"Oh! grandmother, have you heard what those wretches of 'Injins,' as they are rightly named, have been doing with the canopy of the pew?" cried Patt, who had been at the bedside of our venerable parent and kissed her an hour before; "they have torn it down, and placed it over the pen of the pigs!"
A common laugh, in which Patt herself now joined, interrupted the answer for a moment, old Mrs. Littlepage herself manifesting a slight disposition to make one of the amused.
"I have heard it all, my dear," returned my grandmother, "and, on the whole, think the thing is well enough gotten rid of. I do not believe it would have done for Hugh to have had it taken down under a menace, while it is perhaps better that it should no longer stand."
"Were such things common in your youth, Mrs. Littlepage?" asked Mary Warren.
"Far from uncommon; though less so in country than in town churches. You will remember that we were but recently separated from England when St. Andrew's was built, and that most of the old colonial ideas prevailed among us. People in that day had very different notions of social station from those which now exist; and New York was, in a certain sense, one of the most, perhaps the most, aristocratic colony in the country. It was somewhat so under the Dutch, republicans as they were, with its patroons; but when the colony was transferred to the English, it became a royal colony at once, and English notions were introduced as a matter of course. In no other colony were there as many manors, perhaps; the slavery of the South introducing quite a different system there, while the policy of Penn and New England generally was more democratic. I apprehend, Roger, that we owe this anti-rent struggle, and particularly the feebleness with which it is resisted, to the difference of opinion that prevails among the people of New England, who have sent so many immigrants among us, and our own purely New York notions."
"You are quite right, my dear mother," answered my uncle, "though New Yorkers, by descent, are not wanting among the tenants to sustain the innovation. The last act either from direct cupidity, or to gain popularity with a set, whereas, as I view the matter, the first are influenced by the notions of the state of society from which either they themselves, or their parents, were directly derived. A very large proportion of the present population of New York is of New England origin. Perhaps one-third have this extraction, either as born there, or as the sons or grandsons of those who were. Now, in New England generally, great equality of condition exists, more especially when you rise above the lower classes; there being very few, out of the large trading towns, who would be deemed rich in New York, and scarcely such a thing as a large landholder at all. The relation of landlord and tenant, as connected with what we should term estates, is virtually unknown to New England; though Maine may afford some exceptions. This circumstance is owing to the peculiar origin of the people, and to the fact that emigration has so long carried off the surplus population; the bulk of those who remain being able to possess freeholds. There is a natural antipathy in men who have been educated in such a state of society to anything that seems to place others in positions they do not and cannot occupy themselves. Now, while the population of New York may be one-third, perhaps, of New England descent, and consequently more or less of New England notions, a much larger proportion of the lawyers, editors of newspapers, physicians, and active politicians, are of that class. We think little, and talk little of these circumstances; for no nation inquires into its moral influences, and what I may call its political statistics, less than the Americans; but they produce large consequences."
"Am I to understand you, sir, to say that anti-rentism is of New England origin?"
"Perhaps not. Its origin was probably more directly derived from the devil, who has tempted the tenants as he is known once to have tempted the Saviour. The outbreak was originally among the descendants of the Dutch, for they happened to be the tenants, and, as for the theories that have been broached, they savor more of the reaction of European abuses than of anything American at all; and least of all of anything from New England, where there is generally a great respect for the rights of property, and unusual reverence for the law. Still, I think we owe our greatest danger to the opinions and habits of those of New England descent among us."
"This seems a little paradoxical, uncle Ro, and I confess I should like to hear it explained."
"I will endeavor so to do, and in as few words as possible. The real danger is among those who influence legislation. Now, you will find hundreds of men among us who feel the vast importance of respecting contracts, who perceive much of the danger of anti-rentism, and who wish to see it defeated in its violent and most offensive forms, but who lean against the great landlords, on account of those secret jealousies which cause most men to dislike advantages in which they do not share, and who would gladly enough see all leases abolished, if it could be done without a too violent conflict with justice. When you talk with these men, they will make you the commonplace but unmeaning profession of wishing to see every husbandman the owner in fee of his farm, instead of a tenant, and that it is a hardship to pay rent, and quantities of such twaddle. Henry the Fourth, in a much better spirit, is said to have wished that each of his subjects had "une poule dans son pôt," but that wish did not put it there. So it is with this idle profession of wishing to see every American husbandman a freeholder. We all know such a state of society never did exist, and probably never will; and it is merely placing a vapid pretension to philanthropy in the foreground of a picture that should rigidly represent things as they are. For my part, I am one of those who do not believe that this or any other country would be any the better for dispensing with landlords and tenants."