America. They were generally, at their admission into public seminaries, so far in advance of other students, that, from the absence of inducements to steady application, they there, for the first time, contracted habits of idleness. They also became less obedient and subordinate to collegiate regulations than the other scholars, when the hand of correction, of which they formerly had tasted, was no longer extended over them. Thus, a two-fold evil was produced by the discipline and skill of this blind teacher. Since that time, corporal punishment has almost disappeared from American day-schools; and a teacher who should now have recourse to such means of enforcing instruction, would meet with reprehension from the parents, and perhaps retaliation from his scholars."

In the schools, he says

"Insubordination prevails to a degree subversive of all improvement. The pupils are entirely independent of their teacher. No correction, no coercion, no manner of restraint, is permitted to be used."- He also asserts, like captain Hall and Mrs. Trollope, that "there is in the mass of the people, a deep-rooted hostility to England, a malignant envy of her greatness, and an eager wish to witness her decline, by revolution or otherwise."

The frequent fires in New York are thus accounted for.

"Fires are chiefly confined to houses built of wood, which, from frequent conflagrations, are fast diminishing. When a wood-house, in some districts of the city, has been pulled down or burnt, the city inspectors require that a house of brick, stone, or marble, be erected in its place. I was told that many wood buildings, when favorably situated for business, and let upon long leases, are annually burnt down by some secret incendiary, employed by the landlord. He finds, in such case, that it is his interest to accomplish this; and his tenant's goods and stores are but slight impediments. The value of ground lots has, in some situations, increased so much as to render a wood tenement a matter of no importance. The wood-house once burnt down, the tenant finds himself obliged either to build a fire-proof house, or to evacuate his lease. In either case the landlord is a gainer."

"No native American (says Mr. Fidler) will ever engage in the capacity of a servant. Menial offices must all be performed by others. To call a free-born republican a servant, would be degrading him to the level of a slave."

These specimens will suffice to show the character of Mr.

Fidler's book. The man is too insignificant to make it worth while to spend many words upon him; and we pass to Mr. Stuart.

Mr. Stuart is a Scotch gentleman, of much superior standing to most of our British visitors, and totally opposite in the tone of his descriptions to the three individuals whose accounts we have been noticing. He seems disposed to see every thing in the most favorable light, and is indulgent, even where he cannot praise. In fact, his book would have been more interesting, if it had been less laudatory. Mr. Stuart goes vastly more into detail than captain Hall, or Mrs. Trollope. His book is a sort of journal of all that he saw or learned, during a residence of three years in the United States. His object seems to have been to furnish his countrymen with a copious storehouse of facts, from which they might form opinions for themselves, rather than to present them merely with the results which the scenes that he witnessed had left on his own mind. His statements and opinions continually conflict with those of captain Hall and Mrs. Trollope. We have already cited a passage from captain Hall, respecting the electioneering tumults which he says prevail throughout the United States, at all times. Mr. Stuart seems to have found the state of things very different.

"It was on the 5th November that I was present at the election at Ballston Spa, held in one of the hotels, about the door of which twenty or thirty people might be standing. My friend Mr. Brown introduced me, and got me a place at the table. I must confess that I have been seldom more disappointed at a public meeting. The excitement occasioned by the election generally was declared by the newspapers to be far greater than had ever been witnessed since the declaration of independence in 1776. And at Ballston Spa, any irritation which existed had been increased by an attack made a few days previously to the election by the local press, and by handbills, on the moral character of one of the candidates,- -a gentleman who had filled a high office in congress, and who resided in the neighborhood. I was therefore prepared for some fun, for some ebullition of humor, or of sarcastic remark, or dry wit, to which Americans are said to be prone. But all was dumb show, or the next thing to it. The ballot-boxes were placed on a long table, at which half a dozen inspectors or canvassers of votes were seated. The voters approached the table by single files. Not a word was spoken. Each voter delivered his list, when he got next the table to the

officers, who called out his name. Any person might object, but the objection was instantly decided on,-the officers having no difficulty, from their knowledge of the township, of the persons residing in it, and to whose testimony reference was instantly made, in determining on the spot, whether the qualification of the voter was or was not sufficient. I need hardly say, that I did not attend this excessively uninteresting sort of meeting for any long time; but I am bound to bear this testimony in its favor, that so quiet a day of election, both without and within doors, I never witnessed either in Scotland or England. I did not see or hear of a drunken person in the village or neighborhood, nor did I observe any thing extraordinary, except the increased number of carriages or wagons of all kinds, three or four of them drawn by four horses, one by six. We were residing close by the hotel where the election took place, and in the evening the tranquillity was as complete as if no election had occurred."

After some further details, he concludes as follows.

"Thus, in a State far exceeding Scotland in extent, and almost equalling it in population, the votes for the chief magistrate of the United States and his substitute-for the governor and lieutenant-governor of the State-for a senator and representatives to congress-for three representatives to the State of New York-for four coroners, a sheriff, and a clerk to the county were taken, and the business of the election finished with ease, and with the most perfect order and decorum, in three days.""Very soon after the election, the excitement created by it appeared to us to have altogether subsided, and no traces of ill humor seemed to remain with those most opposed to each other.”

Many of the statements of captain Hall and Mrs. Trollope he expressly contradicts, or confutes. After giving an account of the steam-boat in which he went up the Mississippi, he thus alludes to Mrs. Trollope's account of one of these vessels.

"I can in no otherwise account for the great discrepancy in point of statement contained in the representation of this lady and the preceding details relative to the steam-vessel in which I ascended the Mississippi, than by supposing that our voyages were made in vessels of a very different description. Among three or four hundred steam-boats on the western rivers of North America, there are of course, good, bad, and indifferent; and I cannot doubt that the lady in question had been ill advised on this occasion, and made her voyage in a disagreeable, ill-found

vessel. She ought not, however, as I conceive, on that account alone, and without having taken the trouble to inform herself well on the subject, to caution travellers against all Mississippi steam-boats. She might as well caution a friend against coming up the Thames in a king's yacht, because she had herself been obliged to come up that river in a dirty coal-barge."

He then confirms his own statement, by referring to the accounts of two other English travellers, Mr. Bullock and Mr. Ferrall.

In contrasting Mrs. Trollope's account of the camp-meetings of the West with those of Mr. Timothy Flint, a gentleman of high and deserved reputation, he observes,

"His means of acquiring information upon such a subject as this have been so extensive, that I view his testimony as decisive, and not affected, even in the very slightest degree, by that of recent British travellers, especially of a lady, who confesses that her knowledge of a camp-meeting was derived from an irruption which she made into the heart of one commencing an hour before midnight, and concluding at three o'clock in the morning. The statements given by this lady, of the whole people being engaged in worship at eleven o'clock at night—of public worship. beginning at midnight, and continuing during a considerable part of the night-and of private devotion again beginning at daybreak as well as of what she saw by peeping into the tents, which the spectators, as she writes, very unceremoniously opened to her, are so irreconcilable with Mr. Flint's account of campmeetings in the western States, with the general rules of campmeetings, and with all that I have heard on this subject in quarters to be relied on, as well as with the known manners of the Americans, that I should have paid no attention to such details if they had proceeded from a gentleman; but, coming from a lady, their correctness dare not be questioned, although it must be matter of deep regret to her friends that the period at which she did not think it unbecoming her sex to visit such an assemblage as this, consisted of the hours from eleven o'clock at night till three o'clock in the morning."

The lady to whose recent publication I refer, was herself well acquainted with Mr. Flint, and has written a most merited eulogium on his character, in which she describes him as the only American she ever listened to, whose unqualified praise of his country did not appear to her somewhat overstrained and ridiculous.'

"Mr. Flint's recital, relative to the religious meetings referred to, is a most interesting one; but let me particularly call the attention of the reader to the last part of it, in which he, with

the best means of knowledge that ever man possessed, relates the general salutary effects which result from such meetings in reclaiming the profane, the drunkard, and the gambler, and in producing most beneficial changes in the habits of the people, Evidence to this purpose, unqualifiedly given by so respectable a person, weighs more in the balance than all the absurd and wonderful stories which Mrs. Trollope, and many prejudiced British writers on America, have sent forth to the world. Here is a person of the most unblemished reputation, residing on the spot, and enjoying the most favorable opportunity for forming a correct judgment, bearing testimony to the great, the unspeakable advantages derived from the camp-meetings of America."

He then gives Mr. Flint's account, which concludes as follows.

"Whatever be the cause, the effect is certain, that through the state of Tennessee, parts of Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, these excitements have produced a palpable change in the habits and manners of the people. The gambling and drinking shops are deserted; and the people that used to congregate there, now go to the religious meetings. The Methodists, too, have done great and incalculable good. They are generally of a character, education, and training, that prepare them for the elements upon which they are destined to operate. They speak the dialect, understand the interests, and enter into the feelings of their audience. They exert a prodigious and incalculable bearing upon the rough backwoodsmen; and do good where more polished and trained ministers would preach without effect. No mind but his for whom they labor can know how many profane they have reclaimed, drunkards they have reformed, and wanderers they have brought home to God.'"

He thus contradicts Mrs. Trollope's descriptions of the religious meetings in the United States.

"Mrs. Trollope's details relative to the religious meetings of the people of the United States, and to the influence of the clergy on the ladies of that country, and most especially of Cincinnati and the western States, appear to me to be the most objectionable part of her work; and the more so, because she expressly declares (vol. i. p. 151.) that she does not describe them belonging to the west alone, but to the whole Union.' I was only a couple of days at Cincinnati, and, therefore, I admit, that it is not at all surprising that I should have heard nothing of those extraordinary prayer-meetings, of which Mrs. Trollope has

as