I did not go out of the house all day. After spending my morning in reading Bacon and the Atlas, I spent the rest of the day in the Drawing room with Madame and the Ladies who are busily employed in the preparations for the eighth. The carriage broken last night was Mr. Calhoun’s, and the horses started as she was going to get in, a very providential escape particularly as she is in a critical situation. 1

It amuses me much to observe the sports going on always at this time of the year among the people. The guns, squibs and crackers going all the time appear to exhibit so much happiness and content among the common people and the various little tricks which they play are the relics of the old Christmas gambols. They appear to have taken it into their heads to trick us, but it was only by tying a dead pig to the door. They treated poor Mr. Lewis Johnson the tobacco man worse, for they took a fancy to the figure of a little squab Dutchman smoking his pipe, which was his sign, and they carried it off with them. This man is the successor of Duport a man known to us of old. He could not bear this with any sort of patience, consequently posted an advertisement with a reward together with a most lamentable complaint on the subject, and numerous threats of vengeance. Rather imprudently, as I thought, for the population here are not to be checked with impunity at this time. The good people of the North are far too steady for my blood and although I may be saying what I should not I cannot help preferring the traits of the Southern 31character with all the faulty ones to the eternal purity of the Northern hypocrites.