SECTION VIII.

ACTIVITY OF THE COUNTRY-CONQUEST OE SOIL-RAPIDITY OF COMMUNICATION.

You know that the device of the Americans is, Go ahead ¡ Moral justice does not always arrest them; impossibility does not frighten them; "let us try," they say. They do try, and once in twenty times, they succeed. As soon as the object is recognized as important, the American goes at it with a surprising vigor and zeal. They are talking, now, of a railroad from the great Lakes to the Pacific, a gigantic and yet practicable scheme, which would make of America the great high road between Europe and Asia, and would turn to profit thousands of now barren leagues. That is enough to command the serious attention of American legislators, and the project will probably be carried out.

In such a country the electric telegraph is of course popular; according to an almanac for 1848, there were, in 1847, 2311 miles of electric wire in use, 2586 in construction, 3815 projected; in all, 8712. Now, a station at Cape Ann communicates European news to Washington before the vessel has reached Boston. A pulsation of five hundred miles of wire, tells the Congressman what is going on in Paris or London. "Being one day at Washington," says a traveller, "I went idly into an office of the Telegraph, and asked about the weather at Boston, 500 miles distant; in three minutes I learned that the weather was fine, but the heat great, and that a storm was gathering in the north

west." The opposition of newspapers gives much employment to the electric telegraph. An editor places two boys, one on foot, the other on horseback, on the bank, to be approached by a news-bringing boat. A third agent on board, encloses the written news in a bit of hollow wood, flings it to the foot boy, who picks it up and hands it to the cavalier, and he, in turn, departs full gallop for the telegraph office. But a competitor ties his message to an arrow which is shot further, picked up quicker and gains the race. Το watch this space-devouring cagerness which possesses the Americans, one can foresee the day when European news will pass, in the twinkling of an eye, from New York to San Francisco, and those of Asia be sent back. The extremities of the world will touch, and Rome will converse with Benares across the United States. Hence the immense number of American advertisements. The London Times seldom has more than eight hundred; you find twelve, fourteen hundred, in an American paper. They wish to push conquest in every direction, to experiment, to try every chance. At the age of fifteen, the man learns that he is to be the architect of his own fortune. The ties of family are so clastic, and virility begins so early, that it is a hard matter to tell where youth ends or minority ceases. They talk politics while still in long clothes; the lisping infant speculates. Vague dreams of ambition float through the mind; they are fascinated by the name of Gerard who began without a cent and ended with millions. The babes are politicians or intriguing factionaries. Each hopes to get rich, to make one leap from deepest poverty to largest opulence. The national morality suffers from this; activity and energy are developed at the expense of the calmer virtues. The soil is cleared, the forests fall, the climate changes, ports are dug, progress is accomplished, but all this does not make amiable men. Impatience to

acquire, and love of lucre, prevent the culture of art, and that happy disposition which is content to give and receive enjoyment. Nothing but money and the enterprize which wins it are respected. Often the father is considered by the son merely as a once useful object, to be put into a corner like a bit of old furniture. By this destruction of domestic sympathies, the race is spread in every direction, digging eanals, raising dikes, draining marshes, making new families, who will be scattered in their turn. The American loves to go as far away as possible; sometimes neglecting fertile lands, because too near his birth place.

This go-aheadism is indispensable where everything is done against nature. But one out of three thousand parts of the teritory is cultivated and an original voyager has given an idea of the proportion by saying that the cultivated parts. are to the uncultivated, as the seams are to the stuff of a coat. Such a situation requires all the force of youth; and this youthfulness of American character exhibits itself in a thousand different ways. In extreme vivacity, in a susceptibility often exaggerated, a thirst for new sensations, and sometimes a light and frivolous humor.

Therefore America abounds in adventurers from every country, among whom the quaintest go the South, the boldest to the North.

SECTION IX.

SCENES OF VIOLENCE AND MURDER-AUNT BECK AND HER SONS THE ASTORIAN COLONY-THE YANKEES.

The most unheard of things take place in the forests of the Rocky Mountains and the uncivilized world of Texas, Oregon, and California. A new impetuous life goes on by the gigantic streams, the immense spaces of the West. The more one advances towards the Pacific, the more one encounters the phenomena, the efforts, the painful prodigies of a colossal birth. There is something frightful in the reign of brute force in the midst of that fresh nature. The gro

tesque too mingles with it, and the frightful is often grotesque.

"There is a very gay-looking woman," said a traveller to a Mormon, pointing out the mistress of an inn near Mobile.

"Yes," replied he, "she is one of our saints and sanctity always produces gaiety. She has not been one of us long. She came from afar, and when she goes out I will tell you the story of this she Macbeth. If you like horrors, the story of Aunt Beck will satisfy you." And when the woman had left the room the Mormon began his story.

"You can only find such people here. She is of Irish and of Scottish extraction, with the sublety of the former and the obstinate violence of the latter. She came here with her husband, one of our first colonists, and with six sons, five of whom were strapping fellows of six feet, and the other a blond-haired boy like a woman.

"The strength of the five was a glory to the father; they formed for him an army of brigands who spread terror through the country, and all went well until the preference of the mother for her last and delicate child gave offence to the father, who merely despised the graceful boy. Then followed the jealousy of the five. As he grew up, he rendered this hatred more fierce by refusing to accompany them on their excursions and by openly exhibiting his dislike to their manner of life. At sixteen he had never yet joined them and the mother began to find it difficult to protect him. One day the father handed him a gun and ordered him to attend him with his brothers; and on his firm refusal flew into a violent

rage.

'Won't you," he cried, "then I will tie you to that post and flog you till you yield.'

"Do so,' said the boy.

"The father then sprang upon him and with one blow upon the temple laid him dead at his fect. Then the mother changed to a tigress. With a bowie knife in her hand she flew at her husband and stabbed him repeatedly; then at her sons, two of whom fell while the other three fled to the woods and became more savage than ever. In a few months there were none left living but the mother, who has become a convert to Mormonism, and as you see is predestined to sanctity."

All those inexplored forests, and those wild rocks have. witnessed analogous scenes-and so the progress goes on, mingled with crimes stained with human blood.

Washington Irving has disguised with idyllic colors, the terrible and devouring march of colonization in those savage spots where the civilizing bee is not yet known. But to know well the unequal combat of man with these vast forests, these mighty waters and with primitive human ferocity, the work of