“In the Court of Common Pleas for the city and county of New York: 

“I—­do declare on oath, that it is bona fide my intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, State or sovereignty whatever, and particularly to the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of whom I am a subject.

“Signed this —­day of —­184-.

“James Connor, Clerk. 
Clerk’s office, Court of Common Pleas for the city and county
of New York.”

“I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of an original declaration of intention remaining on record in my office, &c., &c., &c.”

“There! it required skill and practice to imitate like that” Mr. Snivel exultingly exclaims.  “We require to make thirty-seven citizens, and have prepared the exact number of papers.  If the cribbers do their duty, the day is ours.”  Thus is revealed one of the scenes common to “Rogues’ Retreat.”  We shrink at the multiplicity of crime in our midst; we too seldom trace the source from whence it flows.  If we did but turn our eyes in the right direction we would find the very men we have elected our guardians, protecting the vicious, whose power they covet-sacrificing their high trust to a low political ambition.  You cannot serve a political end by committing a wrong without inflicting a moral degradation on some one.  Political intrigue begets laxity of habits; it dispels that integrity without which the unfixed mind becomes vicious; it acts as a festering sore in the body politic.

Having concluded their arrangements for the Mayor’s election, the party drinks itself into a noisy mood, each outshouting the other for the right to speak, each refilling and emptying his glass, each asserting with vile imprecations, his dignity as a gentleman.  Midnight finds the reeling party adjourning in the midst of confusion.

Mr. Snivel winks the vote-cribber into a corner, and commences interrogating him concerning Mag Munday.  The implacable face of the vote-cribber reddens, he contorts his brows, frets his jagged beard with the fingers of his left hand, runs his right over the crown of his head, and stammers:  “I know’d her, lived with her-she used to run sort of wild, and was twice flogged.  She got crazed at last!” He shrugs his stalworth shoulders and pauses.  “Being a politician, you see, a body can’t divest their minds of State affairs sufficiently to keep up on women matters,” he pursues:  “She got into the poor-house, that I knows—­”

“She is dead then?” interposes Mr. Snivel.