At the springs we parted, Mr. Warren and his friends finding a conveyance, with their own horses, in readiness to carry them the remainder of the distance. As for my uncle and myself, it was understood that we were to get on in the best manner we could, it being expected that we should reach Ravensnest in the course of a day or two. According to the theory of our new business, we ought to travel on foot, but we had a reservation in petto that promised us also the relief of a comfortable wagon of some sort or other. "Well," said my uncle, the moment we had got far enough from our new acquaintances to be out of ear-shot, "I must say one thing in behalf of Mr. Seneky, as he calls himself, or Sen, as his elegant sister calls him, and that is, that I believe him to be one of the biggest scoundrels the state holds." "This is not drawing his character en beau," I answered, laughing. "But why do you come out so decidedly upon him at this particular moment?" "Because this particular moment happens to be the first in which I have had an opportunity to say anything since I have known the rascal. You must have remarked that the fellow held me in discourse from the time we left Troy until we stopped here." "Certainly; I could see that his tongue was in motion "He said enough to lay bare his whole character. Our subject was anti-rent, which he commenced with a view to explain it to a foreigner; but I managed to lead him on, step by step, until he let me into all his notions and expectations on the subject. Why, Hugh, the villain actually proposed that you and I should enlist, and turn ourselves into two of the rascally mock redskins." "Enlist! Do they still persevere so far as to keep up that organization, in the very teeth of the late law?" "The law! What do two or three thousand voters care for any penal law, in a country like this? Who is to enforce the law against them? Did they commit murder, and were they even convicted, as might happen under the excitement of such a crime, they very well know nobody would be hanged. Honesty is always too passive in matters that do not immediately press on its direct interests. It is for the interest of every honest man in the State to set his face against this anti-rent movement, and to do all he can, by his vote and influence, to put it down into the dirt, out of which it sprang, and into which it should be crushed; but not one in a hundred, even of those who condemn it toto cÆlo, will go a foot out of their way even to impede its progress. All depends on those who have the power; and they will exert that power so as to conciliate the active rogue, rather than protect the honest man. You are to remember that the laws are executed here on the principle that 'what is everybody's business is nobody's business.'" "You surely do not believe that the authorities will wink at an open violation of the laws!" "That will depend on the characters of individuals; most will, but some will not. You and I would be punished soon enough, were there a chance, but the mass would escape. Oh! we have had some precious disclosures in our corner of the car! The two or three men who joined Newcome are from anti-rent districts, and seeing me with their friend, little reserve has been practised. One of those men is an anti-rent lecturer; and, being somewhat didactic, he favoured me with some of his arguments, seriatim." "How! Have they got to lectures? I should have supposed the newspapers would have been the means of circulating "Oh, the newspapers, like hogs swimming too freely, have cut their own throats; and it seems to be fashionable, just at this moment, not to believe them. Lecturing is the great moral lever of the nation at present." "But a man can lie in a lecture, as well as in a newspaper." "Out of all question; and if many of the lecturers are of the school of this Mr. Holmes—'Lecturer Holmes,' as Seneca called him—but, if many are of his school, a pretty set of liberty-takers with the truth must they be." "You detected him, then, in some of these liberties?" "In a hundred: nothing was easier than for a man in my situation to do that; knowing, as I did, so much of the history of the land-titles of the State. One of his arguments partakes so largely of the weak side of our system, that I must give it to you. He spoke of the gravity of the disturbances—of the importance to the peace and character of the State of putting an end to them; and then, by way of corollary to his proposition, produced a scheme for changing the titles, in order to satisfy the people!" "The people, of course, meaning the tenants; the landlords and their rights passing for nothing." "That is one beautiful feature of the morality—an eye, or a cheek, if you will—but here is the nose, and highly Roman it is. A certain portion of the community wish to get rid of the obligations of their contracts; and finding it cannot be done by law, they resort to means that are opposed to all law, in order to effect their purposes. Public law-breakers, violators of the public peace, they make use of their own wrong as an argument for perpetuating another that can be perpetuated in no other way. I have been looking over some of the papers containing proclamations, &c., and find that both law-makers and law-breakers are of one mind as to this charming policy. Without a single manly effort to put down the atrocious wrong that is meditated, the existence of the wrong itself is made an argument for meeting it with concessions, and thus sustaining it. Instead of using the means the institutions have provided for putting down all such unjust and illegal combinations, the combinations are a sufficient reason of themselves why the laws should be altered, and wrong be done to a few, in order that "This is reasoning that can be used only where real grievances exist. But there are no real grievances in the case of the tenants. They may mystify weak heads in the instance of the Manor leases, with their quarter sales, fat hens, loads of wood and days' works; but my leases are all on three lives, with rent payable in money, and with none of the conditions that are called feudal, though no more feudal than any other bargain to pay articles in kind. One might just as well call a bargain made by a butcher to deliver pork for a series of years feudal. However, feudal or not, my leases, and those of most other landlords, are running on lives; and yet, by what I can learn, the discontent is general; and the men who have solemnly bargained to give up their farms at the expiration of the lives are just as warm for the 'down-rent' and titles in fee, as the Manor tenants themselves! They say that the obligations given for actual purchases are beginning to be discredited." "You are quite right; and there is one of the frauds practised on the world at large. In the public documents, only the Manor leases, with their pretended feudal covenants and their perpetuity, are kept in view, while the combination goes to all leases, or nearly all, and certainly to all sorts of leases, where the estates are of sufficient extent to allow of the tenants to make head against the landlords. I dare say there are hundreds of tenants, even on the property of the Renssalaers, who are honest enough to be willing to comply with their contracts if the conspirators would let them; but the rapacious spirit is abroad among the occupants of other lands, as well as among the occupants of theirs, and the government considers its existence a proof that concessions should be made. The discontented must be appeased, right or not!" "Did Seneca say anything on the subject of his own interests?" "He did; not so much in conversation with me, as in the discourse he held with 'Lecturer Holmes.' I listened attentively, happening to be familiar, through tradition and through personal knowledge, with all the leading facts of the case. As you will soon be called on to act in that matter for yourself, I may as well relate them to you. They will serve, also, as guides to the moral merits of the occu "So much difference is there between 'de la Rochefocauld et de la Rochefoucauld.'" "All the difference in the world: but let me give you the facts, for they will serve as a rule by which to judge of many others. In the first place, my great-grandfather Mordaunt, the 'patentee,' as he was called, first let the mill-lot to the grandfather of this Seneca, the tenant then being quite a young man. In order to obtain settlers, in that early day, it was necessary to give them great advantages, for there was vastly more land than there were people to work it. The first lease, therefore, was granted on highly advantageous terms to that Jason Newcome, whom I can just remember. He had two characters; the one, and the true, which set him down as a covetous, envious, narrow-minded provincial, who was full of cant and roguery. Some traditions exist among us of his having been detected in stealing timber, and in various other frauds. In public he is one of those virtuous and hard-working pioneers who have transmitted to their descendants all their claims, those that are supposed to be moral, as well as those that are known to be legal. This flummery may do for elderly ladies, who affect snuff and bohea, and for some men who have minds of the same calibre, but they are not circumstances to influence "I am afraid there is nothing unnatural in thus perverting principles; half mankind appear to me really to get a great many of their notions dessus dessous." "Half is a small proportion; as you will find, my boy, when you grow older. But was it not an impudent proposal of Seneca, when he wished you and me to join the corps of 'Injins?'" "What answer did you make? Though I suppose it would hardly do for us to go disguised and armed, now that the law makes it a felony, even while our motive, at the bottom, might be to aid the law." "Catch me at that act of folly! Why, Hugh, could they prove such a crime on either of us, or any one connected with an old landed family, we should be the certain victims. No governor would dare pardon us. No, no; clemency is a word reserved for the obvious and confirmed rogues." "We might get a little favour on the score of belonging to a very powerful body of offenders." "True; I forgot that circumstance. The more numerous the crimes and the criminals, the greater the probability of impunity; and this, too, not on the general principle that power cannot be resisted, but on the particular principle We now approached one of the humbler taverns of the place, where it was necessary for those of our apparent pretensions to seek lodgings, and the discourse was dropped. It was several weeks too early in the season for the Springs to be frequented, and we found only a few of those in the place who drank the waters because they really required them. My uncle had been an old stager at Saratoga—a beau of the "purest water," as he laughingly described himself—and he was enabled to explain all that it was necessary for me to know. An American watering-place, however, is so very much inferior to most of those in Europe, as to furnish very little, in their best moments, beyond the human beings they contain, to attract the attention of the traveller. In the course of the afternoon we availed ourselves of the opportunity of a return vehicle to go as far as Sandy Hill, where we passed the night. The next morning, bright and early, we got into a hired wagon and drove across the country until near night, when we paid for our passage, sent the vehicle back, and sought a tavern. At this house, where we passed the night, we heard a good deal of the "Injins" having made their appearance on the Littlepage lands, and many conjectures as to the probable result. We were in a township, or rather on a property that was called Mooseridge, and which had once belonged to us, but which, having been sold, and in a great measure paid for by the occupants, no one thought of impairing the force of the covenants under which the parties held. The most trivial observer will soon discover that it is only when something is to be gained that the aggrieved citizen wishes to disturb a covenant. Now, I never heard any one say a syllable against either of the covenants of his lease under which he held his farm, let him be ever so loud against those which would shortly compel him to give it up! Had I complained of the fact—and such facts abounded—that my predecessors had incautiously let farms at such low prices that the lessees had been enabled to pay the rents for half a century by subletting small portions We obtained tolerably decent lodgings at our inn, though the profoundest patriot America possesses, if he know anything of other countries, or of the best materials of his own, cannot say much in favour of the sleeping arrangements of an ordinary country inn. The same money and the same trouble would render that which is now the very beau idÉal of discomfort, at least tolerable, and in many instances good. But who is to produce this reform? According to the opinions circulated among us, the humblest hamlet we have has already attained the highest point of civilization; and as for the people, without distinction of classes, it is universally admitted that they are the best educated, the acutest, and the most intelligent in Christendom;—no, I must correct myself; they are all this, except when they are in the act of leasing lands, and then the innocent and illiterate husbandmen are We passed an hour on the piazza, after eating our supper, and there being a collection of men assembled there, inhabitants of the hamlet, we had an opportunity to get into communication with them. My uncle sold a watch, and I played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popular. After this beginning, the discourse turned on the engrossing subject of the day, anti-rentism. The principal speaker was a young man of about six-and-twenty, of a sort of shabby genteel air and appearance, whom I soon discovered to be the attorney of the neighbourhood. His name was Hubbard, while that of the other principal speaker was Hall. The last was a mechanic, as I ascertained, and was a plain-looking working-man of middle age. Each of these persons seated himself on a common "kitchen chair," leaning back against the side of the house, and, of course, resting on the two hind legs of the rickety support, while he placed his own feet on the rounds in front. The attitudes were neither graceful nor picturesque, but they were so entirely common as to excite no surprise. As for Hall, he appeared perfectly contented with his situation, after fidgeting a little to get the two supporting legs of his chair just where he wanted them; but Hubbard's eye was restless, uneasy, and even menacing, for more than a minute. He drew a knife from his pocket—a small, neat pen-knife only, it is true—gazed a little wildly about him, and just as I thought he intended to abandon his nicely poised chair, and to make an assault on one of the pillars that upheld the roof of the piazza, the innkeeper advanced, holding in his hand several narrow slips of pine board, one of which he offered at once to 'Squire Hubbard. This relieved the attorney, who took the wood, and was soon deeply plunged in, to me, the unknown delights of whittling. I cannot explain the mysterious pleasure that so many find in whittling, though the prevalence of the custom is so well known. But I cannot explain the pleasure so many find in chewing tobacco, or in smoking. The precaution of the landlord was far from being unnecessary, and appeared to be taken in good part by all to whom he offered "whittling-pieces," some six or eight in the whole. The state of the piazza, indeed, proved that the precaution was absolutely indispensable, if he did The inn was of wood, a hemlock frame with a "siding" of clap-boards. In this there was nothing remarkable, many countries of Europe, even, still building principally of wood. Houses of lath and plaster were quite common, until within a few years, even in large towns. I remember to have seen some of these constructions, while in London, in close connection with the justly celebrated Westminster Hall; and of such materials is the much-talked-of miniature castle of Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill. But the inn of Mooseridge had some pretensions to architecture, besides being three or four times larger than any other house in the place. A piazza it enjoyed, of course; it must be a pitiful village inn that does not: and building, accessaries and all, rejoiced in several coats of a spurious white lead. The columns of this piazza, as well as the clap-boards of the house itself however, exhibited the proofs of the danger of abandoning your true whittler to his own instincts. Spread-eagles, five points, American flags, huzzahs for Polk! the initials of names, and names at full length, with various other similar conceits, records, and ebullitions of patriotic or party-otic feelings, were scattered up and down with an affluence the said volumes in favour of the mint in which they had been coined. But the most remarkable memorial of the industry of the guests was to be found on one of the columns; and it was one at a corner, too, and consequently of double importance to the superstructure—unless, indeed, the house were built on that well-known principle of American architecture of the last century, which made the architrave uphold the pillar, instead of the pillar the architrave. The column in question was of white pine, as usual—though latterly, in brick edifices, bricks and stucco are much resorted to—and, at a convenient height for the whittlers, it was literally cut two-thirds in two. The gash was very neatly made—that much must be said for it—indicating skill and attention; and the surfaces of the wound were smoothed in a manner to prove that appearances were not neglected. "Vat do das?" I asked of the landlord, pointing to this "That! Oh! That's only the whittlers," answered the host, with a good-natural smile. Assuredly the Americans are the best-natured people on earth! Here was a man whose house was nearly tumbling down about his ears—always bating the principle in architecture just named—and he could smile as Nero may be supposed to have done when fiddling over the conflagration of Rome. "But vhy might de vhittler vhittle down your house?" "Oh! this is a free country, you know, and folks do pretty much as they like in it," returned the still smiling host. "I let 'em cut away as long as I dared, but it was high time to get out 'whittling-pieces' I believe you must own. It's best always to keep a ruff (roof) over a man's head, to be ready for bad weather. A week longer would have had the column in two." "Vell, I dinks I might not bear dat! Vhat ist mein house ist mein house, ant dey shall not so moch vittles." "By letting 'em so much vittles there, they so much vittles in the kitchen; so you see there is policy in having your under-pinnin' knocked away sometimes, if it's done by the right sort of folks." "You're a stranger in these parts, friend?" observed Hubbard, complacently, for by this time his "whittling-piece" was reduced to a shape, and he could go on reducing it, according to some law of the art of whittling, with which I am not acquainted. "We are not so particular in such matters as in some of your countries in the old world." "Ja—das I can see. But does not woot ant column cost money in America, someding?" "To be sure it does. There is not a man in the country who would undertake to replace that pillar with a new one, paint and all, for less than ten dollars." This was an opening for a discussion on the probable cost of putting a new pillar into the place of the one that was injured. Opinions differed, and quite a dozen spoke on the subject; some placing the expense as high as fifteen dollars, and others bringing it down as low as five. I was struck with the quiet and self-possession with which each man delivered his opinion, as well as with the language used. The "This business is going ahead after all!" observed Hubbard, evasively, after others had had their say. "More's the pity," put in Hall. "It might have been put an end to in a month, at any time, and ought to be put an end to in a civilized land." "You will own, neighbour Hall, notwithstanding, it would be a great improvement in the condition of the tenants all over the State, could they change their tenures into freeholds." "No doubt 't would; and so it would be a great improvement in the condition of any journeyman in my shop if he could get to be the boss. But that is not the question here, the question is, what right has the State to say any man shall sell his property unless he wishes to sell it? A pretty sort of liberty we should have if we all held our houses and gardens under such laws as that supposes!" "But do we not all hold our houses and gardens, and farms, too, by some such law?" rejoined the attorney, who evidently respected his antagonist, and advanced his own opinions cautiously. "If the public wants land to use, it can take it by paying for it." "Yes, to use; but use is everything. I've read that old report of the committee of the House, and don't subscribe to its doctrines at all. Public 'policy,' in that sense, doesn't "But all governments use this power when it becomes necessary, neighbour Hall." "That word necessary covers a great deal of ground, 'Squire Hubbard. The most that can be made of the necessity here is to say it is cheaper, and may help along parties to their objects better. No man doubts that the State of New York can put down these anti-renters; and, I trust, will put them down, so far as force is concerned. There is, then, no other necessity in the case, to begin with, than the necessity which demagogues always feel, of getting as many votes as they can." "After all, neighbour Hall, these votes are pretty powerful weapons in a popular government." "I'll not deny that; and now they talk of a convention to alter the constitution, it is a favourable moment to teach such managers they shall not abuse the right of suffrage in this way." "How is it to be prevented? You are an universal suffrage man, I know?" "Yes, I'm for universal suffrage among honest folks; but do not wish to have my rulers chosen by them that are never satisfied without having their hands in their neighbours' pockets. Let 'em put a clause into the constitution providing that no town, or village, or county shall hold a poll within a given time after the execution of process has been openly resisted in it. That would take the conceit out of all such law-breakers, in very short order." It was plain that this idea struck the listeners, and several even avowed their approbation of the scheme aloud. Hubbard "How would you determine the extent of the district to be disfranchised?" he asked. "Take the legal limits as they stand. If process be resisted openly by a combination strong enough to look down the agents of the law in a town, disfranchise that town for a given period; if in more than one town, disfranchise the offending towns; if a county, disfranchise the whole county." "But, in that way you would punish the innocent with the guilty." "It would be for the good of all; besides, you punish the innocent for the guilty, or with the guilty rather, in a thousand ways. You and I are taxed to keep drunkards from starving, because it is better to do that than to offend humanity by seeing men die of hunger, or tempting them to steal. When you declare martial law you punish the innocent with the guilty, in one sense; and so you do in a hundred cases. All we have to ask is, if it be not wiser and better to disarm demagogues, and those disturbers of the public peace who wish to pervert their right of suffrage to so wicked an end, by so simple a process, than to suffer them to effect their purposes by the most flagrant abuse of their political privileges?" "How would you determine when a town should lose the right of voting?" "By evidence given in open court. The judges would be the proper authority to decide in such a case; and they would decide, beyond all question, nineteen times in twenty, right. It is the interest of every man who is desirous of exercising the suffrage on right principles, to give him some such protection against them that wish to exercise the suffrage on wrong. A peace-officer can call on the posse comitatus or on the people to aid him; if enough appear to put down the rebels, well and good; but if enough do not appear, let it be taken as proof that the district is not worthy The discourse went on for an hour, neighbour Hall giving his opinions still more at large. I listened equally with pleasure and surprise. "These, then, after all," I said to myself, "are the real bone and sinew of the country. There are tens of thousands of this sort of men in the State, and why should they be domineered over, and made to submit to a legislation and to practices that are so often without principle, by the agents of the worst part of the community? Will the honest for ever be so passive, while the corrupt and dishonest continue so active?" On my mentioning these notions to my uncle, he answered: "Yes; it ever has been so, and, I fear, ever will be so. There is the curse of this country," pointing to a table covered with newspapers, the invariable companion of an American inn of any size. "So long as men believe what they find there, they can be nothing but dupes or knaves." "But there is good in newspapers." "That adds to the curse. If they were nothing but lies, the world would soon reject them; but how few are able to separate the true from the false! Now, how few of these papers speak the truth about this very anti-rentism! Occasionally an honest man in the corps does come out; but where one does this, ten affect to think what they do not believe, in order to secure votes;—votes, votes, votes. In that simple word lies all the mystery of the matter." "Jefferson said, if he were to choose between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would take the last." "Ay, Jefferson did not mean newspapers as they are now. I am old enough to see the change that has taken place. In his day, three or four fairly convicted lies would damn any editor; now, there are men that stand up under a thousand. I'll tell you what, Hugh, this country is jogging on under two of the most antagonist systems possible—Christianity and the newspapers. The first is daily hammering into every man that he is a miserable, frail, good-for-nothing being, while the last is eternally proclaiming the perfection of the people and the virtues of self-government." "Perhaps too much stress ought not to be laid on either." "The first is certainly true, under limitations that we all understand; but as to the last, I will own I want more evidence than a newspaper eulogy to believe it." After all, my uncle Ro is sometimes mistaken; though candour compels me to acknowledge that he is very often right. |