such naughty, filthy tricks? Solomon says, "he that spareth the rod spoileth the child ;" and it would be better for themselves and their offspring, if the worthy inhabitants of this city would pay a little more respect to Solomon's sayings; though, alas, with what consistency can a man correct his son for the very abominations he himself indulges in? It must be left to that indefinite power of education which it is the fashion of the hour to set forth as a remedy for all disorders and irregularities. One thing is clear; so much expectoration must be highly injurious to half-grown boys, and many of them, with wasp waists and the mere outlines of a face, look as if the liquor they are so fond of extracting had mingled with the current of their young blood, and was the cause of tobacco-colored complexions. We are very sorry for Messrs. Lorillard, but, as small political editors with seventeen bad subscribers say "our duty to the public imperatively commands us to speak out."

BOY-MEN AND GIRL-WOMEN.

THESE are two species of the human family not yet distinctly classed or named by naturalists, and must, therefore, be designated by compounds. The individuals which compose them, are hovering between the last stages of boy and girlhood, and the first dawnings of a more mature state of existence full-grown children, or incipient men and women. They are the unfinished portions of humanity which poets and sentimentalists have, from time immemorial, sung and said so much about, though for what especial reason is more than many worldly people are able to discover. Poets are fine fellows; but a love of truth, or a desire to represent things as they really are, is not to be found in the list of their good qualities. They warp and twist their materials, to suit their own purposes, more than a theological disputant or a petty sessions lawyer, and build a towering structure on a slighter foundation

than a purblind antiquary. They are much given to the use of hypotheses; and after they have once supposed that a thing can be so, they immediately set it down that it is so. Exaggeration is another of their foibles-with them a glimpse of goodness signifies perfection, and a glimmering of sin the essence of iniquity; and it is in consequence of this that they come to make such delightful and diabolical pictures out of nothing at all. Some of the cleverest of them have, at one period or other of their lives, met with two or three charming young girls, just "bursting into womanhood," or a few intelligent boys, and, being great generalizers, they have taken it for granted that all were so; and thus it has come to pass in English poetry, that this is celebrated as the most delectable stage of existence. It is a state that may or may not be pleasant enough to those who are passing through it, but it is by no means productive of much pleasure and gratification to those with whom they come in contact; and whatever prose or poetry may say to the contrary, I think worldly experience will bear me out in upholding that boy-men and girl-women, are neither more nor less than bores of very considerable magnitude.

The girl-woman is generally a rather pretty creature, dressed in something between a frock and a

gown, made of white muslin, with a pink sash round her waist. Her face has lost the free and unembarrassed expression of childhood, without having obtained the self-possession and dignity of woman. The graces of her person are as yet but half developed; her shoulders are sharp and angular, and her arms long and unpleasantly slender. She is too mature to wear her hair in a crop, and too childish to have it piled in towers of curls and combs on the top of her head. Indeed, let her dress be what it may, it appears alike unfit for the stage through which she has just passed, or the one on which she is about to enter. Her intellectual faculties and conversation are in an equally uncertain state; and the person who addresses her is sorely puzzled how to hit the right medium between juvenility and maturity. She has not made up her mind whether she likes Byron or skipping-rope best; but decidedly prefers Mrs. Opie to the author of Waverley. If you talk of school, you offend her; and yet she knows not how to discourse about any thing else so that all the conversation consists of an abrupt observation and an embarrassed rejoinder. If she can be prevailed upon to venture more than six syllables at a time, she has a bad habit of speaking unpleasant truths, and afterwards looking distressingly conscious, not exactly knowing whether

she has done right or wrong. She sits on her chair, holding in one hand a white pocket-handkerchief, and not a little perplexed what to do with the other; with an eternal simper hanging around her mouth, ready to be aggravated into a laugh upon the most trivial occasion. If any body tells a joke with a grave face, she looks grave too; but is mightily tickled with the hymeneal allusions and matrimonial witticisms of which the more mature part of the company are delivered. She does not understand or appreciate worldly knowledge, yet she has school learning enough to find you out if you talk foolishly. In short, she is altogether in a very unsettled state, filled with childish reminiscences and womanly aspirations, and is, when a man feels grave or low-spirited, one of the most unendurable annoyances with which he can well be afflicted.

But if your girl-woman is an undesirable individual, your boy-man is one of the greatest nuisances in civilized society. There is something charming about the female sex at almost every period of their existence; and even in town a very young lady, though certainly a subject for apprehension, has some redeeming points; while in the country, after a scamper in the fields, or a chase after a bird or butterfly, with her eyes filled with fire and animation, her cheeks glowing with health