FOOTNOTE:
[6] Described as the officer commanding the Downingsville militia, a New-Englander, and a stanch adherent of the "Gineral's, so far as 'a decent hunk of the animal wint,' but entirely agin' the whole-hog system." Under this perfect assumption there appeared a series of really familiar epistles, either remonstrating with or speaking of the "Gineral," or, as the Major latterly styled the President, "the Govermint;" no less admirable for the political acumen they display than for a caustic drollery, which is enforced with shrewd Yankee humour, and in the singular phraseology current amongst 'Uncle Sam's' kindred. These letters have been collected, and are published both in America and in England; and although neither the purity of the politics or the dialect of the honest Major can be fully appreciated by strangers, his intrinsic wit and native humour will well repay the task of a perusal by all who admire originality of thought and expression.
THE DUTCH AND IRISH COLONIES OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Here are two colonies yet existing within this State,—samples of both indeed may be found within a few miles of Philadelphia,—and these constitute with me a never-failing source of interest and amusement. They are composed of Dutch and Irish, often located on adjoining townships, but keeping their borders as clearly defined as though the wall of China were drawn between them. No two bodies exist in nature more repellent; neither time, nor the necessities of traffic, which daily arise amongst a growing population, can induce a repeal of their tacit non-intercourse system, or render them even tolerant of each other. I have understood that Pat has on occasions of high festivity been known to extend his courtesy so far as to pay his German neighbours a call to inquire kindly whether "any gintlemen in the place might be inclined for a fight;" but this evidence of good-nature appears to have been neither understood nor reciprocated, and, proof against the blandishment, Mynheer was not even to be hammered into contact with "dem wilder Irisher."
It is a curious matter to observe the purity with which both people have conserved the dialect of their respective countries, and the integrity of their manners, costume, prejudices, nay, their very air, all of which they yet present fresh and characteristic as imported by their ancestors, although some of them are the third in descent from the first colonists. Differing in all other particulars, on this point of character their similarity is striking.
Amongst the Germans I have had families pointed out to me, whose fathers beheld the commencement of the war of Independence in Pennsylvania, yet who are at this day as ignorant of its language, extent, policy, or population, as was the worthy pastor of whom it is related, that, having been requested to communicate to his flock the want of supplies which existed in the American camp, he assured the authorities that he had done so, as well as described to them the exact state of affairs:
"I said to dem," he repeated in English, "Get op, min broders und mine zisters, und put dem paerd by die vagen, mit brood und corn; mit schaap's flesh und flesh of die groote bigs, und os flesh; und alles be brepare to go op de vay, mit oder goed mens, to sooply General Vashinton, who was fighting die Englishe Konig vor our peoples, und der lifes, und der liberdies, op-on dem banks of de Schuylkill, diese side of die Vestern Indies."
In his piggery of a residence and his palace of a barn, in his waggon, his oxen, his pipe, his person and physiognomy, the third in descent, from the worthies exhorted as above, remains unchanged. The cases upon which, as a juryman, he decides, he hears through the medium of an official interpreter; he has his own journal, which serves out his portion of politics to him in Low Dutch, and in the same language is printed such portions of the acts of the State legislature as may in any way relate to the section he inhabits; the only portion of the community, indeed, which he knows, or cares to know, anything about.