“That is a fact,” observed my cicerone; “our city representatives wish them all to ‘where they don’t rake up fire o’ nights.’ They have so far degraded their station, that it is now a disgrace, and not an honour, to be delegated by the people.”
“And what have they done to disgrace themselves?” demanded I.
“That is soon told,” replied the lawyer; “every country member comes here with the determined purpose of opposing us, and, above all things, to let the Bostonians contribute largely to the expenses of the State. We pay nearly one-third of all the taxes; and yet we call this a republican government!”
“One of equal justice, you ought to have said,” interrupted the cicerone.
“As if justice could co-exist with universal suffrage!” ejaculated the lawyer.
“I would pardon all,” resumed the cicerone, with a sarcastic smile, “if our country members were to spend the money, which we pay them for lounging about town, in a liberal and gentlemanly manner: but, instead of that, they select the worst boarding-houses, from which they expel our journeymen mechanics, in order to live cheap; and, instead of wine and other liquors, which our merchants and grocers could make a profit of, consume immense quantities of that dreadful stuff which, under the name of ‘New England cider,’ is sometimes placed on our tables, and for which even our sharpest landlords dare not make a charge.”
“The positive fact is,” exclaimed the lawyer, “that few of our representatives are gentlemen.”
“And that very few gentlemen will now-a-days consent to become representatives,” added my cicerone, “except it be for Congress; and even that will not last long, if things go on much longer in the way they have for the last seven or eight years.”
As the disposition of the higher classes of Bostonians to ridicule the institutions of their country were known to me, I paid no particular attention to their remarks, which were made as we were gazing on the statue “of the hero of the revolution.” I only remember that the lawyer went on in a strain of uninterrupted eloquence, abusing the trial by jury, the vote by ballot, and, à fortiori, universal suffrage. “We just wanted that,” he said, “to complete our misery! As if our mob had not enough power without it! Our democracy is of the worst kind; it does not strive for equality, but for supremacy. It becomes at once our jury, judge, legislator, and governor. You dare not act as you please in your own house; you dare not educate your children in your own way; you dare not express a wish of your own but what you have to dread to be exposed in public, and have your name paraded in the newspapers. Every man in this city is a spy on his neighbour, a voluntary, unpaid police-agent of the rabble, that pries into all your actions and motives, and is always ready to attribute them to the worst source. And yet we talk of personal liberty, as if such a thing could exist in a republic!”
“But is the description you give of your townsmen not applicable to all classes?” demanded I; “is it only the labouring classes, or ‘the mob,’ as you call them, which act as spies to the community?”