18 MR. Oliver's address. 



and so I toiled on, till I heard of America, and I just left 

 home, and wife, and child, — and came along, first to Canada, 

 where I almost killed myself, chopping down trees,— and then 

 to the United States, where I soon felt that I was a man, the 

 which I had hardly felt before. For my wages, I earned two 

 dollars and a half a week, while at home I scarce got half of 

 it. I called it a heap of money. The man that hired me, 

 put me out to board, — and when I saw the first meal, I 

 thought the folks had made a breakfast-party on purpose for 

 me, and were very grand folks, and very extravagant, too, 

 for they had hot tea and hot coffee, and hot cakes, and a plen- 

 ty of good butter, and plenty of meat, which I scarcely ever 

 saw at home, and I was afraid to sit up to the meal, — But they 

 told me to take hold, and I just did so, and I ate and ate, till I 

 was all full inside, and could hold no more, and I have never 

 seen the time from then till now, that I have not fared as well, 

 — and the man that fails in America, God bless her, to get a 

 good living, whether he be native or foreign, is just a fool, or 

 too lazy to live." 



Such were the actual words to me of a once Scotch laborer 

 from near Paisley, who is now worth one hiuidred thousand 

 dollars, of which forty thousand is money at interest. He 

 lives in a western County of Massachusetts. You may say 

 this is a strong and rare case, — suppose it be, it shows what 

 can he done under the influence of institutions such as ours. 



But in England, whose abhorence of American slavery, (and 

 all slavery of every degree is just cause of abhorrence,) stands 

 in strange contrast to her unyielding obstinacy of caste, and 

 her persistence in feudal usage, and in such unsympathizing 

 legislation as keeps her laboring poor in a cruel bondage , — 

 England, who cries out with words of burning indignation, 

 and points with one hand the finger of scorn, when she sees 

 her children, on this side of the world, annexing by conquest 

 some thousands of acres from territory of her Mexican neigh- 

 bor, — while with the other hand, and at the same moment, 

 she herself seizes within her giant and unyielding grasp, mea- 

 sureless fields of the remoter East, — England, who never sof- 

 tens any epithet of reproach which she hurls at us, for the ex- 



