36 [Assembly 



To that degree of perfection are these pursuits carried, and so 

 certain have become their results in this portion of our country 

 where they are held in high estimation, that their movements are 

 on a scale that compares with governmental action. A few years 

 since a committee was sent out from this town to examine into the 

 system of manufacturing of the Eastern States. They were shown 

 at one point the fields still enclosed by fences upon the banks of 

 a wild and broken river, where a few manufacturers had deter- 

 mined in a counting room in Boston to build a manufacturing 

 city. Theirs was no excited movement. It was calm, well con- 

 sidered, and almost mechanical. They may not all have seen the 

 selected spot, but its bounds had been measured, its distance from 

 market carefully considered; its river had been guaged, and its 

 whole capacity determined with mathematical precision. They 

 called upon their artizans for plans, specifications and estimates 

 for all that pertained to vast manufacturing establishments with 

 their endless complication and details. The decree was sent forth 

 that the city should be built, and it was as effectual as if it had 

 been the mandate of the Autocrat of the Russias. Indeed 

 I doubt if his majesty could find within his dominions the skill 

 and science necessary to produce the required results within the 

 specified period. A few years have rolled away and those who 

 will look again for the fenced fields and the idle river will find 

 the city of Lawrence, with its population of thousands, its busy 

 haunts of industry, and the subdued torrent toiling in man's 

 service. 



In strange contrast with those occupations, the traveller through 

 New England will find the inhabitants of a part of its territory 

 engaged in an occupation entirely different, but carried on to the 

 same successful result by virtue of the same principle, viz: a 

 public sentiment attaching to it a high value, and honoring those 

 who distinguish themselves in its pursuit. If any* one present 

 has ever had occasion to visit New Bedford or Nantucket, he has 

 approached the sea coast through a level, sterile, unpromising 

 region, but he has been astonished with the costly residences of 

 the towns, evincing wealth and prosperity. He was bewildered 

 by the conversation of men. They talk familiarly of the north- 

 west coast, the China seas, the passage around the Capes, and the 



