I am not from the north.'-'I guess you found | best account we have seen of this system of the roads mighty muddy, and the creeks swim- irregular justice. ming. You are come a long way, I guess ?'- "After leaving Carlyle, I ook the Shawnee 'No, not so very far; we have travelled a few town road, that branches off to the S. E., and hundred miles since we turned our faces west-passed the Walnut Hills, and Moore's Prairie. ward.'-'I guess you have seen Mr. —, or These two places had a year or two befcre General -?' (mentioning the names of been infested by a notorious gang of robbers some well-known individuals in the middle and forgers, who had fixed themselves in these and southern states, who were to serve as wild parts in order to avoid justice. As the guide-posts to detect our route); but, 'I have country became more settled, these desperanct the pleasure of knowing any of them,' or, does became more and more troublesome. The 'I have the pleasure of knowing all,' equally inhabitants, therefore, took that method of getdefeated his purpose, but not his hopes. Iting rid of them that had been adopted not reckon, stranger, you have had a good crop many years ago in Hopkinson and Henderson of cotton this year?'-'I am told, sir, the counties, Kentucky, and which is absolutely crops have been unusually abundant in Caro- necessary in new and thinly settled districts, lina and Georgia.'-'You grow tobacco, then, where it is almost impossible to punish a I guess?' (to track me to Virginia). 'No; I criminal according to legal forms. do not grow tobacco.' Here a modest inquirer would give up in despair, and trust to the chapter of accidents to develope my name and history; but I generally rewarded his modesty, and excited his gratitude, by telling him I would torment him no longer. "The courage of a thorough-bred Yankee* would rise with his difficulties; and after a decent interval, he would resume: I hope no offence, sir; but you know we Yankees lose nothing for want of asking. I guess, stranger, you are from the old country?''Well, my friend, you have guessed right at last, and I am sure you deserve something for your perseverance; and now I suppose it will save us both trouble if I proceed to the second part of the story, and tell you where I am going. I am going to New Orleans.' This is really no exaggerated picture: dialogues, not indeed in these very words, but to this effect, occurred continually; and some of them more minute and extended than I can venture upon in a letter. I ought, however, to say, that many questions lose much of their familiarity when travelling in the wilderness. Where are you from?' and 'whither are you bound?' do not appear impertinent interrogations at sea; and often in the western wilds I found myself making inquiries which I should have thought very free and easy at home."-Hodgson's Letters, II. 32-35. "On such occasions, therefore, all the quiet and industrious men of a district form themselves into companies, under the name of 'Regulators.' They appoint officers, put themselves under their orders, and bind themselves to assist and stand by each other. The first step they then take is to send notice to any notorious vagabonds, desiring them to quit the state in a certain number of days, under the penalty of receiving a domiciliary visit. Should the person who receives the notice refuse to comply, they suddenly assemble, and, when unex. pected, go in the night-time to the rogue's house, take him out, tie him to a tree, and give him a severe whipping, every one of the party striking him a certain number of times. "This discipline is generally sufficient to drive off the culprit; but should he continue obstinate, and refuse to avail himself of another warning, the Regulators pay him a second visit, inflict a still severer whipping, with the addition probably of cutting off both his ears. No culprit has ever been known to remain after a second visit. For instance, an old man, the father of a family, all of whom he educated as robbers, fixed himself at Moore's Prairie, and committed numerous thefts, &c. &c. He was hard enough to remain after the first visit, when both he and his sons received a whipping. At the second visit the Regulators punished him very severely, and cut off his ears. This drove him off, together with his whole gang, and travellers can now pass in perfect safety where it was once dangerous to travel alone. In all new and distant settlements the forms cf law must, of course, be very limited. No justice's warrant is current in the Dismal Swamp; constables are exceedingly puzzled in the neighbourhood of the Mississippi; and "There is also a company of Regulators there is no treadmill, either before or after near Vincennes, who have broken up a nototrial, on the Little Wabash. The consequence rious gang of coiners and thieves who had of this is, that the settlers take the law into fixed themselves near that place. These rastheir own hands, and give notice to a justice-cals, before they were driven off, had parties proof delinquent to quit the territory, if this notice is disobeyed, they assemble and whip the culprit, and this failing, on the second visit they cut off his ears. In short, Captain Rock has his descendants in America. Mankind cannot live together without some approximation to justice; and if the actual government will not govern well, or cannot govern well, is too wicked or too weak to do so-then men prefer Rock to anarchy. The following is the settled at different distances in the woods, and thus held communication and passed horses and stolen goods from one to another, from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and from thence into Canada or the New England States. Thus it was next to impossible to detect the robbers, or to recover the stolen property. "This practice of Regulating seems very strange to an European. I have talked with some of the chief men of the Regulators, who all lamented the necessity of such a system They very sensibly remarked, that when the country became more thickly settled, there would no longer be any necessity for such self had saved! When an American has made proceedings, and that they should all be de- these articles, he may build his little vessel, lighted at being able to obtain justice in a and take them without hinderance to any part more formal manner. I forgot to mention, of the world; for there is no rich company of that the rascals punished have sometimes pro- merchants that can say to him, 'You shall not secuted the Regulators for an assault. The trade to India; and you shall not buy a pound juries, however, knowing the bad character of tea of the Chinese; as, by so doing, you of the prosecutors, would give but trifling would infringe upon our privileges.' In condamages, which, divided among so many, sequence of this freedom, all the seas are coamounted to next to nothing for each indivi-vered with their vessels, and the people at dual.”—Excursion, pp. 233–236. home are active and independent. I never saw a beggar in any part of the United States; nor was I ever asked for charity but onceand that was by an Irishman.”—Excursion, pp. 70, 71. This same traveller mentions his having met at table three or four American ex-kings— presidents who had served their time, and had retired into private life; he observes also upon the effect of a democratical government in preAmerica is so differently situated from the venting mobs. Mobs are created by opposi-old governments of Europe, that the United tion to the wishes of the people:-but when the wishes of the people are consulted so completely as they are consulted in America-all motives for the agency of mobs are done away. States afford no political precedents that are exactly applicable to our old governments. There is no idle and discontented population. When they have peopled themselves up to the Mississippi, they cross to the Missouri, and “It is, indeed, entirely a government of will go on until they are stopped by the Westopinion. Whatever the people wish is done.ern Ocean; and then, when there are a num If they want any alteration of laws, tariffs, &c., they inform their representatives, and if there be a majority that wish it, the alteration is made at once. In most European countries there is a portion of the population denominated the mob, who, not being acquainted with real liberty, give themselves up to occasional fits of licentiousness. But in the United States there is no mob, for every man feels himself free. At the time of Burr's conspiracy, Mr. Jefferson said, that there was little to be apprehended from it, as every man felt himself a part of the general sovereignty. The event proved the truth of this assertion; and Burr, who in any other country would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered, is at present leading an obscure life in the city of New York, despised by every one."-Excursion, P. 70. It is a real blessing for America to be ex ́empted from that vast burthen of taxes, the consequences of a long series of foolish, just and necessary wars, carried on to please kings and queens, or the waiting maids and waiting lords and gentlemen, who have always go verned kings and queens in the old world. The Americans owe this good to the newness of their government; and though there are few classical associations, or historical recollections in the United States, this barrenness is ber of persons who have nothing to do, and nothing to gain, no hope for lawful industry and great interest in promoting changes, we may consider their situation as somewhat similar to our own, and their example as touching us more nearly. The changes in the con stitution of the particular states seem to be very frequent, very radical, and to us very alarming;-they seem, however, to be thought very little of in that country, and to be very following passage, speaks of them with Eurolittle heard of in Europe. Mr. Duncan, in the pean feelings. "The other great obstacle to the prosperity of the American nation, universal suffrage, will not exhibit the full extent of its evil tendency for a long time to come; and it is possible that ere that time some antidote may be discovered, to prevent or alleviate the mischief does, however, seem ominous of evil, that so which we might naturally expect from it. It little ceremony is at present used with the constitutions of the various states. The people of Connecticut, not contented with having prospered abundantly under their old system, have lately assembled a convention, composed of delegates from all parts of the country, in which the former order of things has been condemned entirely, and a completely new constitution manufactured; which, among other things, provides for the same process being vulgus takes it into his head to desire it. A again gone through, as soon as the profanum sorry legacy the British Constitution would "The good effects of a free government are be to us, if it were at the mercy of a meeting visible throughout the whole country. There of delegates, to be summoned whenever a ma. are no tithes, no poor-rates, no excise, no jority of the people took a fancy for a new heavy internal taxes, no commercial monopo-one; and I am afraid, that if the Americans lies. An American can make candles if he continue to cherish a fondness for such repairs, have tallow, can distil brandy if he have grapes the Highlandman's pistol, with its new stock, or peaches, and can make beer if he have malt and hops, without asking leave of any one, In the greater number of the States, every white and much less with any fear of incurring pun-person, 21 years of age, who has paid taxes for one year, is a voter; in others, some additional qualifications are ishment. How would a farmer's wife there required, but they are not such as materially to limit the be astonished, if told that it was contrary to privilege. law for her to make soap out of the potass ob- quently taken a similar fancy to clout the cauldron. The people of the State of New York have subse. tained on the farra, and of the grease she her- (18225 well purchased by the absence of all the feudal nonsense, inveterate abuses, and profligate debts of an old country. lock, and barrel, will bear a close resemblance | twice sent over for a supply of Germans, as to what is ultimately produced."-Duncan's they admit no Americans, of any intercourse Travels, II. 335, 336. In the Excursion there is a list of the American navy, which, in conjunction with the navy of France, will one day or another, we fear, settle the Catholic question in a way not quite agreeable to the Earl of Liverpool for the time being, nor very creditable to the wisdom of those ancestors of whom we hear, and from whom we suffer so much. The regulations of the American navy seem to be admirable. The states are making great exertions to increase this navy; and since the capture of so many English ships, it has become the favourite science of the people at large. Their flotillas on the lakes completely defeated ours during the last war. with whom they are very jealous. Harmonites dress and live plainly. It is a part of their creed that they should do so. Rapp, however, and the head men have no such particular creed for themselves, and indulge in wine, beer, grocery, and other irreligious diet. Rapp is both governor and priest,-preaches to them in church, and directs all their proceedings in their working hours. In short, Rapp seems to have made use of the religious propensities of mankind, to persuade one or two thousand fools to dedicate their lives to his service; and if they do not get tired, and fling their prophet into a horse-pond, they will in all probability disperse as soon as he dies. Unitarians are increasing very fast in the United States, not being kept down by charges from bishops and archdeacons, their natural enemies. The author of the Excursion remarks upon the total absence of all games in America. No cricket, foot-ball, nor leap-frog-all seems solič and profitable. transmit stories and sports from one genera- cestors. In America I never saw even the Fanaticism of every description seems to rage and flourish in America, which has no establishment, in about the same degree which it does here under the nose of an established church; they have their prophets and prophetesses, their preaching encampments, female preachers, and every variety of noise, "One thing that I could not help remarking folly, and nonsense, like ourselves. Among with regard to the Americans in general, is the the most singular of these fanatics, are the total want of all those games and sports that Harmonites. Rapp, their founder, was a dis- obtained for our country the appellation of senter from the Lutheran church, and there-Merry England. Although children usually fore, of course, the Lutheran clergy of Stutgard (near to which he lived) began to put Mr. Rapp in white sheets, to prove him guilty of theft, parricide, treason, and all the usual crimes of which men dissenting from established churches are so often guilty, and delicate hints were given respecting fagots! Stutgard abounds with underwood and clergy; andaway went Mr. Rapp to the United States, and, with a great multitude of followers, settled about twenty-four miles from our countryman, Mr. Birkbeck. His people have here built a large town, and planted a vineyard, where they make very agreeable wine. They carry on also a very extensive system of husbandry, and are the masters of many flocks and herds. They have a distillery, brewery, tannery, make hats, shoes, cotton and woollen cloth, and every thing necessary to the comfort of life. Every one belongs to some particular trade. But in bad weather, when there is danger of losing their crops, Rapp blows a horn, and calls them all together. Over every trade there is a head man, who receives the money and gives a receipt, signed by Rapp, to whom all the money collected is transmitted. When any of these workmen wants a hat or a coat, Rapp signs him an order for the garment, for which he goes to the store, and is fitted. They have one large store where these manufactures are deposited. This store is much resorted to by the neighbourhood, on account of the goodness and cheapness of the articles. They have built an excellent house for their founder, Rapp, as it might have been predicted they would have done. The Harmonites profess equality, community of goods, and celibacy; for the men and women (let Mr. Malthus hear this) live separately, and are not allowed the slightest intercourse. In order to keep up their numbers, they have once or These are a few of the leading and promi nent circumstances respecting America, men tioned in the various works before us: of which works we can recommend the Letters of Mr. Hudson, and the Excursion into Canada, as sensible, agreeable books, written in a very fair spirit. America seems, on the whole, to be a country possessing vast advantages, and little inconveniences; they have a cheap government, and bad roads; they pay no tithes, and have stage-coaches without springs. They have no poor laws and no monopolies-but their inns are inconvenient, and travellers are teased with questions. They have no collections in the fine arts; but they have no lord-chancellor, and they can go to law without absolute ruin. They cannot make Latin verses, but they ex pend immense sums in the education of the poor. In all this the balance is prodigiously in their favour: but then comes the great disgrace and danger of America-the existence of slavery, which, if not timously corrected, will one day entail (and ought to entail) a bloody servile war upon the Americanswhich will separate America into slave states and states disclaiming slavery, and which remains at present as the foulest blot in the moral character of that people. An high-spirited nation, who cannot endure the slightest act of foreign aggression, and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic tyranny-beat with cartwhips, and bind with chains, and murder for the merest trifles, wretched human beings who are of a more dusky colour than themselves; and have recently admitted into their Union a new state, with the express permission of ingrafting this atrocious wickedness into their constitution! No one can admire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the Americans more than we do, or more despise the pitiful propensity which exists among government runners to vent their small spite at their character; but on .he subject of slavery, the conduct of America is, and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to speak of it with too much indignation and contempt; but for it, we should look forward with unqualified pleasure to such a land of freedom, and such a magnificent spectacle of human happiness. BENTHAM ON FALLACIES.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1825.] THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous fallacies, which pass readily in the world for sense and virtue, while in truth they tend only to fortify error and encourage crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the most conspicuous of these in the book before us. Whether it is necessary there should be a middleman between the cultivator and possessor, learned economists have doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers can doubt the necessity of a middleman between Mr. Bentham and the public. Mr. Bentham is long; Mr. Bentham is occasionally involved and obscure; Mr. Bentham invents new and alarming expressions; Mr. Bentham loves division and subdivision-and he loves method itself, more than its consequences. Those only, therefore, who know his originality, his knowledge, his vigour, and his boldness, will recur to the works themselves. The great mass of readers will not purchase improvement at so dear a rate; but will choose rather to become acquainted with Mr. Bentham through the medium of reviews-after that eminent philosopher has been washed, trimmed, shaved, and forced into clean linen. One great use of a review, indeed, is to make men wise in ten pages, who have no appetite for an hundred pages; to condense nourishment, to work with pulp and essence, and to guard the stomach from idle burden and unmeaning bulk. For half a page, sometimes for a whole page, Mr. Bentham writes with a power which few can equal; and by selecting and omitting, an admirable style may be formed from the text. Using this liberty, we shall endeavour to give an account of Mr. Bentham's doctrines, for the most part in his own words. Wherever any expression is particularly happy, let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's:-the dulness we take to ourselves. Our Wise Ancestors-the Wisdom of our Ancestors-the Wisdom of Ages-Venerable Antiquity The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham. By a FRIEND. London, J. and H. L. Hunt. 1824. Wisdom of Old Times.-This mischievous and absurd fallacy springs from the grossest perversion of the meaning of words. Experience is certainly the mother of wisdom, and the old have, of course, a greater experience than the young; but the question is, who are the old? and who are the young? Of individuals living at the same period, the oldest has, of course, the greatest experience; but among generations of men the reverse of this is true. Those who come first (our ancestors), are the young people, and have the least experience. We have added to their experience the experience of many centuries; and, therefore, as far as experience goes, are wiser, and more capable of forming an opinion than they were. The real feeling should be, not can we be so presumptuous as to put our opinions in opposition to those of our ancestors? but can such young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ancestors necessarily were, be expected to have understood a subject as well as those who have seen so much more, lived so much longer, and enjoyed the experience of so many centuries? All this cant, then, about our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by transferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeed. ing ages. Whereas (as we have before observed) of living men the oldest has, cæteris paribus, the most experience; of generations, the oldest has, cæteris paribus, the least expe rience. Our ancestors, up to the Conquest, were children in arms; chubby boys in the time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the white-bearded, silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are pre pared to profit by, all the experience which human life can supply. We are not disputing with our ancestors the palm of talent, in which they may or may not be our superiors, but the palin of experience, in which it is utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever the chancellor comes forward to protect some abuse, or to oppose some plan whicn has the increase of human happiness for its object, his first appeal is always to the wisdom | proportion of what little instruction the age of our ancestors; and he himself, and many noble lords who vote with him, are, to this hour, persuaded that all alterations and amendments on their devices are an unblushing controversy between youthful temerity and mature experience!-and so, in truth, they are-only that much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old, and the old for the young-and is guilty of that very sin against experience which he attributes to the lovers of innovation. We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our ancestors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mistaken in their institutions, because their means of information were more limited than ours. But we do confidently maintain that when we find it expedient to change any thing which our ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and not they. The quantity of talent is always varying in any great nation. To say that we are more or less able than our ancestors, is an assertion that requires to be explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in England, probably possessed, if taken altogether, more intellect than all the able men now in England can boast of. But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason, the question is, What was the wisdom of that single age which enacted the law, compared with the wisdom of the age which proposes to alter it? What are the eminent men of one and the other period If you say that our ancestors were wiser than us, mention your date and year. If the splendour of names is equal, are the circumstances the same? If the circumstances are the same, we have a superiority of experience, of which the difference between the two periods is the measure. It is necessary to insist upon this; for upon sacks of wool, and on benches forensic, sit grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons, crying out "Ancestors, Ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, Danes, save us! Fiddlefrig, help us! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us."-Any cover for nonsense -any veil for trash-any pretext for repelling the innovations of conscience and of duty! "So long as they keep to vague generalitiesso long as the two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lump-wise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of modern times in the other-the weakness of the fallacy may escape detection. But let them assign for the period of superior wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not only will the groundlessness of the notion be apparent (class being compared with class in that period and the present one), but, unless the antecedent period be, comparatively speaking, a very modern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to such an amount in favour of modern times, that, in comparison of the lowest class of the people in modern times (always supposing them proficients in the art of reading, and their proficiency employed in the reading of newspapers), the very highest and best informed class of these wise ancestors will turn out to be grossly ignorant. "Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry the Eighth, from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would probably have been in possession of by far the larger afforded: in the House of Lords, among the laity it might even then be a question whether, without exception, their lordships were all of them able so much as to read. But even supposing them all in the fullest possession of that useful and political science being the science in question, what instruction on the subject could they meet with at that time of day? "On no one branch of legislation was any book extant from which, with regard to the circumstances of the then present times, any useful instruction could be derived: distributive law, penal law, international law, political economy, so far from existing as sciences, had scarcely obtained a name : in all those departments, under the head of quid faciendum, a mere blank : the whole literature of the age consisted of a meager chronicle or two, containing short memorandums of the usual occurrences of war and peace, battles, sieges, executions, revels, deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and other external events; but with scarce a speech or an incident that could enter into the composition of any such work as a history of the human mind-with scarce an attempt at investigation into causes, characters, or the state of the people at large. Even when at last, little by little, a scrap or two of political instruction came to be obtainable, the proportion of error and mischievous doctrine mixed up with it was so great, that whether a blank unfilled might not have been less prejudicial than a blank thus filled, may reasonably be matter of doubt "If we come down to the reign of James the First, we shall find that Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as learned, not only among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking out for prohibition and punishment the practices of devils and witches, and without any the slightest objection on the part of the great characters of that day in their high situations, consigning men to death and torment for the misfortune of not being so well acquainted as he was with the composition of the Godhead. "Under the name of exorcism, the Catholic liturgy contains a form of procedure for driving out devils ;-even with the help of this instrument, the operation cannot be performed with the desired success, but by an operator quali fied by holy orders for the working of this as well as so many other wonders. In our days and in our country the same object is attained, and beyond comparison more effectually, by so cheap an instrument as a common newspaper: before this talisman, not only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes, are driven out of the land, never to return again! The touch of the holy water is not so intolerable to them as the bare smell of printers' ink."-(pp. 74-77.) Fallacy of irrevocable Laws.-A law, says Mr. Bentham, (no matter to what effect,) is proposed to a legislative assembly, who are called upon to reject it, upon the single ground, that by those who in some former period exercised the same power, a regulation was made, having for its object to preclude for ever, or to the end of an unexpired period, all succeed |