TRANSACTIONS. 73 



had a motive hardly operative here. I mean the expedi- 

 ency, not to say the necessity, of providing employment for 

 the poor, and thus sustaining them at the expense of the 

 rich, by a method less obnoxious than a pauper tax, and at 

 the same time promoting the public service, and what is 

 equally important, attaching the laboring classes to the 

 power that gives them bread. 



We have been too much absorbed in the grander and 

 more obvious improvements by railroads, to attend to the 

 equally important subject of bettering the condition of 

 our common highways. Doubtless it is an advantage to 

 be able to send your surplus from the depot to the market 

 in one day, instead of three or four; but you who live 

 twenty miles from the station would gain almost as much 

 by so improving your common roads that the team which 

 conveys your produce to the railroad, instead of spending 

 two days in going and returning between your farm and 

 the depot, could go and back, with double or treble the 

 load, in one. 



Sound economy dictates the policy of extended internal 

 improvement in our Eastern States, both as a means of ma- 

 king our lands more profitable to ourselves, and of render- 

 ing them more valuable and desirable in the eyes of oth- 

 ers. The attractions of the seductive West are draining 

 lis of our pecuniary savings, and of that far more valuable 

 capital which consists in the moral, intellectual and physi- 

 cal energies of our ambitious and enterprising youth. To 

 check this mischievous drain of money and of men, which 

 not only locally impoverishes us, but weakens the nation, 

 by diffusing its population and its capital over a wider 

 space than they are able to occupy to the best advantage, 

 is an object well worthy the thoughtful consideration of 

 every patriotic New Englandcr, and we could well afford 

 to make great sacrifices to accomplish it. 



The sui eriority of European public works to our own, 

 whether as respects the plan, the execution, or the manage- 



