for his services,) until he arrives at a place where hands are wanted and good wages are offered for them; he has then a fair and near prospect of comfort, taking care only to be industrious, frugal, and especially to avoid habits of drinking, a vice the most difficult to withstand where the spirits of the country are to be obtained for half a crown the gallon. There are people with us in England who object {161} to giving the poor man any facility of emigration, and who are disposed to condemn prospects held out to him of improving his present condition by a change of country; I shall not stop to argue with such narrow policy and truly anti-christian reasoners more than to say, that I will leave them to point out, for I cannot, even in a political point of view, any loss to a country arising from the emigration of a _redundant_ population. A WINTER AT PHILADELPHIA Though a winter passage across the Atlantic may be quick it is almost always unpleasant; this thought, aided by a wish to see a little more of the climate and people ere I should bid to both farewell, determined me to stay till spring. The following notes and reflections are the fruit of the protracted residence, and they are presented to the reader nearly as they stand in my journal: in their nature they must be desultory, and by essaying to render them more connected, the little interest they may possess might be made yet less. _December_ 6th. A beautiful day, even warm, as indeed the mid-day has hitherto been, yet the {162} thermometer in an east room window opened at early morning stood at 33°.