ristopher. I will tell you
now. Upon my arrival with a pocket, as you are aware, not very
inconveniently laden, I kept of course "my eye ahead" for any thing
suitable in the farming way; sheep-stock or cattle. But it would not do.
_Capital_ was required to get a sheep-station, and employment as an
overseer, in consequence of the depression that existed in the markets
_for all kinds of stock_, altogether hopeless. No man is idle here longer
than he can help it, unless he have the wherewithal to look to; and there
are fifty modes of gaining bread here, if a man will turn to them? What
could a briefless barrister do better than throw himself upon the law? I
smelled out the attorneys to begin with. The first with whom I came in
contact was one Mr ----, from a northern county in England. He had been
here only three years, and was already rattling about in his carriage. He
arrived without a shoe to his foot, or a sixpence in his pocket. Another
was my old and respected friend Mr ----, writer to the signet, of
Edinburgh, who had been here about eighteen months, was living like a
gentleman, and on the point of entering a fine new dwelling-house, which
he had himself erected out of his own honourable gains. Upon him I waited,
and from his kindness I obtained all the information I stood in need of;
and not only this, but immediate profitable employment in his office,
which, with his leave, I hold until something offers--whether I shall
claim admission as attorney, solicitor, and proctor, as some have done
before me, or resort to my old calling of advocate, is as yet an undecided
question. I am now in the receipt of more than is necessary for
subsistence, and I shall look before I leap. The rents of houses are
extravagantly high. The poorest tradesmen pay fifteen shillings a-week for
his small house--and he must pay it weekly; the better class of tradesmen
pay twenty and twenty-five shillings, and the higher class from two to
four pounds a-week; for a petty dwelling containing only three rooms and a
kitchen. A small brick cottage held by a friend of mine, and consisting of
sitting-room, bed-room, servant's room, and kitchen, is considered a great
bargain at a hundred pounds per annum. The hours of business are limited
with strictness to seven--_videlicit_, from nine in the morning until four
P.M. You are your own master after four o'clock, and need fear no
business-calls or interruptions. Whilst business, however, is going on,
the e