From Canal Boy to President
The present series of volumes has been undertaken with the view of supplying the want of a class of books for children, of a vigorous, manly tone, combined with a plain and concise mode of narration. The writings of Charles Dickens have been selected as the basis of the scheme, on account of the well-known excellence of his portrayal of children, and the interests connected with children--qualities which have given his volumes their strongest hold on the hearts of parents. These delineations having thus received the approval of readers of mature age, it seemed a worthy effort to make the young also participants in the enjoyment of these classic fictions, to introduce the children of real life to these beautiful children of the imagination. With this view, the career of Little Nell and her Grandfather, Oliver, Little Paul, Florence Dombey, Smike, and the Child-Wife, have been detached from the large mass of matter with which they were originally connected, and presented, in the author's own language, to a new class of readers, to whom the little volumes will we doubt not, be as attractive as the larger originals have so long proved to the general public. We have brought down these famous stories from the library to the nursery--the parlor table to the child's hands--having a precedent
steamers, to move 400 tons of freight.
To the second trio, only one boat of each class is to be altered; one set
of machinery furnished; one corps of engineers maintained, and coal for one
round trip supplied, with the incidental expenses, to move 420 tons of
freight.
The costs of alterations and adaptations of the first trio are two-fold
those of the second; the cost of machinery greater to the first trio than
to the second; the costs of engineers two-fold to the first trio; the costs
of coal about the same to each, with greater incidental expenses to the
first than to the second _per tons of freight moved_.
The differences in the two trios are in their _steam capabilities and in
their times_; the second requires about one day extra on the canal, as
possibly due to the locking of the tow, though no extra time is required
where both locks of the pair are ready. But the extra twenty tons of
freight more than pays the extra time.
The times of transit or rates of speed to the two eras are very nearly
alike, the steamers of the first having _greater steam capabilities_, as
due to their boat in tow, whilst those of the present era have reduced
their steam capabilities to increase their cargoes from the 180 tons to 200
tons.
The times of transit, or rates of speed, are given in the following
The present series of volumes has been undertaken with the view of supplying the want of a class of books for children, of a vigorous, manly tone, combined with a plain and concise mode of narration. The writings of Charles Dickens have been selected as the basis of the scheme, on account of the well-known excellence of his portrayal of children, and the interests connected with children--qualities which have given his volumes their strongest hold on the hearts of parents. These delineations having thus received the approval of readers of mature age, it seemed a worthy effort to make the young also participants in the enjoyment of these classic fictions, to introduce the children of real life to these beautiful children of the imagination. With this view, the career of Little Nell and her Grandfather, Oliver, Little Paul, Florence Dombey, Smike, and the Child-Wife, have been detached from the large mass of matter with which they were originally connected, and presented, in the author's own language, to a new class of readers, to whom the little volumes will we doubt not, be as attractive as the larger originals have so long proved to the general public. We have brought down these famous stories from the library to the nursery--the parlor table to the child's hands--having a precedent