the affair, merely looking careworn, distressed, and pitiable, and
throwing in a word of corroboration, or a sigh, or an acknowledgment, as
the case may demand. In the present instance, the friend, a young,
respectable-looking tradesman, with a Lancashire accent, spoke freely and
simply of his client's misfortunes, not pressing the case unduly, but
doing it full justice, and saying, at the close of the interview, that it
was no pleasant business for himself. The broken grocer was an elderly
man, of somewhat sickly aspect. The whole matter is very foreign to
American habits. No respectable American would think of retrieving his
affairs by such means, but would prefer ruin ten times over; no friend
would take up his cause; no public would think it worth while to prevent
the small catastrophe. And yet the custom is not without its good side
as indicating a closer feeling of brotherhood, a more efficient sense of
neighborhood, than exists among ourselves, although, perhaps, we are more
careless of a fellow-creature's ruin, because ruin with us is by no means
the fatal and irretrievable event that it is in England.

I am impressed with the ponderous and imposing look of an English legal
document,--an assignment of real estate in England, for instance,--
engrossed on an immense sheet of thickest paper, in a formal hand,
beginning with "This Indenture" in German text, and with occasional
phrases of form, breaking out into large script,--very long and
repetitious, fortified with the Mayor of Manchester's seal, two or three
inches in diameter, which is certified by a notary-public, whose
signature, again, is to have my consular certificate and official seal.


November 2d.--A young Frenchman enters, of gentlemanly aspect, with a
grayish cloak or paletot overspreading his upper person, and a handsome
and well-made pair of black trousers and well-fitting boots below. On