The representatives and senators are chosen once in two years; the governor and lieutenant governor in four years. The judiciary consists of a supreme court and other county courts. All free white male citizens, who have resided in the State six months, are entitled to the right of suffrage; and they vote at elections viva voce.
[1] This school has recently been removed to Alton.
The prairies in the western country are all burnt over once a year, either in spring or fall, but generally in the fall; and the fire is, undoubtedly, the true cause of the continuance of them. In passing through the State I saw many of them on fire; and in the night, it was the grandest exhibition I ever saw. A mountain of flame, thirty feet high, and of unknown length, moving onward, roaring like "many waters"—in a gentle, stately movement, and unbroken front—then impelled by a gust of wind, suddenly breaks itself to pieces, here and there shooting ahead, whirling itself high in air—all becomes noise, and strife, and uproar, and disorder. Well might Black Hawk look with indifference on the puny exhibition of fireworks in New-York, when he had so often seen fireworks displayed, on such a gigantic scale, on his own native prairies.
A prairie storm of fire is indeed terrific. Animals and men flee before it, in vain. When impelled by a strong breeze, the wave of fire passes on, with the swiftness of the wind; and the utmost speed of the horse lingers behind. It then assumes a most appalling aspect; roars like a distant cataract, and destroys every thing in its course. Man takes to a tree, if he fortunately can find one; sets a back fire; or, as a last resort, dashes through the flame to windward, and escapes with life; although often severely scorched; but the deer and the wolf continue to flee before it, and after a hot pursuit, are run down, overwhelmed and destroyed.
Much caution should be used, in travelling over an open prairie country, in the fall of the year, when the grass is dry. Instances were told me, of the entire destruction of the emigrant and his family by fire, while on the road to their destined habitation.
I had heard much of the backwoodsmen, and supposed, of course, I should find many of them in Illinois; but after diligent search, I found none that merited the appellation. The race has become extinct. Who are the inhabitants of Illinois? A great portion of them, from the north, recently settled there, and of course, possessing the same hospitality, sobriety and education as the northern people. They went out from us; but they are still of us. A person will find as good society there, as here; only not so much of it. The upper house on Fox river settlement, was occupied by an intelligent and refined family, recently from Massachusetts.
Meeting houses and school houses are rare, owing to the sparseness of the inhabitants; but the country is settling rapidly, and these deficiencies will soon be supplied. Indeed, so rapidly is the country settling, that in writing this account of it, I sometimes feel like the man who hurried home with his wife's bonnet, lest it should be out of date, before I could get it finished.