omen were in the same predicament: they might dance
right, or dance left, it was only out of the frying-pan into the fire,
for it was pop, pop; bang, bang; fiz, pop, bang, so that you literally
trod upon gunpowder.

When the troops marched up Broadway, louder even than the music were to
be heard the screams of delight from the children at the crowded windows
on each side. "Ma! ma! there's pa!" "Oh! there's John." "Look at
uncle on his big horse."

The troops did not march in very good order, because, independently of
their not knowing how, there was a great deal of independence to contend
with. At one time an omnibus and four would drive in and cut off the
general and his staff from his division; at another, a cart would roll
in and insist upon following close upon the band of music; so that it
was a mixed procession--Generals, omnibus and four, music, cart-loads of
bricks, troops, omnibus and pair, artillery, hackney-coach, etcetera.
etcetera. Notwithstanding all this, they at last arrived at the City
Hall, when those who were old enough heard the Declaration of
Independence read for the sixty-first time; and then it was--"Begone,
brave army, and don't kick up a row."

I was invited to dine with the mayor and corporation at the City Hall.
We sat down in the Hall of Justice, and certainly, great justice was
done to the dinner, which (as the wife says to her husband after a
party, where the second course follows the first with unusual celerity)
"went off remarkably well." The crackers popped outside, and the
champagne popped in. The celerity of the Americans at a public dinner
is very commendable; they speak only now and then; and the toasts follow
so fast, that you have just time to empty your glass, before you are
requested to fill again. Thus the arranged toasts went off rapidly, and
after them, any one might withdraw. I waited till the thirteenth toast,
the last on the paper, to wit, the ladies of America; and, having
previously, in a speech from the recorder, bolted Bunker's Hill and New
Orleans, I thought I might as well bolt myself, as I wished to see the
fireworks, which were to be very splendid.

Unless you are an amateur, there is no occasion to go to the various
places of public amusement where the fireworks are let off, for they are
sent up every where in such quantities that you hardly know which way to
turn your eyes. It is, however, advisable to go into some place of
safety, for the little bo