would come back on condition that he would give him a little more
liquor. To this proposition the gentleman was compelled to assent, and
the man returned as if he had conferred a favour. The next day, at
dinner, there being no porter up, the lady said to her husband, "Don't
send for it, but go _yourself_, my dear; he is so very cross again that
I fear he will leave the house." A lady of my acquaintance in New York
told her coachman that she should give him warning; the reply from the
box was--"I reckon I have been too long in the woods to be scared with
an owl." Had she noticed this insolence, he would probably have got
down from the box, and have left her to drive her own cattle. The
coloured servants are, generally speaking, the most civil; after them
the Germans; the Irish and English are very bad. At the hotels,
etcetera, you very often find Americans in subordinate situations, and
it is remarkable that when they are so, they are much more civil than
the imported servants. Few of the American servants, even in the large
cities, understand their business, but it must be remembered that few of
them have ever learnt it, and, moreover, they are expected to do three
times as much as a servant would do in an English house. The American
houses are much too large for the number of servants employed, which is
another cause for service being so much disliked.

It is singular that I have not found in any one book, written by
English, French, or German travellers, any remarks made upon a custom
which the Americans have of almost entirely living, I may say, in the
basement of their houses; and which is occasioned by their difficulties
in housekeeping with their insufficient domestic establishments. I say
custom of the Americans, as it is the case in nine houses out of ten;
only the more wealthy travelled, and refined portion of the community in
their cities deviating from the general practice.

I have before observed that, from the wish of display, the American
houses are generally speaking, too large for the proprietors and for the
domestics which are employed. Vying with each other in appearance,
their receiving rooms are splendidly furnished, but they do not live in
them.

The basement in the front area, which with us is usually appropriated to
the housekeeper's-room and offices, is in most of their houses fitted up
as a dining-room; by no means a bad plan, as it is cool in summer, warm
in winter, and saves much