if shares were rising; the papers were full of
violent and exaggerated versions of the
international duel; Wilkes's paper (the Bell's Life
of America) declared that American yachts
had beaten English yachts, that American horses
had out-trotted English horses, and that now an
American prize-fighter had beaten an English
pugilist. They went on to say that the English
backers of Sayers, finding him defeated, had
broken the ring and stopped the fight, and that
in another round Sayers would have been (yes, sir)
crushed by the uninjured Heenan. The New York
Herald outcrowed them all; it took a higher
stand on a loftier hill, commanding a wider view
of life and humanity. It discussed the fight as
a contest between the two nations, as a
competitive comparison and struggle between the
New and the Old World, between two rival
races. At the end, after wonderful swoops of
rhetoric, it described the English Lion as well
whipped and slinking off with its tail between
its legs. In vain I everywhere described Heenan
as nearly blind and Sayers by no means
exhausted, while at the same time I confessed
Heenan's superiority from his youth and height.
I might as well have tried to twist a rope out
of cobwebs; I was set down as an intolerant
Englishman, who would not admit an undoubted
victory. And shortly afterwards, an exhibition
opened in Broadway, of

"HEENAN'S FIGHTING-BOOTS.—ADMISSION,
              TWENTY-FIVE CENTS."

The boots were a "sensation," and drew
wonderfully.

The "Japanese sensation," which had spread
through New York like fire in a haystack, arose
from the visit of the Japanese ambassadors
to America. Portraits of those Tartar-eyed
ambassadors stared from every shop. There
were Sing-Song, and Ching-Chang, and Yang-Fou,
and Fou-Yang, and, above all, "Little
Tommy" the interpreter—the special ladies'
man of the embassy—who was to open up
Japan to American commerce. Their strange
hats, their enormously wide sabres, their flowered
silk robes, their many-soled shoes, were the
talk and wonder of weeks. The shopkeepers
advertised Japanese ribbons, Japanese sauces,
Japanese cloaks, Japanese warming-pans,
Japanese mouse-traps, and Japanese candy. The
flock of sheep that in every nation constitutes
the bulk of society, talked Japanese, ate and
dreamed and thought of nothing but Japanese.
The ambassadors, however, unfortunately were
got hold of by some disreputable New York
common-council men, who led them about, chose
their friends, directed their amusements, and
made their purchases; the result of which was,
that their visit to New York ended with a
ball that was so crowded with rowdies, prize-
fighters, the fancy, and the disreputable, that no
respectable person would remain in the rooms.
It was, in fact, the talk and scandal of the whole
of the codfish aristocracy, the upper crust
oligarchy, and the upper ten thousand generally.
Not that Sing-Song, Chow-Foo, and Co. in the
least discovered their mistake, but believed that,
guided by the cream of fashion and the flower
of society, they had closed a brilliant diplomatic
career by a tableau at once astonishing and
dazzling to all New York. So, in unsavoury
snuff, burnt out the great "Japanese sensation."

These sensations are epidemic; they run
through the whole community, from abolitionist
to slave-dealer. Some catch it slightly, others
suffer from it cruelly; generally speaking, it is a
short quick fever that burns rapidly through the
community, is the dominant talk of the hour, and
is then forgotten. Now, it is theatrical, and
Rosencrantz Buster, the great tragedian, is coming
back to the stage, and will appear next week at
Niblo's Winter Garden in Broadway; then box-
tickets are put up for auction, and people sneak
and shuffle and entreat, all to get a seat. Now,
it is an international dog-fight, and the papers
write as if Abe Lincoln and Lord Palmerston
were going to fight blindfold with rapier and
dagger in a saw-pit, to decide which country
should be subject to the other. We at home
have our insanities, but I think the Americans
run madder, and suffer oftener.

Sometimes in my travelling I came on the
ashes of a "sensation," sometimes only on its
mummy. I found in some cities stagnant
exhibitions of extinct, obsolete, unsuccessful
sensations—sensations that had not only missed
winning the cup, but had now gone dead lame,
and were fit for nothing but dogs'-meat. Among
these I particularly remember at Philadelphia
an aërial ship—a sort of flattened balloon, with
paddles, flappers, and all sorts of absurd
appendages, and which I really believe I saw in
a London show-room as long ago as I could
walk alone—it was still always threatening to
"go up," and was as constantly postponing that
intention, on account of the rapid advance of the
"unusually early and inclement winter season."

Perhaps, not being much deeper in science
than kaleidoscopes, and wonderful experiments
with double sight after dinner parties, I am
unjust in classing among mere "sensations"
the wonderful "cigar-boat" of the rich German
amateur ship-builders of Baltimore. This is now
the current sensation of American merchants.
It is the result, they say, of years of daring
experiments, and is to effect a great revolution
in the shape of vessels. It is called the "cigar-
boat" because it is the exact shape of a long
cigar—round, the deck narrow, the two ends
pointed, the motive power (I believe) a screw,
working, in some way, in the centre of the
vessel, through which it revolves its blades. I
was assured that the vessel had lately been tried
in dirty weather, well out at sea, and that it
proved "a regular ripper," totting off thirty
miles an hour, with power to add to the number.
It was gravely calculated that this cigar-boat
could weather any storm, and that it would make
the trip to England in about five days, or less.
There was no motion on board, it shipped no
seas, and my sensational informant calculated
that its speed would pretty considerably astonish
us Britishers.