country receive a new lease of life. She must be a lineal
descendant of Sir Roger de Coverley, for sure her finger
sparkles with a hundred of his richest acres."

Before bidding a final farewell to New York, I venture to make
a single remark. I regret to be forced to confess that I
greatly fear even this virtuous little city has not escaped
quite free, the general deterioration of morals and manners.
The New York hackmen, for instance, are very obliging and
attentive; but if it would not seem ungrateful, I would hazard
the statement that their attentions are unremitting to the
degree being almost embarrassing, and proffered to the verge
of obtrusiveness. I think, in short, that they are hardly
quite delicate in their politeness. They press their
hospitality on you till you sigh for a little marked neglect.
They are not content with simple statement. They offer you
their hack, for instance. You decline with thanks. They say
that they will carry you to any part of the city. Where is
the pertinence of that, if you do not wish to go? But they
not only say it, they repeat it, they dwell upon it as if it
were a cardinal virtue. Now you have never expressed or
entertained the remotest suspicion that they would not carry
you to any part of the city. You have not the slightest
intention or desire to discredit their assertion. The only
trouble is, as I said before, you do not wish to go to any
part of the city. Very few people have time to drive about
in that general way; and surely, when you have once distinctly
informed them that you do not design to inspect New York, they
ought to see plainly that you cannot change your whole plan of
operations out of gratitude to them, and that the part of true