States, while
we require fifty millions, or nearly 2_l_. 10_s_. each, for the same
purpose. But the fact is, that that sum is only about half what the
Americans pay in reality; for each individual state has its own civil list,
and all the machinery of a government to support; and insignificant as the
expenses of that government appear in detail, yet the aggregate is of very
serious importance. For instance, there are five times as many judges in
the state of New York alone as in Great Britain and Ireland; and though
each individual of these were to receive no more than we would pay a macer
of the court, yet when there comes to be two or three hundred of them, it
becomes a serious matter; nor does it make any difference, in fact whether
they are paid out of the exchequer of the state, or by the fees of the
suitors in their courts; they are equally paid by a tax on the people in
either case. Although the necessaries of life are cheap in America, and
equally cheap in Canada, the luxuries of life are higher by several
hundred per cent in the one country than the other. Thus, wine in the
United States is so highly taxed, that in a tavern at New York you pay
more for a bottle of Madeira than in one at London, viz. five
dollars,--and fifteen shillings for port."

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

LACONICS.

(_From the fourth edition of the work of that title_.)

The southern wits are like cucumbers, which are commonly all good in their
kind; but at best are an insipid fruit: while the northern geniuses are
like melons, of which not one in fifty is good; but when it is so, it is
an exquisite relish.--_Berkeley_.

* * * * *

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot
attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of
them shorter.--_Cowley_.

* * * * *

Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the
ground, and fetters them from moving.--_Montaigne_.

* * * * *

When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed, I
sometimes say to myself, that, were the offer made true, I would engage to
run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask,
should be the privilege of an author, to correct in a second edition,
certain errors of the first.--_Franklin's Life_.

* *