They said that, from the grandeur and great number of their churches, they thought they ought to be one of the most honest and harmless people they had been amongst, but instead of that they were now convinced they must be the very worst, and the quicker Mr. Melody made arrangements to be off the better. The Indians had been objects of great interest, and for the three nights of their amusements their room was well filled and nightly increasing; but all arguments were in vain, and we must needs be on the move. I relieved their minds in a measure relative to the instruments of death they had seen and the executions of which they had heard an account, by informing them of a fact that had not occurred to them--that the number of executions mentioned had been spread over a great number of years, and were for crimes committed amongst some hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, occupying a tract of country a great many miles in every direction from York; and also that the poor men imprisoned for debt were from various parts of the country for a great distance around. This seemed to abate their surprise to a considerable degree; still, the first impression was here made, and made by means of their eyes (which they say they never disbelieve, and I am quite sure they will never get rid of it), that York was the "wicked town," as they continued to call it during the remainder of their European travels. I explained to them that other towns had their jails and their gallows--that in London they daily rode in their buss past prison walls, and where the numbers imprisoned were greater than those in York, in proportion to the greater size of the city. Their comments were many and curious on the cruelty of imprisoning people for debt, because they could not pay money. "Why not kill them?" they said; "it would be better, because when a man is dead he is no expense to any one, and his wife can get a husband again, and his little children a father to feed and take care of them; when he is in jail they must starve: when he is once in jail he cannot wish his face to be seen again, and they had better kill them all at once." They thought it easier to die than to live in jail, and seemed to be surprised that white men, so many hundreds and thousands, would submit to it, when they had so many means by which they could kill themselves.