are being muttered at them by their fair occupants.

Morning comes at last, and—Albany. I would respectfully inquire of its "oldest inhabitant," if it always rains torrents at Albany, at four o'clock in the morning, on the arrival of the boats? Also, if all their roads are as "hard to travel" as that through which steamboat passengers are furiously bumped and thumped, by drivers who seem to be on contract to Macadamize the bones of their passengers as well as the roads. It takes one of mine host of the ——'s very good breakfasts to christianize one after it.

Victimized Babies.—Nothing is more distressing to contemplate than a young baby in the hands of an ignorant mother. The way she will roast it in warm weather with layers of clothes, and strip it in cold weather, if fashion bids, and wash it when it is sleepy and tired, and put out its eyes with sun or gas, and feed it wrongly, or neglect to feed it at the proper time, and in every way thwart Nature and outrage common-sense, is so harrowing a sight to the stranger who dare not intermeddle, that a speedy retreat is the only course left, till he is perhaps summoned to the poor little thing's funeral, not mine.