the pride which apes humility, he likes to style himself. And after all he has no road on which he can drive his fine horses; his physician supposes the use of chloric ether, as an anasthetic agent, to be a novel and interesting subject of after-dinner eloquence; he has no church within twenty miles, but one of logs, attendance on which is sure to bring on an attack of neuralgia with his wife, and where only an ignorant ranter of a different faith from his own preaches at irregular intervals; there is no school which he is willing that his children should attend; his daily papers come weekly, and he sees no books except such as he has especially ordered from Norton or Stevens.
This being the exception, how is it with the community as a whole?
As a whole, the community makes shift to live, some part tolerably, the most part wretchedly enough, with arrangements such as one might expect to find in a country in stress of war. Nothing which can be postponed or overlooked, without immediate serious inconvenience, gets attended to. One soon neglects to inquire why this is not done or that; the answer is so certain to be that there is no proper person to be got to do it without more trouble (or expense) than it is thought to be worth. Evidently habit reconciles the people to do without much, the permament want of which would seem likely to be intolerable to those who had it in possession. Nevertheless, they complain a good deal, showing that the evil is an increasing one. Verbal statements to the same effect as the following, written by a Virginian to the 'Journal of Commerce,' are often heard.
"Hundreds of farmers and planters, mill owners, tobacconists, cotton
factories, iron works, steam-boat owners, master builders, contractors,
carpenters, stage proprietors, canal boat owners, railroad companies, and
others, are, and have been short of hands these five years past, in Mary-
