to discover heinous offences where the disinterested and humane only see matter for merriment or pity. Here comes a peculiar organization of human qualities. Avarice, prodigality, and falsehood, are that man’s principal characteristics--a combination of inconsistent vices which make him rather a petty fool than a sensible knave, to which latter distinction he seems to aspire. To day he will clutch a shilling with a grasp so powerful that nothing can extort it, and to-morrow he will contract a debt to gratify the most paltry vice that may move him. Should he happen to get into your debt upon such an occasion, he will not be at a loss for lies to evade your demand. When Mareschal de Rochelaure was accused of taking part with the Duke of Mayenne, he answered the king that he “did not follow the duke, but his own money, for his debt would be but in a desperate condition, if he did not stick close to his debtor.” Your tenacity in sticking close to that man would only extort from him the same falsehood a thousand times, and if detected and reproached, he would coolly ask you whether you were so cursed a fool as to believe him! He never enjoys a hearty laugh, save when he has duped some unsuspecting individual who may have been induced to confide in him.----You need not be surprised at his quick and sudden disappearance around the corner; for yonder comes his especial friend, the collector, who has caused him to tell more lies than a dozen of satan’s imps could register in a year, and make more clumsy dodges than could be chronicled in a volume as large as a quarto Bible. Of all dreaded things in our place, that collector is the most dreaded. He is a clever, sociable, and amusing fellow, who first puts you in a happy humor by his joviality, and then draws the money from your purse before you are aware of it. He was quite a favorite a few years ago, his society being universally courted, but since he has engaged in his present employment every body dodges and runs from him. My dear sir, if you wish to preserve your friendly intercourse with a neighborhood, never become a collector; but should you ever be beset with more friends than you know what to do with, I know of no honorable process by which you can so easily get rid of them as by commencing this troublesome business. However brave a people may be, reflected Peter, they have never yet had the courage boldly to face a bill, and many who had laughed danger in the face, skulked like cowards into the darkest corner upon beholding the simple shadow of a creditor.