being in too great a hurry to marry, and not obtaining sufficient
information relative to their suitors. The punishment is chipping stone
in Sing Sing for a few years. It must, however, be admitted, that when
a foreigner is the party, it is rather difficult to ascertain whether
the gentleman has or has not left an old wife or two in the Old World.

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Note 2. A Washington belle related to me the sad story of the death of
a young man who fell from a small boat into the Potomac in the night,--
it is supposed in his sleep. She told me where and how his body was
found; and what relations he had left; and finished with "he will be
much missed at parties."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

PUBLIC OPINION, OR THE MAJORITY.

The majority are always in the _right_, so says Miss Martineau, and so
have said greater people than even Miss Martineau; to be sure Miss
Martineau qualifies her expression afterwards, when she declares that
they always will be right in the _end_. What she means by that I do not
exactly comprehend; the end of a majority is its subsiding into a
minority, and a minority is generally right. But I rather think that
she would imply that they will repent and see their folly when the
consequences fall heavily upon them. The great question is, what is a
majority? must it be a whole nation, or a portion of a nation, or a
portion of the population of a city; or, in fact, any _plus_ against any
_minus_, be they small or be they large. For instance, two against one
are a majority, and, if so, any two scoundrels may murder an honest man
and be in the right; or it may be the majority in any city, as in
Baltimore, where they rose and murdered an unfortunate minority [see
note 1]; or it may be a majority on the Canada frontier, when a set of
miscreants defied their own government, and invaded the colony of a
nation with whom they were at peace--all which is of course right. But
there are other opinions on this question besides those of Miss
Martineau, and we shall quote them as occasion serves.

I have before observed, that Washington left America a republic; and
that in the short space of fifty years it has sunk into a democracy.

The barrier intended to be raised against the encroachments of the
people has been swept away; the senate (which was intended, by the
arrangements for its election, to have served as the aristocracy of the
legi