V 



110 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



Dubuque, as it is to hear English spoken there. The greater 

 part of this population between Illinois and Rock Rivers, 

 and between the Missouri and Iowa Rivers, comprising a 

 district of some two hundred miles in width from north to 

 south, in the centre, but narrowing toward the extremities, is 

 from the Ohio Valley and the South. Pemisylvania and 

 Vircrinia, west of the Alleghany, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, 

 Tennessee and North Carolina, have sent their colonists to 

 these latitudes. North of these lines the larger portion is 

 from the Northern States, east of the mountains, and fi'om 

 Europe. They are, many of them, men who have not 

 derived much knowledge from education, but have been 

 schooled only in the world, and learned in the knowledge of 

 men. They have shaken hands with privations and hard- 

 ships, and with laxiuy' have but little acquaintance. There 

 are, however, manv well informed, of the softer as weU as 

 of the rougher sex, living in the homeliest style of rustic life. 

 Iowa is divided into 39 Counties, 25 of which are orga- 

 nized, — and into townships of greater or less extent accord- 

 ing to population, but generally comprehending more than 

 one geographical township, into which the whole country is 

 first divided by the government surveys. Other portions, 

 where the population is concentrated at particular points, are 

 incorporated into towns or cities. Between these two last, 

 there is \ery little difference in substance, if any. The mu- 

 nicipal authorities have in each very similar powers. In the 

 towns, affairs are managed by a single board called trustees, 

 and in the other, in the more usual form of Mayor and Alder- 

 men. In either case the municipal government has the 

 power to assess and levy the taxes, to ordain the by-laws, and 

 to appoint the officers. In the townships, as pohtically 

 established, the government is in the hands of inspectors. 

 But even in these smaller depositories of power the differ- 



