her such is the inevitable course of national life or
not, we are confident that what took place a few months ago in New York
had nothing to do with Agrarianism in reality,--using the word after
the manner of the alarmists. It belonged to the ordinary bald humbug of
American politics. It so happened that one of those "crises" which come
to pass occasionally in all business communities occurred at precisely
the time when a desperate political adventurer was making desperate
efforts to save himself from that destruction to which he had been
doomed by all good men in the city that he had misgoverned. What more
natural than that he should seek to avail himself of the distress of the
people? The trick is an old one,--as old as political contention itself.
Was it not Napoleon who attributed revolutions to the belly?--and he
knew something of the matter. The "bread riots" were neither more nor
less than "political demonstrations," got up for the purpose of aiding
Mr. Wood, and did not originate in any hostility to property on the part
of the people. It is not improbable that some of those who were engaged
in them were really anxious to obtain work,--were moved by fear of
starvation; but such was not the case with the leaders, who were
"well-dressed, gentlemanly men," according to an eye-witness, with
excellent cigars in their mouths to create a thirst that Champagne alone
could cure. The _juste milieu_ of brandy, so favored in 1832, if we can
believe Mr. Hamilton, was not thought of in 1857. A quarter of a
century had made a change in the popular taste. Perhaps the temperance
reformation had had something to do with it. The whole thing was as
complete a farce as ever was seen at an American or an English election,
and those who were engaged in it are now sincerely ashamed of their
failure. If foreigners will have it that it was an outbreak of
Agrarianism, the first in a series of outrages against property, so
be it. Let them live in the enjoyment of the delusion. Nations, like
individuals, seem to find pleasure in the belief that others are as
miserable as themselves.

Of that feeling which is known as Agrarianism we believe there is far
less in the United States now than there was at the time when Mr.
Hamilton was here, and for a few years after that time. From about
the year 1829 to 1841, there was in our politics a large infusion of
Socialism. We then had parties, or factions, based on the distinctions
that exist in the soc