¶An article recounting the frosty reception received by Dickens on his reading trip to America. 'It has been apparent from his ... encounter with the custom-house officials, and the several gentlemen who sailed to meet him in Boston Harbour, that Mr Dickens is to find diminution in the number, and, we fear, little change in the humour, of his friends in America.' Dickens did not endear himself to the American public with his criticism in American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit. In the illustration Dickens is depicted cowering behind a closed door while an angry mob gathers outside.