316 [Assembly 



reminillng liim, almost, that he is surrounded by the feudal oppress- 

 ors, who Ions: made sorrowful the homes of the Old World. As he 

 advances onward, the road-side cottage, or diversified farm house ap- 

 pear in every direction, often accompanied by its appropriate gar- 

 den, orchard, and green; while, occasionally, he meets with the 

 sweet rural village, the houses of which have sprung up by degrees, 

 in detached groups, and arranged after no particular plan, with its 

 rivulet and mill— its gardens and trees — its smiling pastures and 

 green shady lanes, enlivened with poultry, cattle, and sheep, all of 

 which awaken images of security and peace, cleanliness and health. 



Again, as he proceeds, the eye of the observer is forcibly impress' 

 ed with the more recently-built village, or larger town, projected on 

 a recrwhr, though less pleasing plan, with iis right-angled streets, 

 long rows of cottages, numerous churches, school-houses, factories, 

 &c., evident marks ot the industry, thrift, and *' go-ahead-ative- 

 ness," of its people. And, as he reaches the more remote and thin- 

 ly inhabited interior, his attention is arrested, now and then, by a 

 neat log cabin, with its large and commodious barn, erected on a 

 handsomely cultivated spot in the midst of a forest, or a prairie, 

 showinor that he is in a land lately reclaimed from nature, by the 

 exertions of the immigrant, perhaps, from a foreign clime. To this 

 brio-ht picture, unfortunately, there are many, far too many, excep- 

 tions, particularly in a country where well directed labor will gen- 

 erall)', more than contribute to the support of the artisan, when due 

 economy and sobriety are observed. Without entering into a des- 

 cription of the habitations composing the squalid outskirts of alinost 

 every city, or populous town, or the wretched hovels, which line our 

 public works, or those which poorly subserve the wants of the squat- 

 ter, or trapper of the west, we have not far to go to witness hun- 

 dreds of dwellings constructed on no definite principles, either as re- 

 gards taste or comeliness — comfort or convenience; and it is much 

 to be regretted, no matter who may have been the cause of thus cor- 

 ruptino- public taste, that the mania should have prevailed in this 

 country for some years past, for luilding Gothic castles, with " pie* 

 crust battlements," and gloomily painted in imitation of dark brown 

 stone; or for erecting fantastical and puerile " bird cages," with 

 gew-gaw carvings and other like follies, for the habitations of civi- 

 lized beings. It is not unfrequent that we find these " erections of 

 fancy," completely embosomed in a thicket of trees, with their walls 

 dampened and darkened full six months in the year; and even in 

 the country where land is cheap and abundant, we often meet with 

 detached cottages, built in imitation of street houses in town, with 



