For twenty years, Mr. Halliday has labored among these poor creatures, as the “agent” or missionary of the “American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless,” an association of noble-minded and unusually practical men and women.  If any of our readers fear lest the fountain of benevolence may dry up within him, we commend Mr. Halliday’s book to his perusal.  He will find there some little stories which have a pathos beyond tears; some facts—­happening, mayhap, within ten minutes’ walk of his own fireside—­quite as strange as the strangest fiction of Mr. Cobb or Mr. Emerson Bennett.  We have not space left for any account of Mr. Halliday’s labors.  His Society provides not only boys and girls, but even men and women under certain circumstances, with present assistance and shelter, and afterwards a home and work in the country, at a distance from the temptations and miseries of the city.  It is curious to read that Mr. Halliday receives frequent orders from various States—­even the most distant West—­for “a baby,” “a boy,” “a little girl.”  It is good to know that in that way many bright young souls are saved from the horrors of “tenement” life, and placed in kind hands; and it is touching to read, that, while many of these little ones are remarkable for good looks and bright spirits, all are reported as singularly quiet, sedate, and submissive.  We are glad to know that the types of the paper published by the Society are set up by the women who have a refuge in its Home; and we were sorry to read of one boy, who always ran away from everybody and every place, being at last secured in the House of Refuge, where, being now nearly eleven years old, the monster! “he seems dejected, and I have never seen him smile,” says Mr. Halliday.  This boy—­and a good many others who like the streets and the free air better than the black-hole of a tenement—­should go to sea.  The sea is an honorable trade, (it used to be a profession,) and the merchants of New York could not do a wiser or a better thing than in providing a school-ship where such lads could be taught the rudiments of seamanship and navigation, or, in default of that, sending them as apprentices in their vessels.

We have two complaints to enter against Mr. Halliday:  first, that he has given his book a title which will deter most sensible people from opening it; and, second, that in his valuable report on the tenement-houses, he does not give the names of those enterprising personages who make thirty-five per cent, at the expense, not only of their poor tenants, but of every tax-payer in New York.

The New American Cyclopaedia:  a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA.  Vol.  VI.  Cough—­Education.  New York:  D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 772.