Ixxviii LIFE OF WILSON. 



were upon the top of a miserable barren mountain, several 

 miles from a house. It is in vain to reason with the people 

 on the impropriety of this custom makes every absurdity 

 proper. There is scarcely any currency in this country but 

 paper, and I solemnly declare that I do not recollect having 

 seen one hard dollar since I left New York. Bills even of 

 twenty-five-cents, of a hundred different banks, whose very 

 names one has never heard of before, are continually in circu- 

 lation. I say nothing of the jargon which prevails in the 

 country. Their boasted schools, if I may judge by the state of 

 their school-houses, are no better than our own. 



" Lawyers swarm in every town, like locusts; almost every 

 door has the word Office painted over it, which, like the web 

 of a spider, points out the place where the spoiler lurks for his 

 prey. There is little or no improvement in agriculture; in 

 fifty miles I did not observe a single grain or stubble field, 

 though the country has been cleared and settled these one hun- 

 dred and fifty years. In short, the steady habits of a great 

 portion of the inhabitants of those parts of New England 

 through which I passed, seem to be laziness, law bickerings 

 and * * * *. A man here is as much ashamed of being seen 

 walking the streets on Sunday, unless in going and returning 



from church, as many would be of being seen going to a * * * 



* # # 



" As you approach Boston the country improves in its ap- 

 pearance; the stone fences give place to those of posts and rails; 

 the road becomes wide and spacious; and every thing an- 

 nounces a better degree of refinement and civilization. It was 

 dark when I entered Boston, of which I shall give you some 

 account in my next. I have visited the celebrated Bunker's 

 Hill, and no devout pilgrim ever approached the sacred tomb 

 of his holy prophet with more awful enthusiasm, and profound 

 veneration, than I felt in tracing the grass-grown intrench- 

 ments of this hallowed spot, made immortal by the bravery of 

 those heroes who defended it, whose ashes are now mingled 



