PETER PARLEY'S ANNUAL. Christmas and New Year's Present. FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. LONDON: DARTON & CO., 58, HOLBORN HILL. MDCCCLVII. Preface GAIN, my young friends, Old Father Time has turned up his year-glass. The golden sands of life have been running out, joyfully with some, and sorrowfully with others. With boys and girls they are nearly sure to run out merrily, and to sparkle and glitter in the laughing sunbeams, responding to the blythe birds in their sweetest songs, and reflecting the hues of the loveliest flowers. So should it be. Youth is the season for sport and jollity; else why are children's eyes so bright, their limbs so active, and their hearts and their heels so light? Blessed childhood, what a "golden age" it is! Yet how quickly does it pass away-how soon is it succeeded by the dull, cold "age of lead!" How soon are its fair flowers succeeded by the thorns and cankers of this troublesome world! How soon does the battle of life, the scramble for existence, begin; and this is the reason why old PETER PARLEY, in all his cheerful a |