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wealth whose only title to nobility was honest labor, where ach man was free 

 to develop and gravitate to his own place and society. That men did not in 

 those old colony days seek office very much is evidenced by the fact that a law 

 was passed in 1632, imposing a penalty of twenty pounds on whoever should 

 refuse the office of Governor, and ten pounds for declining to be a magistrate. 

 That race of self-denying patriots has certainly run out in our day. Our poli- 

 ticians are too much like the benevolent individuals referred to by the country 

 ministei w T ho addressing his congregation said "When I told you in my last 

 charity sermon, that philanthropy was the love of our species, you must have 

 understood me to say specie which may account for the smallness of your con- 

 tributions," and as a rule, whatever may be the opposition our public men meet 

 with on going into office, they are apt to go out with none at all, as their con- 

 st intents are too much convinced by self-evident proof in these degenerate days 

 that their representative represents his own interests rather than theirs and looks 

 upon office as an easy means of bettering his condition. Occasionally perhaps 

 you may find an official who fairly represents his constituency for better or 

 worse, though perchance few are as plain-spoken as the member, I won't say 

 of what legislature, who indulging in afternoon naps requested his friend to 

 awaken him when the lumber act came on. His friend omitted it by forget - 

 fulness I >ut accidentally gave him a jog as the house was discussing a bill to 

 prevent fraud. The sleeper started up suddenly, rubbed his eyes and exclaimed 

 "•.sir. Speaker, a word or two upon that bill, for more than half of my con- 

 stituents get their living no other way." The dignity of labor is purely a New 

 England scheme of thought, marking our country's history from the earliest 

 period of its settlement by our Puritan ancestors, and the great men of our 

 earliest as well as more recent eras, hewed their living and independence out of 

 the wilderness, ennobling the very axe and plow which were such useful in- 

 struments in this peaceful warfare, and finding no station more exalted than 

 home and its surroundings. The rough country was cultivated to the hill tops, 

 neai farm houses dotted the landscape everywhere, the best and wisest content- 

 ed themselves with simple rural occupations, none felt the glow that now warms 

 and inspires every bosom to grow rich rapidly, but all were satisfied with the 

 comforts of life, and found their enjoyments in the daily intercourse with 

 pleasant rural objects, with robust health and active exercise, with their chil- 

 dren and friends growing up about them and when called to preserve their fire- 

 sides from hostile attacks, or to sit in the councils of state they performed their 

 obligations as became men ami citizens, and then gladly returned to their more 

 congenial employments. Neither did they neglect the amusements and graces 

 so tar as they could be found in a comparative wilderness, and though they 

 stretched authority in these matters a little too far perhaps, prohibiting horse- 

 racing and walking about nights, putting drunkards and swearers int^ the stocks. 

 prohibiting card playing ; and lawyers talking longer than a prescribed period : 

 ordering the length of women's sleeves and punishing common scolds and ex- 

 pensive dressers (fining Hannibal Bosworth's daughter 5s for wearing silk.) 

 Yet i hey encouraged hunting and fishing, had their farmers' feasts and festivals, 

 ^spinnings" where every woman bearing her wheel went forth to a neigh- 



