PROFIT AND Loss. 155 



offensive over -supply of Fulton and Washington 

 Markets, and the consequent difficulty in making 

 selections for the daily returning dinner, and being 

 every morning informed by the butcher-boy that 

 you can have a beefsteak or mutton-chop, and noth 

 ing else, according as hairy or woolly cattle are 

 cheapest. Think of all these advantages, apart 

 from pecuniary considerations ! 



In a moral aspect, the advantage is equally strik 

 ing. No late hours or evening dissipations at Flush 

 ing no demoralizing club-life no theatrical enter 

 tainments no political meetings. Occasionally, per 

 haps, some exponent of the water-cure theory, some 

 second-rate necromancer, some believer in spiritual 

 ism, or some devotee of cold water, gives a lecture 

 at the town hall ; but these can scarcely rise to the 

 dangerous dignity of dissipations, and are agreeably 

 somnolescent in their influence. Husbands are not 

 apt to be led away by them into neglecting their 

 wives, nor literary or professional men into deserting 

 their books ; while for the youth of either sex these 

 attractions are not excessive. Once in a while there 

 may be a public ball, but, as every one has been see 

 ing every body else every day in every week for 

 months, if not years, and as nothing but ice cream, 

 cakes, and lemonade are served round, it is a mild 

 species of orgy at worst. 



