heavily assessed on some article or articles which he declared to have
been manufactured in America and taken out of the country by himself
only a few months before. The official insisted that there was no proof
of this; but just as the discussion threatened to become an altercation
(a "scrap" they would call it here) some one found a way out. The goods
were forwarded in bond to the traveller's place of residence (Hartford,
I think) where he declared that he could produce proof of their American
origin. For myself, I had to pay two dollars and a half on some
magic-lantern slides. I could have imported the lantern, had I owned
one, free of charge, as a philosophical instrument used in my
profession; but the courts have held, it appears, that though the
lantern comes under that rubric, the slides do not. I cannot pretend to
grasp the distinction, or to admire the system which necessitates it.
But whatever the economic merits or demerits of the tariff, I take
pleasure in bearing testimony to the civility with which I found it
enforced.

My companion and I express our baggage to our hotel and jump on the
platform of a horse-car on West-street, skirting the wharves. The
roadway is ill paved, certainly, and the clammy atmosphere has congealed
on its surface into an oily black mud; while in the middle of the side
streets one can see relics of the blizzard in the shape of little grubby
glaciers slowly oozing away. The prospect is not enlivening; nor do the
low brick houses, given up to nondescript longshore traffic, and freely
punctuated with gilt-lettered saloons, add to its impressiveness.
Squalid it is without doubt, this particular aspect of New York; but
what is the squalor of West-street to that of Limehouse or Poplar? Are
our own dock thoroughfares always paved to perfection? And if we had a
blizzard like that of three weeks ago, how long would its vestiges
linger in the side-streets of Millwall? Even as I mark the grimness of