ller always signed his name with a
cross.

Thrice happy and ever to be envied little burgh! existing in all the
security of harmless insignificance--unnoticed and unenvied by the world,
without ambition, without vain-glory, without riches, without learning,
and all their train of carking cares; and as of yore, in the better days
of man, the deities were wont to visit him on earth and bless his rural
habitations, so we are told, in the sylvan days of New Amsterdam, the
good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance in his beloved city, of
a holiday afternoon, riding jollily among the treetops, or over the roofs
of houses, now and then drawing forth magnificent presents from his
breeches pockets, and dropping them down the chimneys of his favorites.
Whereas, in these degenerate days of iron and brass he never shows us the
light of his countenance, nor ever visits us, save one night in the year;
when he rattles down the chimneys of the descendants of the patriarchs,
confining his presents merely to the children, in token of the degeneracy
of the parents.

Such are the comfortable and thriving effects of a fat government. The
province of the New Netherlands, destitute of wealth, possessed a sweet
tranquillity that wealth could never purchase. There were neither public
commotions, nor private quarrels; neither parties, nor sects, nor schisms;
neither persecutions, nor trials, nor punishments; nor were there
counsellors, attorneys, catchpolls, or hangmen. Every man attended to what
little business he was lucky enough to have, or neglected it if he
pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbor. In those days nobody
meddled with concerns above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into
other people's affairs, nor neglected to correct his own conduct and
reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the characters of
others; but in a word, every respectable citizen ate when he was not
hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regularly to bed when the
sun set and the fowls went to roost, whether he were sleepy or not; all
which tended so remarkably to the population of the settlement, that I am
told every dutiful wife throughout New Amsterdam made a point of enriching
her husband with at least one child a year, and very often a brace--this
superabundance of good things clearly constituting the true luxury of
life, according to the favorite Dutch maxim, that "more than enough
constitutes a feast." Every