I do not think I was present with a pack of cards a dozen times during more than three years that I remained in the country.

Billiards are much played, though in most places the amusement is illegal.

It often appeared to me that the old women of a state made the laws, and the young men broke them.
Notwithstanding the diminutive size of the city, we found much to see, and to amuse us.
The patent office is a curious record of the fertility of the mind of man when left to its own resources; but it gives ample proof also that it is not under such circumstances it is most usefully employed.

This patent office contains models of all the mechanical inventions that have been produced in the Union, and the number is enormous.

I asked the man who shewed these, what proportion of them had been brought into use, he said about one in a thousand; he told me also, that they chiefly proceeded from mechanics and agriculturists settled in remote parts of the country, who had began by endeavouring to hit upon some contrivance to enable them to _get along_ without sending some thousand and odd miles for the thing they wanted.