Four years later Johnson improved upon this, when he printed in better type “People of all Nations; an useful toy for Girl or Boy.”  Of approximately the same size as the other volumes, it was bound with stiff sides and calf back.  The plates, engraved on copper, represent men of various nationalities in the favorite alphabetical order.  A is an American.  V is a Virginian,—­an Indian in scant costume of feathers with a long pipe,—­who, the printed description says, “is generally dressed after the manner of the English; but this is a poor African, and made a slave of.”  An orang-outang represents the letter O, and according to the author, is “a wild man of the woods, in the East Indies.  He sleeps under trees, and builds himself a hut.  He cannot speak, but when the natives make a fire in the woods he will come and warm himself.”  Ten years later there was still some difficulty in getting exact descriptions of unfamiliar animals.  Thus in “A Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds” the baboon is drawn with a dog’s body and an uncanny head with a snout.  The reader is informed that “the baboon has a long face resembling a dog’s; his eyes are red and very bright, his teeth are large and strong, but his swiftness renders him hard to be taken.  He delights in fishing, and will stay for a considerable time under water.  He imitates several of our actions, and will drink wine, and eat human food.”

Another series of three books, written by William Darton, the English publisher and maker of toy-books, was called “Chapters of Accidents, containing Caution and Instruction.”  Thrilling accounts of “Escapes from Danger” when robbing birds’-nests and hunting lions and tigers were intermingled with wise counsel and lessons to be gained from an “Upset Cart,” or a “Balloon Excursion.”  With one incident the Philadelphia printer took the liberty of changing the title to “Cautions to Walkers on the Streets of Philadelphia.”  High Street, now Market Street, is represented in a picture of the young woman who, unmindful of the warning, “Never to turn hastily around the corner of a street,” “ran against the porter’s load and nearly lost one of her eyes.”  The change, of course, is worthy of notice only because of the slight effort to locate the story in America.

[Illustration:  a Virginian]

[Illustration:  A Baboon]

An attempt to familiarize children with flowers resulted in two tales, called “The Rose’s Breakfast” and “Flora’s Gala,” in which flowers were personified as they took part in fetes.  “Garden Amusements, for Improving the Minds of Little Children,” was issued by Samuel Wood of New York with this advertisement:  “This little treatise, (written and first published in the great emporium of the British nation) containing so many pleasing remarks for the juvenile mind, was thought worthy of an American edition....  Being so very natural, ... and its tendency so moral and amusing, it is to be hoped an advantage will be obtained from its re-publication in Freedonia.”