Chapter III: Part 3

Did you see that are nigger, said he, that removed the Oyster shells? well, he's one of our Chesapickers, one of General Cuffy's slaves. I wish Admiral Cockburn had a taken them all off our hands at the same rate. We made a pretty good sale of them are black cattle, I guess, to the British; I wish we were well rid of 'em all. THE BLACKS AND THE WHITES in the States show their teeth and snarl, they are jist ready to fall to. The PROTESTANTS and CATHOLICS begin to lay back their ears, and turn tail for kickin. THE ABOLITIONISTS AND PLANTERS are at it like two bulls in a pastur. MOB LAW AND LYNCH LAW are working like yeast in a barrell, and frothing at the bung hole. NULLIFICATION AND TARIFF are like a charcoal pit, all covered up, but burning inside, and sending out smoke at every crack, enough to stifle a horse. GENERAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE GOVERNMENT every now and then square off and sparr, and the first blow given will bring a genuine set-to. SURPLUS REVENUE is another bone of contention; like a shin of beef thrown among a pack of dogs, it will set the whole on 'em by the ears. You have heerd tell of cotton rags dipt in turpentine, hav'nt you, how they produce combustion? Well, I guess we have the elements of spontaneous combustion among us in abundance; when it does break out, if you don't see an eruption of human gore, worse than Etna lava, then I'm mistaken. There'll be the very devil to pay, that's a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern whites, and the northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our folks' temper, as raw meat does that of a dog--it fairly makes me sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all be tranquil once more, but its an even chance if it don't leave us the three steam boat options, to be blown sky high, to be scalded to death or drowned. If this sad picture you have drawn, be indeed true to nature, how does your country, said I, appear so attractive, as to draw to it so large a portion of our population? It tante its attraction, said the Clockmaker, its nothin but its power of suction; it is a great whirlpool--a great vortex--it drags all the straw, and chips and floatin sticks, drift wood and trash into it. The small crafts are sucked in, and whirl round and round like a squirrel in a cage-- they'll never come out. Bigger ones pass through at certain times of tide, and can come in and out with good pilotage, as they do at HELL GATE up the Sound. You astonish me, said I, beyond measure; both your previous conversations with me, and the concurrent testimony of all my friends who have visited the States, give a different view of it. YOUR FRIENDS! said the Clockmaker, with such a tone of ineffable contempt, that I felt a strong inclination to knock him down for his insolence --your friends! Ensigns and leftenants, I guess, from the British marchin regiments in the Colonies, that run over five thousand miles of country in five weeks, on leave of absence, and then return, lookin as wise as the monkey that had seen the world. When they get back they are so chock full of knowledge of the Yankees, that it runs over of itself, like a Hogshead of molasses rolled about in hot weather--a white froth and scum bubbles out of the bung; wishy washy trash they call tours, sketches, travels, letters, and what not; vapid stuff, jist sweet enough to catch flies, cockroaches, and half fledged galls. It puts me in mind of my French. I larnt French at night school one winter, of our minister, Joshua Hopewell (he was the most larned man of the age, for he taught himself een amost every language in Europe); well, next spring, when I went to Boston, I met a Frenchman, and I began to jabber away French to him: 'Polly woes a french say,' says I. I don't understand Yankee yet, says he. You dont understand! says I, why its French. I guess you didn't expect to hear such good French, did you, away down east here? but we speak it real well, and its generally allowed we speak English, too, better than the British. Oh, says he, you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk Indian and call it French. But, says I, Mister Mount shear; it is French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes--all clear stuff; it will pass survey in any market--its ready stuck and seasoned. Oh, very like, says he, bowin as polite as a black waiter at New OrLEENS, very like, only I never heerd it afore; oh, very good French dat--CLEAR STUFF, no doubt, but I no understand--its all my fault, I dare say, Sare.

Thinks I to myself a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, I see how the cat jumps--Minister knows so many languages he hant been particular enough to keep 'em in separate parcels and mark 'em on the back, and they've got mixed, and sure enough I found my French was so overrun with other sorts, that it was better to loose the whole crop than to go to weedin, for as fast as I pulled up any strange seedlin, it would grow right up agin as quick as wink, if there was the least bit of root in the world left in the ground, so I left it all rot on the field. There is no way so good to larn French as to live among 'em, and if you WANT TO UNDERSTAND US, YOU MUST LIVE AMONG US, TOO; your Halls, Hamiltons, and De Rouses, and such critters, what CAN they know of us? Can a chap catch a likeness flying along a rail road? can he even see the feature? Old Admiral Anson once axed one of our folks afore our glorious Revolution, (if the British had a known us a little grain better at that time, they would'nt have got whipped like a sack as they did then) where he came from. From the Chesapeeke, said he. Aye, aye, said the Admiral, from the West Indies. I guess, said the Southaner, you may have been clean ROUND THE WORLD, Admiral, but you have been plaguy LITTLE IN IT, not to know better nor that I shot a wild goose at River Philip last year, with the rice of Varginey fresh in his crops he must have cracked on near about as fast as them other geese, the British travellers. Which know'd the most of the country they passed over, do you suppose? I guess it was much of a muchness--near about six of one and a half dozen of tother; two eyes aint much better than one, if they are both blind.

No, if you want to know all about us and the Blue Noses (a pretty considerable share of Yankee blood in them too, I tell you; the old stock comes from New England, and the breed is tolerable pure yet, near about one half apple sarce, and tother half molasses, all except to the Easterd, where there is a cross of the Scotch,) jist ax me and I'll tell you candidly. I'm not one of them that can't see no good points in my neighbor's critter, and no bad ones in my own; I've seen too much of the world for that, I guess. Indeed, in a general way, I praise other folks' beasts, and keep dark about my own. Says I, when I meet Blue Nose mounted, that's a real smart horse of yourn, put him out, I guess he'll trot like mad. Well, he lets him have the spur, and the critter does his best, and then I pass him like a streak of lightning with mine. The feller looks all taken aback at that. Why, says he, that's a real clipper of yourn, I vow. Middlin, says I, (quite cool, as if I had heard that are same thing a thousand times,) he's good enough for me, jist a fair trotter, and nothin to brag of. That goes near about as far agin in a general way, as a crackin and a boastin does. Never TELL folks you can go a head on 'em, but DO it; it spares a great deal of talk, and helps them to save their breath to cool their broth. No, if you want to know the inns and the outs of the Yankees--I've wintered them and summered them; I know all their points, shape, make and breed; I've tried 'em alongside of other folks, and I know where they fall short, where they mate 'em, and where they have the advantage, about as well as some who think they know a plaguy sight more. It tante them that stare the most, that see the best always, I guess. Our folks have their faults, and I know them, (I warnt born blind, I reckon,) but your friends, the tour writers, are a little grain too hard on us. Our old nigger wench had several dirty, ugly lookin children, and was proper cross to 'em. Mother used to say, 'Juno, its better never to wipe a child's nose at all, I guess, than to wring it off.'

No. XII

The American Eagle.

Jist look out of the door, said the Clockmaker, and see what a beautiful night it is, how calm, how still, how clear it is, beant it lovely?--I like to look up at them are stars, when I am away from home, they put me in mind of our national flag, and it is generally allowed to be the first flag in the univarse now. The British can whip all the world, and we can whip the British. Its near about the prettiest sight I know of, is one of our first class Frigates, manned with our free and enlightened citizens all ready for sea; it is like the great American Eagle, on its perch, balancing itself for a start on the broad expanse of blue sky, afeared of nothin of its kind, and president of all it surveys. It was a good emblem that we chose, warn't it? There was no evading so direct, and at the same time, so conceited an appeal as this. Certainly, said I, the emblem was well chosen. I was particularly struck with it on observing the device on your naval buttons during the last war--an eagle with an anchor in its claws. That was a natural idea, taken from an ordinary occurrence: a bird purloining the anchor of a frigate--an article so useful and necessary for the food of its young. It was well chosen, and exhibited great taste and judgment in the artist. The emblem is more appropriate than you are aware of--boasting of what you cannot perform--grasping at what you cannot attain --an emblem of arrogance and weakness--of ill-directed ambition and vulgar pretension. Its a common phrase, said he, (with great composure) among seamen, to say 'damn your buttons,' and I guess its natural for you to say so of the buttons of our navals; I guess you have a right to that are oath. Its a sore subject, that, I reckon, and I believe I hadn't ought to have spoken of it to you at all. Brag is a good dog, but hold fast is a better one. He was evidently annoyed, and with his usual dexterity gave vent to his feelings, by a sally upon the Blue Noses, who he says are a cross of English and Yankee, and therefore first cousins to us both. Perhaps, said he, that are Eagle might with more propriety have been taken off as perched on an anchor, instead of holding it in his claws, and I think it would have been more nateral; but I suppose it was some stupid foreign artist that made that are blunder, I never seed one yet that was equal to ourn. If that Eagle is represented as trying what HE CAN'T DO, its an honorable ambition arter all, but these Blue Noses wont try what THEY CAN DO. They put me in mind of a great big hulk of a horse in a cart, that wont put his shoulder to the collar at all for all the lambastin in the world, but turns his head round and looks at you, as much as to say, 'what an everlastin heavy thing an empty cart is, isnt it?' An Owl should be their emblem, and the motto, 'He sleeps all the days of his life.' The whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at, but silent as the grave--still as death, asleep, becalmed. If the sea was always calm, said he, it would pyson the univarse; no soul could breathe the air, it would be so uncommon bad. Stagnant water is always unpleasant, bat salt water when it gets tainted beats all natur; motion keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our minister used to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This province is stagnant; it tante deep like still water neither, for its shaller enough, gracious knows, but it is motionless, noiseless, lifeless. If you have ever been to sea, in a calm, you'd know what a plaguy tiresome thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An everlastin flappin of the sails, and a creakin of the boombs, and an onsteady pitchin of the ship, and folks lyin about dozin away their time, and the sea a heavin a long heavy swell, like the breathin of the chist of some great monster asleep. A passenger wonders the sailors are so plagy easy about it, and he goes a lookin out east, and a spyin out west, to see if there's any chance of a breeze, and says to himself 'Well, if this aint dull music its a pity.' Then how streaked he feels when he sees a steamboat a clippin it by him like mad, and the folks on board pokin fun at him, and askin him if he has any word to send to home. Well, he says, if any soul ever catches me on board a sail vessel again, when I can go by steam, I'll give him leave to tell me of it, that's a fact. That's partly the case here. They are becalmed, and they see us going a head on them, till we are een amost out of sight; yet they hant got a steamboat, and they hant got a rail road; indeed, I doubt if one half on em ever see'd or heerd tell of one or tother of them. I never see'd any folks like 'em except the Indians, and they wont even so much as look--they hav'nt the least morsel of curiosity in the world; from which one of our Unitarian preachers (they are dreadful hands at DOUBTIN them. I don't DOUBT but some day or another, they will DOUBT whether every thing aint a DOUBT) in a very learned work, doubts whether they were ever descended from Eve at all. Old marm Eve's children, he says, are all lost, it is said, in consequence of TOO MUCH curiosity, while these copper colored folks are lost from havin TOO LITTLE little. How can they be the same? Thinks I, that may be logic, old Dubersome, but it ant sense, don't extremes meet? Now these Blue Noses have no motion in 'em, no enterprise, no spirit, and if any critter shows any symptoms of activity, they say he is a man of no judgment, he's speculative, he's a schemer, in short he's mad. They vegitate like a lettuce plant in sarse garden, they grow tall and, spindlin, run to seed right off, grow as bitter as gaul and die.

A gall once came to our minister to hire as a house help; says she, minister, I suppose you don't want a young lady to do chamber business and breed worms do you? For I've half a mind to take a spell of livin out (she meant, said the Clockmaker, house work and rearing silk worms.) My pretty maiden, says he, a pattin her on the cheek, (for I've often observed old men always talk kinder pleasant to young women,) my pretty maiden where was you brought up? why, says she I guess I warnt brought up at all, I growed up; under what platform, says he, (for he was very particular that all his house helps should go to his meetin,) under what Church platform? Church platform, says she, with a toss of her bead, like a young colt that's got a check of the curb, I guess I warnt raised under a platform at all, but in as good a house as yourn, grand as you be--you said well said the old minister, quite shocked, when you said you growed up, dear, for you have grown up in great ignorance. Then I guess you had better get a lady that knows more than me, says she, that's flat. I reckon I am every bit and grain as good as you be--If I don't understand a bum-byx (silk worm) both feedin, breedin, and rearin, then I want to know who does, that's all; church platform indeed, says she, I guess you were raised under a glass frame in March, and transplanted on Independence day, warnt you? And off she sot, lookin as scorney as a London lady, and leavin the poor minister standin starin like a stuck pig. Well, well, says he, a liftin up both hands, and turnin up the whites of his eyes like a duck in thunder, if that don't bang the bush!! It fearly beats sheap shearin arter the blackberry bushes have got the wool. It does, I vow; them are the tares them Unitarians sow in our grain fields at night; I guess they'll ruinate the crops yet, and make the grounds so everlastin foul; we'll have to pare the sod and burn it, to kill the roots. Our fathers sowed the right seed here in the wilderness, and watered it with their tears, and watched over it with fastin and prayer, and now its fairly run out, that's a fact, I snore. Its got choaked up with all sorts of trash in, natur, I declare. Dear, dear, I vow I never seed the beat o' that in all my born days.

Now the Blue Noses are like that are gall; they have grown up, and grown up in ignorance of many things they had'nt ought not to know; and its as hard to teach grown up folks as it is to break a six year old horse; and they do ryle one's temper so--they act so ugly that it tempts one sometimes to break their confounded necks--its near about as much trouble as its worth. What remedy is there for all this supineness, said I; how can these people be awakened out of their ignorant slothfulness, into active exertion? The remedy, said Mr, Slick, is at hand--it is already workin its own cure. They must recede before our free and enlightened citizens like the Indians; our folks will buy them out, and they must give place to a more intelligent and ac-TIVE people. They must go to the lands of Labrador, or be located back of Canada; they can hold on there a few years, until the wave of civilization reaches them, and then they must move again, as the savages do. It is decreed; I hear the bugle of destiny a soundin of their retreat, as plain as any thing. Congress will give them a concession of land, if they petition, away to Alleghany backside territory, and grant them relief for a few years; for we are out of debt, and don't know what to do with our surplus revenue. The only way to shame them, that I know, would be to sarve them as Uncle Enoch sarved a neighbor of his in Varginey.

There was a lady that had a plantation near hand to hisn, and there was only a small river atwixt the two houses, So that folks could hear each other talk across it. Well, she was a dreadful cross grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she bear that has cubs, an old farrow critter, as ugly as sin, and one that both hooked and kicked too--a most particular onmarciful she devil, that's a fact. She used to have some of her niggers tied up every day, and flogged uncommon severe, and their screams and screeches were horrid--no soul could stand it; nothin was heerd all day, but OH LORD MISSUS! OH LORD MISSUS! Enoch was fairly sick of the sound, for he was a tender hearted man, and says he to her one day, 'Now do marm find out some other place to give your cattle the cowskin, for it worries me to hear em take on so dreadful bad--I cant stand it, I vow; they are flesh and blood as well as we be, though the meat is a different color' but It was no good--she jist up and told him to mind his own business, and she guessed she'd mind hern. He was determined to shame her out of it; so one mornin after breakfast he goes into the cane field, and says he to Lavender, one of the black overseers, 'Muster up the whole gang of slaves, every soul, and bring 'em down to the whippin post, the whole stock of them, bulls, cows and calves. Well, away goes Lavender, and drives up all the niggers. Now you catch it, says he, you lazy villains; I tole you so many a time--I tole you Massa he lose all patience wid you, you good for nothin rascals. I grad, upon my soul, I werry grad; you mind now what old Lavender say anoder time. (The black overseers are always the most cruel, said the Clockmaker; they have no sort of feeling for their own people.)

Well, when they were gathered there according to orders, they looked streaked enough you may depend, thinkin they were going to get it all round, and the wenches they fell to a cryin, wringin their hands, and boo-hooing like mad. Lavender was there with his cowskin, grinnin like a chessy cat, and crackin it about, ready for business. Pick me out, says Enoch, four that have the loudest voices; hard matter dat, says Lavender, hard matter dat, Massa, dey all talk loud, dey all lub talk more better nor work--de idle villians; better gib 'em all a little tickle, jist to teach em larf on tother side of de mouth; dat side bran new, they never use it yet. Do as I order you, Sir, said Uncle, or I'll have you triced up, you cruel old rascal you. When they were picked out and sot by themselves, they hanged their heads, and looked like sheep goin to the shambles. Now, says Uncle Enoch, my Pickininnies, do you sing out as loud as Niagara, at the very tip eend of your voice--

Dont kill a nigger, pray,
Let him lib anoder day.
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus.

My back be very sore,
No stand it any more,
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus.

And all the rest of you join chorus, as loud as you can bawl, 'Oh Lord Missus.' The black rascals understood the joke real well. They larfed ready to split their sides; they fairly lay down on the ground, and rolled over and over with lafter. Well, when they came to the chorus 'Oh Lord Missus,' if they did'nt let go, its a pity. They made the river ring agin--they were heerd clean out to sea. All the folks ran out of the Lady's House, to see what on airth was the matter on Uncle Enoch's plantation --they thought there was actilly a rebellion there; but when they listened awhile, and heerd it over and over again, they took the hint, and returned a larfin in their sleeves. Says they, Master Enoch Slick, he upsides with Missus this hitch any how. Uncle never heerd any thing more of 'Oh Lord Missus' arter that Yes, they ought to be shamed out of it, those Blue Noses. When reason fails to convince, there is nothin left but ridicule. If they have no ambition, apply to their feelings, slap a blister on their pride, and it will do the business. Its like a puttin ginger under a horse's tail; it makes him carry up real handSUM, I tell you. When I was a boy, I was always late to school: well father's preachin I didn't mind much, but I never could bear to hear mother say, 'Why Sam, are you actilly up for all day? Well, I hope your airly risin wont hurt you, I declare. What on airth is agoin to happen now?' Well, wonders will never cease. It raised my dander; at last says I, 'Now, mother, don't say that are any more for gracious sake, for it makes me feel ugly, and I'll get up as airly as any on you,' and so I did, and I soon found what's worth knowin in this life, 'An airly start makes easy stages.'

No. XIII

The Clockmaker's Opinion of Halifax.

The next morning was warmer than several that had preceded it. It was one of those uncommonly fine days that distinguish an American autumn. I guess, said Mr. Slick, the heat to-day is like a glass of Mint Julip, with a lump of ice in it, it tastes cool and feels warm--its real good, I tell you; I love such a day as this dearly. Its generally allowed the finest weather in the world is in America--there ant the beat of it to be found anywhere. He then lighted a cigar, and throwing himself back on his chair, put both feet out of the window, and sat with his arms folded, a perfect picture of happiness. You appear, said I, to have travelled over the whole of this Province, and to have observed the country and the people with much attention, pray what is your opinion of the present state and future prospects of Halifax? If you will tell me, said he, when the folks there will wake up, then I can answer you, but they are fast asleep; as to the Province, its a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead, it will grow as fast as a Varginey gall, and they grow so amazin fast, if you put your arm round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you're done, they've grown up into women. It's a pretty Province I tell you, good above and better below; surface covered with pastures, meadows, woods, and a nation sight of water privileges, and under the ground full of mines--it puts me in mind of the soup at the TREE-mont House. One day I was a walkin in the Mall, and who should I meet but Major Bradford, a gentleman from Connecticut, that traded in calves and pumpkins for the Boston market. Says he, Slick, where do you get your grub to-day? At General Peep's tavern, says I; only fit for niggers, says he, why don't you come to the TREE-mont house, that's the most splendid thing its generally allowed in all the world. Why, says I, that's a notch above my mark, I guess it's too plagy dear for me, I cant afford it no how. Well, says he, its dear in one sense, but its dog cheap in another--its a grand place for speculation--there's so many rich southerners and strangers there that have more money than wit, that you might do a pretty good business there, without goin out of the street door. I made two hundred dollars this mornin in little less than half no time. There's a Carolina Lawyer there, as rich as a bank, and says he to me arter breakfast, Major, says he, I wish I knew where to get a real slapping trotter of a horse, one that could trot with a flash of lightning for a mile, and beat it by a whole neck or so. Says I, my Lord, (for you must know, he says he's the nearest male heir to a Scotch dormant peerage,) my Lord, says I, I have one a proper sneezer, a chap that can go ahead of a rail road steamer, a real natural traveller, one that can trot with the ball out of the small eend of a rifle, and never break into a gallop. Says he, Major, I wish you would'nt give me that are nickname, I dont like it, (though he looked as tickled all the time as possible,) I never knew says he a lord that warnt a fool, that's a fact, and that's the reason I don't go ahead and claim the title. Well, says I, my Lord I dont know, but somehow I cant help a thinkin, if you have a good claim, you'd be more like a fool not to go ahead with it. Well, says he, Lord or no Lord, let's look at your horse. So away I went to Joe Brown's livery stable, at tother eend of the city, and picked out the best trotter he had, and no great stick to brag on either; says I, Joe Brown what do you ax for that are horse? Two hundred dollars, says he; well says I, I will take him out and try him, and if I like him I will keep him. So I shows our Carolina Lord the horse, and when he gets on him, says I, dont let him trot as fast as he can, resarve that for a heat; if folks find out how everlastin fast he is, they'd be afeared to stump you for a start. When he returned, he said he liked the horse amazinly, and axed the price; four hundred dollars, says I, you cant get nothin special without a good price, pewter cases never hold good watches; I know it, says he, the horse is mine. Thinks I to myself, that's more than ever I could say of him then any how.

Well, I was goin to tell you about the soup--says the Major its near about dinner time, jist come and see how you like the location. There was a sight of folks there, gentlemen and ladies in the public room (I never seed so many afore except at commencement day,) all ready for a start, and when the gong sounded, off we sott like a flock of sheep. Well, if there warnt a jam you may depend--some one give me a pull, and I near abouts went heels up over head, so I reached out both hands, and caught hold of the first thing I could, and what should it be but a lady's dress--well, as I'm alive, rip went the frock, and tare goes the petticoat, and when I righted myself from my beam eends, away they all came home to me, and there she was, the pretty critter, with all her upper riggin standin as far as her waist, and nothin left below but a short linen under garment. If she didn't scream, its a pity, and the more she screamed the more folks larfed, for no soul could help larfin, till one of the waiters folded her up in a table cloth. What an awkward devil you be, Slick, says the Major, now that comes of not falling in first, they should have formed four deep, rear rank in open order, and marched in to our splendid national air, and filed off to their seats right and left shoulders forward. I feel kinder sorry, too, says he, for that are young heifer, but she shewed a proper pretty leg tho' Slick, didn't she--I guess you don't often get such a chance as that are. Well I gets near the Major at table, and afore me stood a china utensil with two handles, full of soup, about the size of a foot tub, with a large silver scoop in it, near about as big as a ladle of a maple sugar kettle. I was jist about bailing out some soup into my dish, when the Major said fish it up from the bottom, Slick,--well, sure enough, I gives it a drag from the bottom, and up come the fat pieces of turtle, and the thick rich soup, and a sight of little forced meat balls of the size of sheep's dung. No soul could tell how good it was--it was near about as handSUM as father's old genuine particular cider, and that you could feel tingle clean away down to the tip eends of your toes. Now, says the Major, I'll give you, Slick, a new wrinkle on your horn. Folks aint thought nothin of unless they live at Treemont: its all the go. Do you dine at Peep's tavern every day, and then off hot loot to Treemont, and pick your teeth on the street steps there, and folks will think you dine there. I do it often, and it saves two dollars a day. Then he put his finger on his nose, and says he, "MUM IS THE WORD." Now this Province is jist like that are soup, good enough at top, but dip down and you have the riches, the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum, and what not. As for Halifax, its well enough in itself, though no great shakes neither, a few sizeable houses, with a proper sight of small ones, like half a dozen old hens with their broods of young chickens; but the people, the strange critters, they are all asleep. They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what they say one day they forget the next, they say they were dreaming. You know where Governor Campbell lives, don't you, in a large stone house with a great wall round it, that looks like a state prison; well, near hand there is a nasty dirty horrid lookin buryin ground there--its filled with large grave rats as big as kittens, and the springs of black water there, go through the chinks of the rocks and flow into all the wells, and fairly pyson the folks--its a dismal place, I tell you--I wonder the air from it don't turn all the silver in the Gineral's house of a brass color, (and folks say he has four cart loads of it) its so everlastin bad--its near about as nosey as a slave ship of niggers. Well you may go there and shake the folks to all etarnity and you wont wake em, I guess, and yet there ant much difference atween their sleep and the folks at Halifax, only they lie still there and are quiet, and don't walk and talk in their sleep like them above ground.

Halifax reminds me of a Russian officer I once seed at Warsaw; he had lost both arms in battle: but I guess I must tell you first why I went there, cause that will show you how we speculate. One Sabbath day, after bell ringin, when most of the women had gone to meetin (for they were great hands for pretty sarmons, and our Unitarian ministers all preach poetry, only they leave the ryme out, it sparkles like perry,) I goes down to East India wharf to see Captain Zeek Hancock, of Nantucket, to enquire how oil was, and if it it would bear doing any thing in; when who should come along but Jabish Green. Slick, says he, how do you do; isn't this as pretty a day as you'll see between this and Norfolk; it whips English weather by a long chalk; and then he looked down at my watch seals, and looked and looked as if he thought I'd stole 'em. At last he looks up, and says he, Slick, I suppose you would'nt go to Warsaw, would you, if it was made worth your while? Which Warsaw? says I, for I believe in my heart we have a hundred of them. None of ourn at all, says he; Warsaw in Poland. Well, I don't know, says I; what do you call worth while? Six dollars a day, expenses paid, and a bonus of one thousand dollars, if speculation turns out well. I am off, says I, whenever you say go. Tuesday, says he, in the Hamburgh packet. Now, says he, I'm in a tarnation hurry; I'm goin a pleasurin to-day in the Custom House Boat, along with Josiah Bradford's galls down to Nahant. But I'll tell you what I am at: the Emperor of Russia has ordered the Poles to cut off their queues on the 1st of January; you must buy them all up, and ship them off to London for the wig makers. Human hair is scarce and risin. Lord a massy! says I, how queer they will look, wont they. Well, I vow, that's what the sea folks call sailing UNDER BARE POLES, come true, aint it? I guess it will turn out a good spec, says he; and a good one it did turn out-- he cleared ten thousand dollars by it. When I was at Warsaw, as I was a sayin, there was a Russian officer there who had lost both his arms in battle; a good natured contented critter, as I een amost ever see'd, and he was fed with spoons by his neighbors, but arter awhile they grew tired of it, and I guess he near about starved to death at last. Now Halifax is like that are SPOONEY, as I used to call him; it is fed by the outports, and they begin to have enough to do to feed themselves--it must larn to live without 'em. They have no river, and no country about them; let them make a rail road to Minas Basin, and they will have arms of their own to feed themselves with. If they don't do it, and do it soon, I guess they'll get into a decline that no human skill will cure. They are proper thin now; you can count their ribs een a most as far as you can see them. The only thing that will either make or save Halifax, is a rail road across the country to Bay of Fundy.

It will do to talk of, says one; you'll see it some day says another; yes, says a third, it will come, but we are too young yet. Our old minister had a darter, a real clever lookin gall as you'd see in a day's ride, and she had two or three offers of marriage from sponsible men--most particular good specs--but minister always said 'Phoebe, you are too young--the day will come--but you are too young yet dear.' Well, Phoebe did'nt think so at all; she said she guessed she knew better nor that: so the next offer she had, she said she had no notion to lose another chance--off she sot to Rhode Island and got married; says she, father's too old, he don't know. That's jist the case at Halifax. The old folks say the country is too young--the time will come, and so on; and in the mean time the young folks won't wait, and run off to the States, where the maxim is, 'youth is the time for improvement; a new country is never too young for exertion--push on--keep movin--go ahead.' Darn it all, said the Clockmaker, rising with great animation, clinching his fist, and extending his arm--darn it all, it fairly makes my dander rise, to see the nasty idle loungin good for nothin do little critters--they aint fit to tend a bear trap, I vow. They ought to be quilted round and round a room, like a lady's lap dog, the matter of two hours a day, to keep them from dyin of apoplexy. Hush, hush, said I, Mr. Slick, you forget. Well, said he, resuming his usual composure--well, it's enough to make one vexed though, I declare--is'nt it?

Mr. Slick has often alluded to this subject, and always in a most decided manner; I am inclined to think he is right. Mr. Howe's papers on the rail road I read till I came to his calculations, but I never could read figures, 'I can't cypher,' and there I paused; it was a barrier: I retreated a few paces, took a running leap, and cleared the whole of them. Mr. Slick says he has UNDER and not OVER rated its advantages. He appears to be such a shrewd, observing, intelligent man, and so perfectly at home on these subjects, that I confess I have more faith in this humble but eccentric Clockmaker, than in any other man I have met with in this Province. I therefore pronounce 'there will be a rail road.'

No. XIV

Sayings and Doings in Cumberland.

I reckon, said the Clockmaker, as we strolled through Amherst, you have read Hook's story of the boy that one day asked one of his father's guests who his next door neighbor was, and when he heerd his name, asked him if he warnt a fool. No, my little feller, said he, he beant a fool, he is a most particular sensible man; but why did you ax that are question? Why, said the little boy, mother said tother day you were next door to a fool, and I wanted to know who lived next door to you. His mother felt pretty ugly, I guess, when she heerd him run right slap on that are breaker. Now these Cumberland folks have curious next door neighbors, too; they are placed by their location right atwixt fire and water; they have New Brunswick politics on one side, and Nova Scotia politics on tother side of them, and Bay Fundy and Bay Varte on tother two sides; they are actilly in hot water; they are up to their croopers in politics, and great hands for talking of House of Assembly, political Unions, and what not. Like all folks who wade so deep, they can't always tell the natur of the ford. Sometimes they strike their shins agin a snag of a rock; at other times they go whap into a quicksand, and if they don't take special care they are apt to go souse over head and ears into deep water. I guess if they'd talk more of ROTATIONS, and less of ELECTIONS, more of them are DYKES, and less of BANKS, and attend more to TOP-DRESSING, and lees to RE-DRESSING, it ed be better for 'em. Now you mention the subject, I think I have observed, said I, that there is a great change in your countrymen in that respect. Formerly, whenever you met an American, you had a dish of politics set before you, whether you had an appetite for it or not; but lately I have remarked they seldom allude to it. Pray to what is this attributable? I guess, said he, they have enough of it to home, and are sick of the subject. They are cured the way our pastry cooks cure their prentices of stealing sweet notions out of their shops. When they get a new prentice they tell him he must never so much as look at all them are nice things; and if he dares to lay the weight of his finger upon one of them, they'll have him up for it before a justice; they tell him its every bit and grain as bad as stealing from a till. Well, that's sure to set him at it, just as a high fence does a breachy ox, first to look over it, and then to push it down with its rump; its human natur. Well, the boy eats and eats till he cant eat no longer, and then he gets sick at his stomach, and hates the very sight of sweetmeats arterwards. We've had politics with us, till we're dog sick of 'em, I tell you. Besides, I guess we are as far from perfection as when we set out a roin for it. You may get PURITY OF ELECTION, but how are you to get PURITY OF MEMBERS? It would take a great deal of cyphering to tell that. I never see'd it yet, and never heerd tell of one who had see'd it. The best member I een amost ever seed was John Adams. Well, John Adams could no more plough a straight furrow in politics than he could haul the plough himself. He might set out straight at beginnin for a little way, but he was sure to get crooked afore he got to the eend of the ridge--and sometimes he would have two or three crooks in it. I used to say to him, how on airth is it, Mr. Adams, (for he was no way proud like, though he was president of our great nation--and it is allowed to be the greatest nation in the world, too--for you might see him sometimes of an arternoon, a swimmin along with the boys in the Potomac; I do believe that's the way he larned to give the folks the dodge so spry;) well, I used to say to him, how on airth is it, Mr. Adams, you can't make straight work on it? He was a grand hand at an excuse, (though minister used to say that folks that were good at an excuse, were seldom good for nothin else); sometimes, he said, the ground was so tarnation stony, it throwed the plough out; at other times he said the off ox was such an ugly wilful tempered critter, there was no doin nothin with him; or that there was so much machinery about the plough, it made it plagy hard to steer; or may be it was the fault of them that went afore him, that they laid it down so bad; unless he was hired for another term of four years, the work wouldn't look well; and if all them are excuses wouldn't do, why he would take to scolding the nigger that drove the team--throw all the blame on him, and order him to have an everlastin lacin with the cowskin. You might as well catch a weazel asleep as catch him. He had somethin the matter with one eye--well, he knew I know'd that when I was a boy; so one day, a feller presented a petition to him, and he told him it was very affectin. Says he, it fairly draws tears from me, and his weak eye took to lettin off its water like statiee so as soon as the chap went, he winks to me with tother one, quite knowin, as much as to say, YOU SEE ITS ALL IN MY EYE, Slick, but don't let on to any one about it, that I said so. That eye was a regular cheat, a complete New England wooden nutmeg. Folks said Mr. Adams was a very tender hearted man. Perhaps he was, but I guess that eye didn't pump its water out o' that place.

Members in general aint to be depended on, I tell you. Politics makes a man as crooked as a pack does a pedlar; not that they are so awful heavy, neither, but it TEACHES A MAN TO STOOP IN THE LONG RUN. Arter all, there's not that difference in 'em (at least there aint in Congress) one would think, for if one of them is clear of one vice, why, as like as not, he has another fault just as bad. An honest farmer, like one of these Cumberland folks, when he goes to choose atwixt two that offers for votes, is jist like the flying fish. That are little critter is not content to stay to home in the water, and mind its business, but he must try his hand at flyin, and he is no great dab at flyin, neither. Well, the moment he's out of water, and takes to flyin, the sea fowl are arter him, and let him have it; and if he has the good luck to escape them, and makes a dive into the sea, the dolphin, as like as not, has a dig at him, that knocks more wind out of him than he got while aping the birds, a plagy sight. I guess the Blue Noses know jist about as much about politics as this foolish fish knows about flyin. All critters in natur are better in their own element.

It beats cock fightin, I tell you, to hear the Blue Noses, when they get together, talk politics. They have got three or four evil spirits, like the Irish Banshees, that they say cause all the mischief in the Province--the Council, the Banks, the House of Assembly and the Lawyers. If a man places a higher valiation on himself than his neighbors do, and wants to be a magistrate before he is fit to carry the ink horn for one, and finds himself safely delivered of a mistake, he says it is all owing to the Council. The members are cunnin critters, too; they know this feelin, and when they come home from Assembly, and people ax 'em "where are all them are fine things you promised us?" why, they say, we'd a had 'em all for you, but for that etarnal Council, they nullified all we did. The country will come to no good till them chaps show their respect for it, by covering their bottoms with homespun. If a man is so tarnation lazy he wont work, and in course has no money, why he says its all owin to the banks, they wont discount, there's no money, they've ruined the Province. If there beant a road made up to every citizen's door, away back to the woods (who as like as not has squatted there) why he says the House of Assembly have voted all the money to pay great men's salaries, and there's nothin left for poor settlers, and cross roads. Well, the lawyers come in for their share of cake and ale, too; if they don't catch it, its a pity.

There was one Jim Munroe of Onion County, Connecticut, a desperate idle fellow, a great hand at singin songs, a skatin, drivin about with the galls, and so on. Well, if any body's windows were broke, it was Jim Munroe--and if there were any youngsters in want of a father, they were sure to be poor Jim's. Jist so it is with the lawyers here; they stand Godfathers for every misfortune that happens in the country. When there is a mad dog a goin about, every dog that barks is said to be bit by the mad one, so he gets credit for all the mischief that every dog does for three months to come. So every feller that goes yelpin home from a court house, smartin from the law, swears he is bit by a lawyer. Now there may be something wrong in all these things, (and it cant be otherwise in natur) in Council, Banks, House of Assembly, and Lawyers: but change them all, and its an even chance if you don't get worse ones in their room. It is in politics as in horses; when a man has a beast that's near about up to the notch, he'd better not swap him; if he does, he's een amost sure to get one not so good as his own. My rule is, I'd rather keep a critter whose faults I do know, than change him for a beast whose faults I dont know.

No. XV

The Dancing Master Abroad.