ADVICE FOR LACKLAND. 89 



ness ; and he is no more relieved of this duty because 

 the highway is assigned over to public uses, than 

 lie is relieved of any other duty whose accom- 

 plishment must of necessity contribute to the public 

 convenience and public education, as well as to his 

 own. Because my front entry is shared, for all legit- 

 imate purposes, with my friends and chance callers, 

 shall I therefore treat it with neglect and allow the 

 dust and cobwebs to accumulate about it, while I 

 ensconce myself churlishly in my welt-swept den ? 

 Yet, every visitor unless he be a vagabond fruit- 

 stealer, or an equally vagabond bird-killer comes up 

 the road-way: and if you choose to put him through a 

 course of scoria3, and old tins, and tansy tufts, and 

 briary heaps of stones along your road-side, you 

 might as benevolently and as prudently, (so far as the 

 growing tastes of your children are concerned,) lead 

 him up to your front door between piles of gaping 

 clam shells. There is no rule of order, or of taste, or 

 of benevolence, that belongs to a man's door-yard, 

 that does not belong to his road-side. 



It is true, there is a liability outside the fence to 

 the incursions of road-menders, who are, for the most 

 part, barbarians ; but there is no more reason for not 

 covering or removing the odious traces of these ani- 

 mals, than for not removing the disagreeable traces 

 of others. An ugly yellow scar in the turfy mound 



