lic coffin: the grave is no protection against their
mania for novelty. In the windows of a shop in Broadway, this strange,
and to my mind revolting, article may be seen, shaped like a mummy,
fitting hermetically tight, and with a plate of glass to reveal the
features of the inanimate inmate. I have certainly read of the
disconsolate lover who, on the death of her who ungratefully refused to
reciprocate his affection, disinterred her body by stealth, supplied
himself with scanty provision, and embarking in a small boat, launched
forth upon the wide waters, to watch her gradual decomposition till
starvation found them one common grave. I also knew an officer, who,
having stuffed an old and faithful dog, and placed him on the
mantel-piece, when his only child died soon after, earnestly entreated a
surgeon to stuff the child, that he might place it beside the faithful
dog. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that such aberrations of human
intellect are sufficiently frequent to make the Patent Metallic Coffin
Company a popular or profitable affair.

An important feature in a populous town is the means of conveyance,
which here, in addition to hack cabs and omnibuses, includes railway
carriages. I would observe, once for all, that the horses of America, as
a whole, may be classed as enduring, wiry, and active hacks. You do not
see anything to compare with some of the beautiful nags that "Rotten
Row" or Melton exhibits; but, on the other hand, you rarely see the
lumbering, lolloping, heavy brutes so common in this country. Then,
again, a horse in this country is groomed and turned out in a style
which I never saw in America, and therefore shows to much greater
advantage, in spite of the Yankee sometimes ornamenting his head with
hairs from his tail; while on the other hand, though an Englishman
considers a pair of nags that will go a mile in five minutes a great
prize, no man in America who is a horse fancier would look at a pair
that could not do the same distance in four; nor would he think them
worth speaking about, if they could not do the distance in a very few
seconds over three minutes. On one side of the water, pace is almost the
only object; on the other side, shape and appearance are weighty
matters.

The habits of the Americans being essentially gregarious, and business
teaching the truism that a cent saved is a cent gained, hackney coaches
are comparatively little used by the men; for it must be remembered that
idler