I know that there was not a single accident, nor did I see or hear of
any instance of drunkenness or disorder. All was harmony and
good-humour.

I would mention, as a strong proof of the growing interest felt for
the old country here, in New England especially, that almost every
family is desirous of being known to be connected with it. They have
all English names; and a numerous society have employed a gentleman of
skill in such matters for the last ten years in England in tracing out
the English branches of the different families, in the State, so as to
have the genealogy complete. This has become a passion; and I have
found every person I met who could trace his descent from the
mother-country proud of it. I fell in, the other day, with a highly
intelligent American, who told me with quite a feeling of pride, that
his grandfather and grandmother were English, and his wife's father a
Scot.




THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.

_January 1852._


Notwithstanding our busy and acquisitive propensities, we of the
metropolis have found time to wish one another a happy new-year, and
to send friendly greetings to our country cousins also. We don't like
to take the step from one year into another without a _coup d'amitié_.
Besides all which, we are in the habit of considering ourselves at the