e to expect that people in business will take the
trouble to hunt up vagrants, what can be conceived more cruelly
arbitrary than preventing them from hunting up places for themselves?
Yet such is the law in this democratic city.[V] A gentleman told me of a
vagrant once coming to him and asking for employment, and, on his
declining to employ him, begging to be allowed to lie concealed in his
store during the day, lest the police should re-imprison him before he
could get on board one of the steamers to take him up the river to try
his fortunes elsewhere. At the same time, a person in good circumstances
getting into difficulties can generally manage to buy his way out.

The authorities, on the return of Christmas, having come to the
conclusion that the letting off of magazines of crackers in the streets
by the juvenile population was a practice attended with much
inconvenience and danger to those who were riding and driving, gave
orders that it should be discontinued. The order was complied with in
some places, but in others the youngsters set it at defiance. It will
hardly be credited that, in a nation boasting of its intelligence and
proud of its education, the press should take part with the youngsters,
and censure the magistrates for their sensible orders. Yet such was the
case at New Orleans. The press abused the authorities for interfering
with the innocent amusements of the children, and expressed their
satisfaction at the latter having asserted their independence and
successfully defied the law. The same want of intelligence was exhibited
by the press in censuring the authorities for discontinuing the
processions on the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans--"a ceremony
calculated to excite the courage and patriotism of the people." They
seem to lose sight of the fact, that it is a reflection on the courage
of their countrymen to suppose that they require such processions to
animate their patriotism, and that the continuance of such public
demonstrations parading the streets betokens rather pride of past deeds
than confidence in their power to re-enact them. Although such
demonstrations may be readily excused, or even reasonably encouraged, in
an infant community struggling for liberty, they are childish and
undignified in a powerful nation. What would be more ridiculous than
Scotland having grand processions on the anniversary of Bannockburn, or
England on that of Waterloo? Moreover, in a political point of vie