Potatoes, seventy-five cents a bushel. Carrots, bad and scabby, 9_d._ sterling, to one quarter dollar per peck. _23rd._--Commodore Stephen Decatur[140] fell this day in a duel, having killed five men in the same way himself. He swore shamefully at the doctors while dying, because they could not extract the fatal ball from his bowels. He is called by the National Intelligencer, "One of the bright stars of Columbia, set for ever!" And the country is summoned to mourn for him. The president and the heads of departments, with military and naval officers and citizens, walked in procession at his funeral. The laws of heaven and earth, on this subject, are here quite insulted, by common consent. A lady of this district, hearing that her husband was gone to fight a duel, fifty miles off, sent an express, charging that he should be brought home a corpse rather than disgraced. It is a rule here always to take skilful aim, and if one party chooses to reserve his fire, he may go up and shoot the other, if he does not beg for his life. {397} A gentleman once would not beg it, but the other said, "If your life is not worth asking for, it is not worth taking!" And so fired in the air. A sinecure, or something in the nature of one, is held by Joseph Paulding, Esq. of Washington.[141] The holder of this situation is enjoined to write in defence of the American character and government, and at the same time to vilify the British. Mr. Colvin, late editor of the National Register, in a critique on Lancaster's lectures, says, "that we (meaning America) are more virtuous than the people of other nations, I cannot believe. It is sufficient that we are equal, not worse." That there is no great superiority of moral worth on the part of America, the following anecdote will prove. A gentleman seduced the sister of his own wife, and then, to hide her disgrace, disguised his wife in the uniform of a lieutenant of the United States' navy, and married the young woman to her. The lieutenant of course went to sea immediately, and, poor man! was never heard of more. The nuptials were celebrated by candle-light, and all the gay company, except the priest, were parties to this ingenious trick! _24th._--Flour now is only four dollars and a half a barrel, five bushels to a barrel. After hauling, grinding, and the cost of the empty barrel, are deducted, it is seen that the farmer only receives two dollars fifty cents, for five bushels of fine wheat. Under such circumstances, where is profit? {398} _Sunday, 26th._--I left this city and old friends, to return, perhaps, no more. At Baltimore, on my way to Philadelphia, I met Joseph Lancaster, teaching a few small children.