ree and independent America. A part of this
uncomfortable feature in our domestic economy is no doubt the result of
circumstances unavoidably connected with the condition of a young
country; but a great deal is to be ascribed to the practice of referring
everything to the public, and not a little to those religious sects who
extended their supervision to all the affairs of life, that had a chief
concern in settling the country, and who have entailed so much that is
inconvenient and ungraceful (I might almost say, in some instances,
_disgraceful_) on the nation, blended with so much that forms its purest
sources of pride. Men are always an inconsistent medley of good and bad.

The captain and myself had visited the _abattoir_ of Montmartre only a
few days previously to this excursion, and we had both been much
gratified with its order and neatness. But an unfortunate pile of hocks,
hoofs, tallow, and nameless fragments of carcasses, had caught my
companion's eye. I found him musing over this _omnium gatherum_, which
he protested was worse than a bread-pudding at Saratoga. By some process
of reasoning that was rather material than philosophical, he came to the
conclusion that the substratum of all the extraordinary compounds he had
met with at the _restaurans_ was derived from this pile, and he swore as
terribly as any of "our army in Flanders," that not another mouthful
would he touch, while he remained in Paris, if the dish put his
knowledge of natural history at fault. He had all along suspected he had
been eating cats and vermin, but his imagination had never pictured to
him such a store of abominations for the _casserole_ as were to be seen
in this pile. In vain I asked him if he did not find the dishes good.
Cats might be good for anything he knew, but he was too old to change
his habits. On the present occasion, he made the situation of the
Abattoir d'Ivry an excuse for not turning up the river by the wall. I do
not think, however, we gained anything in the distance, the _detour_ to
cross the bridge more than equalling the ground we missed.

We came under the wall again at the Barriere de Ville Juif, and followed
it, keeping on the side next the town until we fairly reached the river
once more, beyond Vaugirard. Here we were compelled to walk some
distance to cross the Pont de Jena, and again to make a considerable
circuit through Passy, on account of the gardens, in order to do justice
to our task. About this time