In marriage, the custom of all the family living together seems strange to English ideas, and we cannot help picturing petty jealousies and quarrels amongst such a groupe. Custom, however, and their natural happy temper, free from the corroding cares of more populous countries, prevent these. I cannot help admiring their happiness in this respect, and I trust they may long enjoy it. I know the misery I should feel, were I a father, to see a beloved child depart for ever from the parental roof. Married females still preserve their maiden name, conjoined with that of their husband's. The children by such marriage bear the surname of the father. The saint's-day on which they may be born provides them with a Christian name; and, as the Romish church has a saint for every day in the calendar, the difficulties that the Rev. Mr. Shandy had to encounter are avoided. In the lottery of names, people of all classes take their chance. It is rather droll to hear the black girls addressing each other by the names of Eugenia, Marcela, Florencia, &c. Some fair ladies bear the pretty romantic names of Rosaria, Irené, Magdalena, Victoria, Martina, Fortunata, Celestina, Adriana, &c. whilst others, not so fortunate in their time of coming into the world, are obliged to be content with the ordinary ones of Juana, Tomasa, &c. But what is there in a name? a rose would smell as sweet under any other name. John is unquestionably the most vulgar of all names; it is worse than Tom: every body applies it, when unacquainted with one's real appellation. In Buenos Ayres, a stranger is addressed as "Don Juan." The Toms and Jacks of the Spanish vocabulary are softened down into Tomas and Juan. The Spanish custom, when speaking or writing to an individual, of using the Christian name instead of the surname, is very pleasing; and as I am a great lover of the romantic, it will necessarily follow, that I am more charmed with Don Carlos, Don Henrico, Don Guillermo, &c. than plain Mr. Smith, Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Tomkins; and Doña Clara, Doña Dominga, and Doña Saturnina, than Miss Williams, Miss White, and Miss Brown. Respectable families think it no disgrace to let lodgings, take in washing, make and mend clothes and linen: these occupations are not looked upon as belonging to the inferior orders, as with us. Their slaves perform the laborious part.[17] I was not a little surprised, when I first arrived, to have an application from the wife of an Alcalde to perform any jobs in needle-work that I might have. I concluded the lady meant to jest. The wife of an Alcalde, a sitting magistrate, to take in needle-work! thought I. What would the Sir Richard Birnies and the other sages of Bow-street, Marlborough-street, &c. say to this?