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THE WONDERS OF A TOY SHOP.
New-York: J. Q. PREBLE.
J. W. ORR NEW YORK.
WONDERS
A TOY-SHOP.
"Pray, what would you like?" said a Toyman, one day, Addressing a group of young folks, "I have toys in abundance, and very cheap, too, Though not quite so cheap as my jokes.
"Here's a famous managerie, full of wild beasts; See! this lion with wide open jaws, Enough to affright one, and yet I've no doubt, You might venture to play with his claws.
"Here's a tiger as tame as a lap-dog, you'll find, And a fox that will not steal the geese: So here you must own the old adage is proved, That wonders are never to cease."
"Here's wagon well laden, and here is a dray, With horses and harness complete; You can drive them in parlour and drawing-room, too, As easily as in the street.
"Here's a whole file of soldiers, quite ready for fight, And each of them armed with a gun; You may knock them all down with a feather, and then You may pocket them--every one.
"Here's a fine stud of horses, which, strange though it sounds, Live neither on corn nor on hay; A gentleman's carriage, and tilbury, too, For which we've no taxes to pay.
"A coachman so plump, and a footman so tall, Who cost not a penny for food; For to tell you the truth, all their insides are filled With a permanent dinner of wood.
"Examine this sword, with its handle and sheath, And its blade made of innocent wood; 'Twere well if all swords were as harmless as this, And as equally guiltless of blood.
"Here's a mill that will go without water or wind, A wonder, you cannot deny; I really can't say whether it will grind corn, But it will be easy to try.
That iron-gray rocking-horse, close at your side, With saddle and bridle complete, Will go without whipping, and, equally strange, Without making use of his feet:
"Yet, stranger than that--whatsoever his pace, Whether canter, or gallop, or trot, Though moving at ten miles an hour--he ne'er Advances one inch from the spot.
"A full set of bricks is enclosed in this box, But with these you may build a magnificent house, Without e'en a farthing's expense.
"With these you may raise up a Royal Exchange, In less than five minutes, and then Knock it down, and build up a new Parliament House, In another five minutes,--or ten.
"A doll's pretty kitchen, stands next on the shelf, With grate, pans, and kettle, and pot; With dish and tureen, and all crockery-ware, Knives and forks, and I cannot tell what;
"They would not quite do for a great city feast, But I think I may venture to say A minnow or tittlebat there might be cooked, As a rarity
POPULAR GAMES, TOY BOOKS, &c., &c., FOR YOUNG CHILDREN, PUBLISHED BY J. Q. PREBLE.
UNCLE JOSEPH'S 8vo. Colored Picture Books
Illuminated Alphabet, Pretty Stories about the Camel, Stories about Birds. Stories about Beasts, Pretty Poetical Alphabet of Trees, Fruits and Flowers, Elisha, and the Widow's Cruse of Oil.
Blackberry Girl, Songs and Hyms for the Nursery. Pictorial A B C. Juvenile Poetical Gift, Child's Book of Birds. Child's Book of Beasts.
PRIMERS
Child's Pictorial A B C. Child's Illuminated Alphabet,
SMALL MINIATURE BOOKS.
Gift of Piety. Etiquette for Little Folks, Divine Songs. Lilly of the Valley, Metropolitan Songster, Philipoena.
GAMES
The Game of Dr. Busby, The Game of Oregon, The Game of Bohemian Gipsy Girl, The Game of Sociable Snake, The Fortune Maker, American Dream Cards, What D'ye Buy, Merry Goose Game, Mirth for Many, Crystal Palace, Loves and Likes, Punch's Oracle of Fun.
CONVERSATION CARDS
Conversation on Marriage, Ladie's and Gent's Conversation Cards, Punch's Conversation Cards, Drawing-Room Social Conversation Cards Conversation on Love, Improved Conversation Cards.
SCHOOL REWARD SHEETS
FANCY CARDS
School Cards, Friendship Cards, Embossed Cards, Motto Cards, Gold and Silver Cards, Double Enameled Cards. Alphabet Cards, Ten Commandment Cards, Sabbath School Cards, Music Cards, Silver Border Cards, Superfine Enameled Cards.
Valentines and Valentine Envelopes.
In that summer of 1599, when the convicts were still on Sable Island, to the north of them, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, fur-trading ships pressed forward under full canvas to the westward. These ships were owned by two men of King Henry's Huguenot subjects, named Pontgrav? and Chauvin, who had formed themselves into a partnership to buy and sell furs. No trader could lift a finger in those days without a royal charter or patent, and these men were influential enough to get a charter from the King bestowing upon them the exclusive right to the fur trade of Canada. It was hardly likely they could really make good such a right, or that the other Frenchmen who had been buying furs from the Indians would thereafter stop buying them on account of it. But it was a safe precaution, and made their rivals' operations illegal. On their part Pontgrav? and Chauvin promised the King that they would settle in Canada 500 colonists. In this they were promising more than they could perform; the most they actually did do was to induce sixteen men to remain all winter at Tadoussac, with insufficient food, clothing, and shelter. Alas! when the ships from France appeared in the St. Lawrence next year, the last year of the sixteenth century, they found most of the sixteen dead. Their surviving companions had married native wives and gone to live in the wigwams of the Indians. Once more you see this enterprise had not fared any better than those which had gone before, and, like the others, Chauvin died recognising bitterly that his scheme was a failure.
How was it with his partner, Pontgrav?? Pontgrav? was only a trader, but he was of dogged tenacity. He saw that if Canada could be colonised by his countrymen, there was a great fortune to be made out of the fur trade, and the way to do it, he reasoned, was to bring his chief rivals together to form a company, so that, instead of being enemies, all would work together to keep out the smaller traders or "pirates," and gradually establish proper trading-posts in Canada. An influential and wealthy old soldier named Aymar de Chastes, Governor of Rouen, interested himself in the scheme, and, being high in favour with the King of France, he procured a charter and set about seeing if he and his friends could not succeed where the others had been so signally defeated.
We have now reached the point in our story at which Samuel de Champlain, the real founder of New France, enters upon the scene. For Aymar de Chastes, casting about for an experienced and adventurous spirit to help in the new enterprise, bethought him of a valorous naval captain who had recently returned from Mexico and the Spanish main, ready for anything which would fill his purse or increase his renown. Captain de Champlain was a truly great man, no mere hot-blooded, roystering swashbuckler, as many adventurers were in those days, but romantic, pious, and humane. He was then about thirty-six years old. Offering with alacrity his sword and his skill on an exploring expedition up the St. Lawrence, Champlain went, in company with Pontgrav? and another adventure-loving nobleman of the Court, Pierre du Gast, better known as the Sieur de Monts. When these pioneers reached Tadoussac they left their ships and ascended the river in boats to the farthest point yet reached, the Rapids, just above Hochelaga, now the city of Montreal. Just as Jacques Cartier had done nearly seventy years before, Champlain toiled up the forest-clad slopes of Mount Royal in order to obtain a good view of the surrounding country. He, too, was charmed with all that met his eye, and having drawn up a map and written down a narrative of all he had seen, Champlain and his companions re-embarked in the autumn, when the Canadian woods were brilliant in their browns and purples, yellow and crimson foliage, and sailed back across the salt seas to France. What was their mortification to discover that during their absence their patron, De Chastes, had died, and the company he had exerted himself to make prosperous was all but broken up. But Champlain was not to be beaten. He showed his narrative and his maps to the good and wise King Henry, who was perfectly satisfied of his good faith, and agreed to allow De Monts and his friends to continue the work of colonising Canada and organising the fur trade. De Monts, who was a Huguenot, was forthwith appointed the King's Viceroy in New France, on condition that he and the others bore all the cost of the expedition, and by and by, in the spring of 1604, four vessels once more sailed away. It was arranged that two of the ships should engage in the fur trade on the St. Lawrence, while the other two were to carry out the colonists, soldiers, work-people, priests, gentlemen, and, as always happened, as always must happen, a few rogues, to whichever spot De Monts selected for the purpose. The little fleet steered farther south than was done in the last voyage, and thus it came to pass that it finally reached that part of New France then called Acadia, and to-day marked Nova Scotia on the map. How it came by its name of Nova Scotia you shall hear later on. One day, just before De Monts and his heterogeneous crew landed, they anchored in a harbour where one of their sheep jumped overboard. So De Monts, who was not without a vein of humour in these matters, christened the harbour Port Mouton. All were delighted with the beauty of the landscape, the grassy meadows, the silvery streams replete with fish, the wooded mountains.
Besides De Monts and Champlain there was a third leader of the expedition, a certain rich nobleman of Picardy named Baron de Poutraincourt. It was Poutraincourt who named the place where he wished to found a colony Port Royal. It was, wrote Cham
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