ut of credit, and _in_ debt!

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW AN HONEST MAN MAY GET INTO LIMBO.

"And as for the Bastile,--the terror is in the word.--Make the most of
it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a
tower;--and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out
of."--_Sterne._

A stranger in New-York, and even many of its younger citizens, would
hardly suppose, from the present appearance of the handsome Ionic
temple standing directly east of the City Hall, for what "base uses"
that classic edifice was originally built, or for what ignoble purposes
it was kept, until within a few years back. Although it may now be
justly considered one of the most correct and pleasing specimens of
architecture in the union, yet, until the recent transformation of its
outward form and proportions, it was one of the most unsightly of
buildings. It was not, however, of republican origin--having been
erected early in the reign of his late most excellent Majesty, King
George the Third, as a place of confinement for such of his refractory
subjects as either could not, or would not, pay their debts. And it is
no great credit to his Majesty's successors in the government, that it
should not have been appropriated to some other use at a much earlier
day. Long did the citizens of New-York petition for its removal or
destruction, but in vain,--until, "in the course of human events," the
public service demanded an additional edifice as a depository for its
records. A change from the Boeotian to the Ionic order, and its
conversion to a more humane purpose, were then determined upon, not
only for the public convenience, but from motives of economy. One of
the patriotic members of the city government, distinguished for his
enterprise, and his public spirit, undertook the job, and gave to the
ancient walls of unhewn stone their existing "form and pressure;"--at
an amount, too, not much exceeding, probably, twice the cost of two new
buildings of the same dimensions.

Architecture is one of the crowning glories of a city; and nothing more
strongly indicates the cultivation of a people, than refinement in this
beautiful department of science. "Order is the first law of nature,"
and the utter disregard hitherto paid to all established orders of
architecture in this country, is one reason, probably, that we have
become such a disorderly people. The taste of the Greeks in the arts
has contributed more to their glo