28 MESSRS BRIGHT AND COBDEN. 



over the free use of the conscience by numbers armed with 

 the revolver and rifle. To talk of the undue influence by 

 landlords in England over their tenants, their tenants 

 having many an interest in common with their landlords, 

 is as a mere drop of water in the sea compared to the 

 tyranny exercised by the "Boh-hoys" and " Rowdies" 

 over the freedom of universal suffrage ; and when I read 

 the lucubrations of Messrs Bright and Cobden at the re 

 form meetings, as they are called, when they hold up, I 

 fear, the disuniting States of America as a pattern to this 

 country, I am at a loss what to do to marvel at the mis 

 take of these orators, or to laugh at the impudence of 

 the attempt to lean a weight on the most fragile lath 

 that ever was put forth as a walking-stick for John Bull. 

 A man has but to travel in America and to mix with all 

 classes, to see the errors in the system of what may be 

 called the universal suffrage of an irresponsible people. 

 "A king can do no wrong;" that is a curious adage, 

 and may be a legal truth, though it cannot be a religious 

 one ; and on closely regarding the law and its general 

 enforcement in the United States, the same may be ille 

 gally said of the American people, " The people can do 

 no wrong ; " and that fact will, eventually, I fear, be 

 "the knife" that will " sever the bundle of sticks," 

 though accursed ought for ever to be the hand that severs 

 the unity of a splendid citizenship that can only fall to 

 pieces by suicide, or by an insane intoxication produced 

 by too much liberty. Liberty is a beautiful thing in the 

 social as well as the political or public system through 

 out the world ; but if a man takes too great liberties even 

 in private society, liberty destroys the delicacy of life, and 

 leads, if unchecked, to demoralisation. The same result 

 is, at this moment, hanging by a thread over the pros- 



