they not, one and all, given to untimely hunger, and addicted to
undesirable methods of assuaging its pangs? Are they not prone to
perpetual colds in the head, accompanied by loud and labored breathing,
and rarely mitigated by the judicious use of pocket-handkerchiefs? Do
they not indulge in a vicious and wholly unpardonable wealth of muddy
boots, wherewith to trample upon their unoffending neighbors? Are they
not as prone to bad language as the _Tribune,_ and as noisy and noisome
as the _Sun_ itself? In short, are they not always and altogether the
most oppressive nuisance that can annoy the peaceful pleasure-seeker?
Echo answers that there isn't the smallest possible doubt of it. Why,
then, do we foolishly speak of innocent boyhood?

Girls, on the other hand, may be innocent,--that is to say, when they
are extremely young. Of course they outgrow it when they arrive at years
of flirtation; but up to--say--their tenth or eleventh year, they rarely
go in for muddy boots and inappropriate peanuts,--at least not to the
same extent as boys. The average little girl is, moreover, seldom found
at the CIRCUS. She prefers WALLACK'S, or BOOTH'S theatre,--whereas your
usual boy despises the legitimate drama, and prefers to have his
dissipations served up with a great deal of horse and plentifully spiced
with the presence of the cheerful clown. For my part, I frankly confess
that I do not like boys, and heartily approve of the noble sentiment
expressed the other day by my landlady, who, on reading that the
Parisians had destroyed the Bois de Boulogne, remarked that, "Even if
the French couldn't spell 'boys' properly, she was glad to see that they
knew how to treat them." Pardon the errors of her pronunciation. She
learned French at a young ladies' seminary.

But I digress. It is a reprehensible habit. It is much better, as a
rule, to die game than it is to digress, though on the present occasion