"I only wish," I added, "that she would turn Rebel, so that Government
might confiscate her. Paper currency would go up at once from the sudden
influx of gold, and the credit of the country receive a new lease of life.
She must be a lineal descendant of Sir Roger de Coverley, for I am sure
her finger sparkles with a hundred of his richest acres."

Before bidding a final farewell to New York, I shall venture to make a
single remark. I regret to be forced to confess that I greatly fear even
this virtuous little city has not escaped quite free, in the general
deterioration of morals and manners. The New York hackmen, for instance,
are very obliging and attentive; but if it would not seem ungrateful, I
would hazard the statement that their attentions are unremitting to the
degree of being almost embarrassing, and proffered to the verge of
obtrusiveness. I think, in short, that they are hardly quite delicate in
their politeness. They press their hospitality on you till you sigh for a
little marked neglect. They are not content with simple statement. They
offer you their hack, for instance. You decline, with thanks. They say
that they will carry you to any part of the city. Where is the pertinence
of that, if you do not wish to go? But they not only say it, they repeat
it, they dwell upon it as if it were a cardinal virtue. Now you have never
expressed or entertained the remotest suspicion that they would not carry
you to any part of the city. You have not the slightest intention or
desire to discredit their assertion. The only trouble is, as I said
before, you do not wish to go to any part of the city. Very few people
have the time to drive about in that general way; and I think, that, when
you have once distinctly informed them that you do not design to inspect
New York, they ought to see plainly that you cannot change your whole plan
of operations out of gratitude to them, and that the part of true
politeness is to withdraw. But they even go beyond a censurable urgency;
for an old gentleman and lady, evidently unaccustomed to travelling, had