them astray their supplies of spirits were nearly always for 

 festive occasions. " Regales " after a voyage or weddings that 

 lasted for days, and these at times under such guard as may 

 be imagined from the presence of a custodian of the bottle, who 

 exercised with what skill he might his certainly arduous task 

 of determining instantly when hilarity grew into excess. This 

 novel feature applies, however, almost entirely to the English- 

 speaking part of the people. The Gallic and Indian blood of 

 the Hunters disdained such poor toying with a single cherry 

 and drank and danced and drank and danced again witn an 

 abandon, an ardor and full surrender to the hour characteristic 

 alike of the strength of their heads, the lightness of their heels 

 and their contempt of any restraint whatever. 



These were, however, but the occasional and generous 

 symposiums of health and vigor that rejects of itself continued 

 indulgence. Our Utopia would be cold and pallid indeed lack- 

 ing such expression of redundant strength, and joyful vigor. 



Certainly the greatest negative blessing that this excep- 

 tional people enjoyed, was that they had no politics, no vote. 

 The imagination of the average " party man " sinks to con- 

 ceive a thing like to this ; yet, if an astounding fact to others, 

 no more gracious one can be conceived for themselves. In 

 the unbroken peace in which they lived politics would be but 

 throwing the apple of discord in their midst, an innoculation 

 of disease that they might in the delirium that marked its pro- 

 gress vehemently discuss remedies to allay it. 



Another great negative advantage was the peculiar and 

 admirable intelligence of the great body of the population, in 

 that they were almost strangers to books. The small circulat- 

 ing collection" in their midst attracting little or no attention, 

 their own limited to a Bible or prayer book, — many not these. 

 With their minds in this normal healthy state, unharassed by 

 the sordid assail of care, undepressed by any sense whatever 

 of inferiority, unfrayed by the trituration of the average book, 

 their powers of apprehension — singularly clear — had full scope 

 to appropriate and resolve the world about them, which they 

 did to such purpose as to master every exigence of their lives. 



