“A husband may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the grand seignor who drowns a slave at midnight.”—Thackeray, on Household Tyrants.

Oh! Mr. Thackeray! I ought to have known from experience, that beauty and brains never travel in company—but I was disenchanted when I first saw your nose, and I did say that you were too stout to look intellectual. But I forgive you in consideration of the above paragraph, which, for truth and candor, ought to be appended to the four Gospels.

I’m on the marrow bones of my soul to you, Mr. Thackeray. I honor you for “turning State’s evidence” against your own culprit-sex. If there’s any little favor I can do for you, such as getting you naturalized, (for you are a sight too cute and clever for an Englishman,) I’ll fly round and get the documents made out for you to-morrow.

I tell you, Mr. Thackeray, the laws over here allow husbands to break their wives’ hearts as much as they like, so long as they don’t break their heads. So the only way we can get along, is to allow them to scratch our faces, and then run to the police court, and shew “his Honor” that Mr. Caudle can “make his mark.”

Why—if we were not cunning, we should get circumvented all the time by these domestic Napoleons. Yes, indeed; we sleep with one eye open, and “get up early in the morning,” and keep our arms a-kimbo.

—By-the-way, Mr. Thackeray, what do you think of us, as a people?—taking us “by and large,” as our honest farmers say. Pretty tall nation for a growing one; don’t you think so? Smart men—smarter women—good broad streets—no smoking or spitting allowed in ’em—houses all built with an eye to architectural beauty—newspapers don’t tell how many buttons you wear on your waistcoat—Jonathan never stares at you, as if you were an imported hyena, or stirs you up with the long pole of criticism, to see your size and hear your roar. Our politicians never whip each other on the floor of Congress, and grow black in the face because their choler chokes them! No mushroom aristocracy over here—no “coats of arms” or liveried servants: nothing of that sham sort, in our “great and glorious country,” as you have probably noticed. If you are “round takin’ notes,” I’ll jog your English elbow now and then. Ferns have eyes—and they are not green, either.