A Brief History of the Custom House

On ascending the steps, you would discern in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms, a row of venerable figures sitting in old fashioned chairs. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talk together in voices between speech and a snore. These old gentlemen seated like matthew at the receipt of customs, but not liable to be summoned thence like him, for apostolic errands. The room itself is cobwebbed and dingy with old paint. Its floor is strewn with gray sand in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse. And it is easy to conclude from the general slovenliness of the place that this is a