and if there is but one street, they march three or four times up and down, and then on an open space, where they exhibit their progress in military evolutions. If one or two companies happen to keep in something like military order, the rest do all they can to bring the whole again into confusion, in spite of every remonstrance from the officers. Brother Jonathan is too fond of his liberty not to avail himself even of this opportunity to manifest it. The defects of military science are supplied by dexterity in shooting at a mark, and among two thousand riflemen in the interior of the country, there are hardly five hundred who are not capable of shooting a squirrel at the distance of eighty yards.

Some years ago a Frenchman from N accompanied by his lady, came to see me. He had served as an officer under Buonaparte. We went in a carriage to the review of N county. The Frenchman thought the evolutions abominable, and indeed the men were all stumbling and marching in the utmost disorder and confusion, talking, smoking cigars, and even taking drams from the bottles they carried about them, without the least attention from the officers to such unmilitary practices; which were truly disgusting to the

eye of our Frenchman. An hour's rest to the troops gave him an opportunity of opening his mind to the brigadier. "Well, well,” replied the American," still we could beat you Frenchmen, and I will show you how." The riflemen came forward and began shooting at a mark. After twentyfive had discharged their rifles, the Frenchman, who at first indignantly shook his head, expressed his opinion that in such a Backwood country as Pennsylvania, riflemen, though they were no soldiers, could be of some use.

Captain B, a young lawyer, desirous of showing to his lady the extent of the authority with which he was invested, commanded his troops to march at a time when the guards were regaling themselves with twelve bottles of porter; he ordered them immediately to be taken away. "D-n," exclaimed his men, "he shan't take our porter from us again." Accordingly Captain B turned out next year as a common militia-man, and so general was his unpopularity in consequence of the act, that he also failed in his electioneering campaign for the Assembly of the State.

It is much to be wished, however, that the higher ranks in the militia were filled by

men, who, besides other qualifications, had at least some notion of the military science. 97At present the Union can place very little reliance on the one million eight hundred thousand militia-men, as is sufficiently proved by the war of 1812, and the numerous reverses during its ⚫ continuance.

As Jacksons and cotton bales

are not to be found everywhere, it would be but just, as well as politic, to place the flower of the American population on such a footing, as to inspire other nations with some respect, and prevent the militia from being any longer a laughing-stock to foreigners who visit the country. If the mob of Philadelphia have shown of what they are capable, by choosing the hostler Pluck for a colonel of a regiment, and by compelling Governor Shulze to approve their choice, we do not quarrel with them for the absurdity; but if the better classes of society can find the broom and corn sticks of the militia-men, and the periwigs and mock dresses of their colonel, so very entertaining, we must be permitted to judge of their understanding accordingly. That the militia system must be reformed, is beyond all doubt; but if it is proper to effect this reformation by turning military rank, already suf

every

ficiently degraded from the circumstance of tavern-keeper being a colonel, into ridicule and contempt, then the citizens only prove that they are undeserving the privilege of electing their own officers.

CHAPTER XVI.

PHYSICIANS.

I AM aware that the Americans will take offence at many things which I have mentioned in the progress of these pages, but the fault is not mine. They would fain persuade the world that their physicians are of the very first order, and that their medical institutions are even superior to those of Europe. We know this proneness to exaggeration, and it is but fair to correct it. Their best medical institutions, the Harward, New York, and Philadelphia Universities, the Bowdoin and Dartmouth Colleges, are in no respect to be compared with those of London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Paris, and Berlin. Several branches, such as anatomy, materia medica, theoretic and practical medicine, chemistry, are well taught, and in these the American physicians have made some progress; but this is all that can be said. Botany, physiology, and the higher branches of medical science are considered to be superfluous; and although these medical or rather surgical