ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE present volume is based upon a work bearing the same general title, published in London during the past year by Mr. John Timbs, the well-known author and compiler of several popular works. The rapid sale of more than twelve thousand copies of that book is sufficient evidence at once of its value and its popularity. The examination, however, of Mr. Timbs' book, preparatory to its republication here, showed that the original plan, though well executed, was susceptible of much improvement, not only by the correction of some errors and the omission of many articles of little value or of mere local interest, but also by the introduction of much additional information. A revision of the whole was therefore undertaken, during the intervals of leisure obtained from engrossing business pursuits, and the result has been the production of an essentially new book. At least half of the articles in the original work have been entirely omitted or altered by abridgment and addition, while so much new matter has been added as to render the present volume much larger than the English one. Some of these additions have been derived from "Popular Errors," an older book by Mr. Timbs, and from "Curiosities of History," a similar work very recently issued by the same industrious compiler. But a far larger number are the products of a somewhat extended and varied course of reading. |