We dined with Mr. Price, and on the table was some of our own justly-celebrated Madeira. L----, who is an oracle on these subjects, pronounced it injured. He was told it was so lately arrived from New York, that there had not been time to affect it. This fact, coupled with others that have since come to my knowledge, induce me to believe that the change of tastes, which is so often remarked in liquors, fruits, and other eatables, is as much wrought on ourselves, as in the much-abused viands. Those delicate organs which are necessary to this particular sense may readily undergo modifications by the varieties of temperature. We know that taste and its sister sense, smelling, are both temporarily destroyed by colds. The voice is signally affected by temperature. In cold climates it is clear and soft; in warm, harsh and deep. All these facts would serve to sustain the probability of the theory that a large portion of the strictures that are lavished on the products of different countries, should be lavished on our own capricious organs. _Au reste_, the consequence is much the same, let the cause be what it will. Mr. M----, an Englishman, who has many business concerns with America, came in while we were still at table, and I quitted the house in his company. It was still broad daylight. As we were walking together, arm and arm, my companion suddenly placed a hand behind him, and said, "My fine fellow, you are there, are you?" A lad of about seventeen had a hand in one of his pockets, feeling for his handkerchief. The case was perfectly clear, for Mr. M---- had him still in his gripe when I saw them. Instead of showing apprehension or shame, the fellow began to bluster and threaten. My companion, after a word or two of advice, hurried me from the spot. On expressing the surprise I felt at his permitting such a hardened rogue to go at large, he said that our wisest course was to get away. The lad was evidently supported by a gang, and we might be beaten as well as robbed, for our pains. Besides, the handkerchief was not actually taken, attendance in the courts was both expensive and vexatious, and he would be bound over to prosecute. In England, the complainant is compelled to prosecute, which is, in effect, a premium on crime! We retain many of the absurdities of the common law, and, among others, some which depend on a distinction between the intention and the commission of the act; but I do not know that any of our States are so unjust as to punish a citizen, in this way, because he has already been the victim of a rogue. After all, I am not so certain our law is much better; but I believe more of the _onus_ of obtaining justice falls on the injured party here than it does with us: still we are both too much under the dominion of the common law.