Officers entrusted with the performance of such duties, while faithfully and conscientiously performing their work, should yet exercise their power with discretion and tact.

They are the servants of the people, and ought to look after their interests and convenience as well as after the interests of the State.

I would be the last one to encourage smuggling, but would the national interests really suffer if the Custom House officers were to be a little more ready to accept a traveller's word, and if they were less ready to suspect everyone of making false declarations when entering the country?
Smuggling must be repressed, but at the same time is it not true that the more imports enter the country the better it is for the State and for the people?
There are no peers in the United States, as the Government has no power to create them; and although America is nominally a free country, yet if a foreign government should confer a decoration on an American citizen for services rendered, he cannot accept it without the consent of Congress, just as under a monarchy a subject must obtain his sovereign's permission to wear a foreign decoration.

It is true that there are some such titled persons in America, but they are not treated with any greater respect or distinction than other citizens; yet you frequently find people in America who not only would not disdain, but are actually anxious, to receive decorations from foreign governments.
Once, at least, an American high official, just before leaving the country to which he had been accredited, accepted, without permission, a decoration, knowing, that if he had asked for the consent of Congress, he would not have been allowed to receive it.
It is human nature to love change and variety, and for every person to be designated "Mister" is too tame and flat for the go-ahead Americans.
Hence many of the people whom you meet daily have some prefix to their names, such as General, Colonel, Major, President, Judge, etc.

You will not be far wrong to call a man "Judge" when he is a lawyer; or "General" or "Colonel" if he has served in the army; or "Admiral" or "Captain" if he has been in the navy.