some other soft-toned instrument; nor can he leave the street-door open, but his house is defiled by the unsavory visits of a troop of pup-dogs, who even sometimes carry their loathsome ravages into the _sanctum sanctorum_, the parlor! If my readers have ever witnessed the sufferings of such a family, so situated, they may form some idea how our worthy ancestors were distressed by their mercurial neighbors of Connecticut. Gangs of these marauders, we are told, penetrated into the New Netherland settlements, and threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility and their intolerable inquisitiveness,—two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about anybody’s concerns but their own. Many enormities were committed on the highways, where several unoffending burghers were brought to a stand, and tortured with questions and guesses,—which outrages occasioned as much vexation and heart-burning as does the modern right of search on the high seas. [Illustration: “THE HORRIBLE MELODIES OF SOME AMATEUR, WHO CHOOSES TO SERENADE THE MOON.”] Great jealousy did they likewise stir up, by their intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for, being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant-tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the simple damsels from their ponderous Dutch gallants. Among other hideous customs, they attempted to introduce among them that of _bundling_, which the Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty and foreign fashions natural to their sex, seemed very well inclined to follow, but that their mothers, being more experienced in the world, and better acquainted with men and things, strenuously discountenanced all such outlandish innovations. But what chiefly operated to embroil our ancestors with these strange folk, was an unwarrantable liberty which they occasionally took of entering in hordes into the territories of the New Netherlands, and settling themselves down, without leave or licence, to _improve_ the land, in the manner I have before noticed. This unceremonious mode of taking possession of _new land_ was technically termed _squatting_, and hence is derived the appellation of _squatters_,—a name odious in the ears of all great land-holders, and which is given to those enterprising worthies who seize upon land first, and take their chance to make good their title to it afterwards.