But many from every State in the Union made their arrangements to spend the historic period in Philadelphia.

Owing, also, to the large number of foreigners who came over to join in the festivities, that city was crammed to its utmost capacity.

With the crowd and excessive heat, comfort was everywhere sacrificed to curiosity.
The enthusiasm throughout the country had given a fresh impulse to the lyceum bureaus.

Like the ferryboats in New York harbor, running hither and thither, crossing each other's tracks, the whole list of lecturers were on the wing, flying to every town and city from San Francisco to New York.

As soon as a new railroad ran through a village of five hundred inhabitants that could boast a schoolhouse, a church, or a hotel, and one enterprising man or woman, a course of lectures was at once inaugurated as a part of the winter's entertainments.
On one occasion I was invited, by mistake, to a little town to lecture the same evening when the Christy Minstrels were to perform.