Excerpt from Hot Corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated; Including the Story of Little Katy, Madalina, the Rag-Picker's Daughter, Wild Maggie, &C Oh, pshaw, says pretty Miss Impulsive, I hate pre faces. So do I. Nobody reads them; that is, nobody but a few old fellows with spectacles I would not write one, only that some folks think a book looks not well without. Well, then, I have written a great deal in my life - travels, tales, songs, temperance stories, some politics, a good deal upon agriculture, much truth, and some fiction, always in the newspapers, never before in a book. I know that many, very many, have read what I have written with pleasure, or else this world is awfully given to lying, for they have said so. Will they read my book? That we shall see. If they do, they must not criticise too closely. Remember that some of the most thrilling sketches were written amid the daily scenes and avocations of a. City editor's office, for the paper in which they first appeared, without any thought or design on the part of the author of making a book - that was the thought of the publishers. They read the first sketches, and judged, we hope rightly, if enlarged and embodied in a neat volume, it would be appreciated as one of the best efiorts, in this book-making age, to do good. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.