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student of nature, or man, or history, could hardly have found a journey along the Mohawk, even in 1799, tedious or uninteresting.

The great Genesee road, as it was called, began at Utica. We are told that the inhabitants of Utica subscribed to finish the first mile. They formed twenty shares of fifty dollars each (the estimated cost was one thousand dollars per mile) and these shares they afterward sold at forty-four cents on the dollar. In 1801, we find notice of a law to the effect that in all cases of carriages and sleighs meeting west of Schenectady on the great roads running east and west on either side of the Mohawk, and from the village of Utica to the town of Canandaigua, the carriages or sleighs going west should give way to those going east, under penalty of three dollars.

In 1804 we are told that a turnpike road is completed from Albany to Canadaigua at great expense, which is discharged by tolls, and renders traveling and carriage of produce much easier when the rivers are not navigable. Wagons frequently carried loads of fourteen barrels of flour to Albany and returned with an equal weight, and sometimes carried two tons, going and returning in fourteen days.

In 1804 we find Dr. Dwight once more mounted on his clerical steed, with his face set resolutely toward the west. His previous journey to Whitestown had not discouraged him; the roads had improved in the interval of five years, and this time he shall be our guide, if we have the courage to follow him as far as Niagara. Let us join him at Manlius, at which point, coming from the south, he struck the "Great Western Turnpike." "Here," he says, "our traveling inconveniences chiefly vanished." The road was excellent, and the surface smooth. The whole appearance of the country was improving. Fruit-trees abounded, among them, the peach, growing and bearing luxuriantly. Along this road, as far as Canandaigua, houses and settlements were scattered. Many of the houses were neat and some handsome. As a whole they exceeded Dr. Dwight's most sanguine expectations. At Marcellus he attended church on September 20, in a snow storm which covered the ground to the depth of more than an inch. At Cayuga Bridge he found a settlement of a dozen houses-three of them very good. But the most conspicuous object was the bridge itselfa structure, which, in view of the newness of the settlement, he thinks may justly be styled "a stupendous erection." It was the longest bridge in the United States, was the property of a Mr. Swartwout of New York, and cost twenty thousand dollars. The toll for a man and horse was twenty-five cents-a charge which, considering the capital invested and the amount of traveling, the good dominie thought rather exorbitant.

Dr. Dwight observed carefully and describes at length the country through which he passed-its forests, streams, lakes, hamlets, the character of its soil and population-but his narrative is somewhat meager as regards those facts for which we are now particularly looking. For considerable intervals we are left in ignorance as to how he was lodged and fed, and how he found the roads. A mile and a half beyond the Genesee he found

a small inn, where he dined on bread and butter with cheese, in the open air, as the hostess was laudably employed in scrubbing the only room in the house. Fifteen miles farther on, the roads were horrible. Stumps and roots innumerable made the traveling dangerous. The mud was knee-deep, and so stiff that the horse could barely extricate himself. The road was a narrow passage, newly cut through the forest. After groping and struggling for three hours over a distance of four miles, he reached his inn-a log-house-where he was kindly and comfortably entertained. At Batavia Dr. Dwight was confronted with a problem which taxed his powers of judgment as well as his mathematical faculties. There were two roads to Buffalo Creek-one eighteen miles in length with thirteen miles of mud-the other twenty-three miles in length with nine miles of mud. To balance the relative amount of mud against the relative number of miles was a nice task. But as against mud, distance carried the day, and Dr. Dwight toiled and floundered over the longer road. He dined at Dunham's, five miles beyond Batavia. They reached Vande Vender's at sunset, but could not get in, as the house was full. Eight miles farther on in a pouring rain brought them to Munger's, where there was absolutely nothing to eat. A good-natured wagoner, on his way to Upper Canada relieved their distress by furnishing the "inn-keeper" some flour-when, presto!—as if by magic, there was promptly furnished "a good cup of hyson tea, with loaf sugar, cream, and excellent hot biscuit and butter." At two o'clock the next day, after floundering through bogs and among stumps, they reached Buffalo. Munger's hostelry was evidently not equipped on a princely scale, for on Dr. Dwight's return he found the larder in the same impoverished condition. Again there was neither bread nor flour, and they were obliged to sup on "sipawn "-or hasty pudding. Dr. Dwight made his return journey on horseback as far as Manlius. A little east of Manlius he took the stage. There were seven passengers packed in a crazy vehicle which constantly threatened to break down. Incessant rain had made the roads a mass of mire, and the horses were obliged to walk, or rather wade, at the rate of two miles an hour. They took supper at Vernon, at "Young's tavern," and then pushed on to Utica, to catch the Albany stage the next morning. One o'clock in the

morning found them at Laird's, where the family rose good-naturedly and furnished them refreshments. From New Hartford the road was better, and they reached Utica, half frozen, just before five o'clock, A.M. They had been seventeen hours in covering the forty-one miles between Manlius and Utica. But we have seen enough and too much of western travel in the year 1804.

In this same year (1803 or 1804) Gouverneur Morris is credited with having made the first suggestion of a canal across the state from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. In 1811 certain commissioners, appointed by joint resolution of the Senate and Assembly to explore the route of inland navigation from the Hudson to the lakes, reported that "experience has long since exploded in Europe, the idea of using the beds of rivers for internal navigation, where canals are practicable. In the navigation of rivers, reliance must be had principally on the labor of men; whereas along canals, the force employed is generally that of horses. But the labor of men is dearer and the subsistence of horses cheaper in America than in Europe. Experience, moreover, has, in this country declared against following the course of rivers, more decidedly than in the old world; for there, notwithstanding the excellence of the highways, transportation is often performed by boats drawn up the river; but along the Mohawk, though the road from Schenectady to Utica is far from being good, it is frequently preferred to the river."

On the 4th of July, 1817, the work of excavating the Erie canal was begun; October 23, 1819, the commissioners navigated it from Utica to Rome, and in 1825, Clinton's big ditch was completed, and the waters of Lake Erie mingled with those of the Hudson. On the 22d of October, 1819, the first boat sailed on the Erie canal from Rome to Utica. It was dragged by a single horse trotting on the embankment in the tow-path. It was an elegant boat, constructed to carry passengers, and called the "Chief Engineer "—a compliment to Benjamin Wright, Esq. At nine o'clock the next morning the bells were rung and the commissioners proceeded in carriages from Bagg's Hotel to the place of embarcation. A military band played patriotic airs. From bridge to bridge, from village to village, the excursionists were saluted with cannon and the ringing of bells. The people ran across the fields, climbed trees and fences, and crowded the bank of the canal, to see the wonderful sight. In forty minutes they reached Whitesborough, where a party of ladies came on board. The scene was one of great festivity and rejoicing. In the language of a spectator, it was "truly sublime."

The packet was regarded, by many, as furnishing all that could be

desired in the way of comfort or even luxury. The boats were large and furnished with sleeping berths. The charge was three or four cents per mile, and meals were provided on equally reasonable terms. The rate of speed was four miles an hour, so that traveling was almost as rapid as on the rough turnpike, and in the judgment of many much more agreeable. Often the traveler varied the monotony of riding, by leaving the boat, perhaps at a lock, and walking on in advance; a duty, according to Miss Martineau, more obvious than any other, in order to air the cabin (close enough at the best) and get rid of the odors of the table, before the passengers were shut up for the night. Miss Martineau's experience was less happy, we trust, than that of many another traveler on the Erie canal. "I would never advise ladies," she says, "to travel by canal, unless the boats are quite new and clean, or at least far better than any that I saw or heard of. On fine days it is pleasant enough sitting outside (except for having to duck under bridges every quarter of an hour) and in dark evenings the approach of the boat lights on the water is a pretty sight; but the horrors of night and wet days, more than compensate for all the advantages these vehicles can boast." The sprightly Fanny Kemble, on the other hand, though somewhat tormented by the bridges, liked traveling by canal very much. The country was delightful and she found gliding through the water at the rate of four and a half miles an hour, infinitely preferable to the noise of wheels, the rumble of a coach, and the jerking of bad roads, merely for the sake of gaining a mile an hour.

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д. Яколкий

HAMILTON College, Clinton, N. Y.

(To be continued.)

THE FALLACY OF 1860

For reasons, valid beyond dispute, a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy may be the best form of government for a people; which depends, not upon the character of a government, but upon the character of a people. There is a great difference in the character of people, why, cannot be known, unless all their previous history could be, but the fact is patent, that some are more some less gregarious; in some hope, the source of imagination, is stronger than in others; where it is strongest, men feel most and reason least; where weakest, men reason most and feel least: these, perhaps too distrustful of the new, because it is not old, and those, perhaps too careless of the old, and too eager for the new. When, therefore, in the middle of the last century, a cant phrase-The Rights of mancame into vogue, to please the fancy, and confuse the judgment, it met with a different reception from the French, and the English mind. The English mind analyzed it, and found, that unless it meant a return to the primitive state, it was void of meaning, and if a paraphrase, to assert that every individual was entitled to all the freedom of thought, of speech, of publicity and of action, compatible with the welfare of society, that claim was already known, and expressed by the older and more familiar word, Liberty. When the colonists, among their arguments, urged the Rights of man, the "Taxation no Tyranny" pertinently answered: As the naked sons of nature, you are behind ramparts which can neither be mined by sophistry, nor battered by declamation; but what becomes of your charters? You cannot claim in opposite characters. Of course, when the colonists sat in conventions, and organized governments, the Rights of man were forgotten. The assertion of them had answered its purpose, enlisting the sympathy of the French mind, then delighting in pictures of philosophic savages, practicing all the virtues, and none of the vices of, civilization, and rejoicing in all the freedom, without any of the trammels of barbarism. Half a century before, Swift had put in the mouth of a frail wife, as a justification of frailty, the claim of the right of women to the vagus concubitus: "Congruous to the laws of nature and therefore supe

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