nd
freedom; for only whilst so sustained can the institutions of democracy
exist; these once failing to advance hand-in-hand with population, the
whole fabric will, with inconceivable rapidity, be resolved into a rude
anarchy for some bold mind to re-form and re-model.

One of the greatest works now in progress here, is the canal planned to
connect Lac Pontchartrain with the city. In the month of February it was
completed to within three miles of the lake; and as it was a pleasant
ride to the point where the digging was in progress, I two or three
times visited the scene, after its bearings had been explained by the
two intelligent persons under whose guidance I first penetrated the
swamp.

I only wish that the wise men at home who coolly charge the present
condition of Ireland upon the inherent laziness of her population,
could be transported to this spot, to look upon the hundreds of fine
fellows labouring here beneath a sun that at this winter season was at
times insufferably fierce, and amidst a pestilential swamp whose
exhalations were foetid to a degree scarcely endurable even for a few
moments; wading amongst stumps of trees, mid-deep in black mud, clearing
the spaces pumped out by powerful steam-engines; wheeling, digging,
hewing, or bearing burdens it made one's shoulders ache to look upon;
exposed meantime to every change of temperature, in log-huts, laid down
in the very swamp, on a foundation of newly-felled trees, having the
water lying stagnant between the floor-logs, whose interstices, together
with those of the side-walls, are open, pervious alike to sun or wind,
or snow. Here they subsist on the coarsest fare, holding life on a
tenure as uncertain as does the leader of a forlorn hope; excluded from
all the advantages of civilization; often at the mercy of a hard
contractor, who wrings his profits from their blood; and all this for a
pittance that merely enables them to exist, with little power to save,
or a hope beyond the continuance of the like exertion.

Such are the labourers I have seen here, and have still found them
civil and courteous, with a ready greeting for the stranger inquiring
into their condition, and a quick jest on their own equipment, which is
frequently, it must be admitted, of a whimsical kind.

Here too were many poor women with their husbands; and when I
contemplated their wasted forms and haggard sickly looks, together with
the close swamp whose stagnant air they were doomed