safe and
convenient harbor and coaling-station during the winter time for
government and other vessels.

At dusk on Sunday evening the collector of the port, Captain Lyons,
and his friends, took me in their carriage back to Love Creek, where
Mr. Webb insisted upon making me the recipient of his hospitality for
the night. A little crowd of women from the vicinity of the swamp were
awaiting my arrival to see the canoe. One ancient dame, catching sight
of the alcohol-stove which I took from my vest-pocket, clapped her
thin hands and enthusiastically exclaimed, "What a nice thing for a
sick-room--the best nuss-lamp I ever seed!" Having satisfied the
curiosity of these people, and been much amused by their quaint
remarks, I was quietly smuggled into Mr. Webb's "best room," where,
if my spirit did not make feathery flights, it was not the fault of
the downy bed in whose unfathomable depths I now lost myself.

Before leaving Delaware I feel it an imperative duty to the public to
refer to one of her time-honored institutions.

Persons unacquainted with the fact will find it difficult to believe
that one state of the great American Republic still holds to the
practice of lashing men and women, white and black. Delaware--one of the
smallest states of the Union, the citizens of which are proverbially
generous and hospitable, a state which has produced a Bayard--is, to her
shame we regret to say, the culprit which sins against the spirit of
civilization in this nineteenth century, one hundred years after the
fathers of the Republic declared equal rights for all men. In treating
of so delicate a subject, I desire to do no one injustice; therefore I
will let a native of Delaware speak for his community.

"DOVER, DELAWARE, August 2, 1873.

"EDITOR CAMDEN SPY: According to promise, I now write you a
little about Delaware. Persons in your vicinity look upon the
'Little Diamond State' as a mere bog, or marsh, and mud and
water they suppose are its chief productions; but, in my
opinion, it is one of the finest little states in the Union.
Although small, in proportion to the size it produces more grain
and fruit than any other state in the country, and they are
unexcelled as regards quality and flavor. Crime is kept in awe
by that best of institutions, the _whipping-post and pillory_!
These are the bugbear of all the northern newspapers, and they
can say nothing too harsh or severe aga