nothing is easier than to render him
wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity: as it would be an herculean
task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest child could
topple him off thence.

I must not omit to mention that these popular meetings were generally
held at some noted tavern; these public edifices possessing what in modern
times are thought the true fountains of political inspiration. The ancient
Germans deliberated upon a matter when drunk, and reconsidered it when
sober. Mob politicians in modern times dislike to have two minds upon a
subject, so they both deliberate and act when drunk; by this means a world
of delay is spared; and as it is universally allowed that a man when drunk
sees double, it follows conclusively that he sees twice as well as his
sober neighbors.

CHAPTER VIII.

Wilhelmus Kieft, as has already been observed, was a great legislator on a
small scale, and had a microscopic eye in public affairs. He had been
greatly annoyed by the facetious meetings of the good people of New
Amsterdam, but observing that on these occasions the pipe was ever in
their mouth, he began to think that the pipe was at the bottom of the
affair, and that there was some mysterious affinity between politics and
tobacco smoke. Determined to strike at the root of the evil, he began
forthwith to rail at tobacco as a noxious, nauseous weed, filthy in all
its uses; and as to smoking, he denounced it as a heavy tax upon the
public pocket, a vast consumer of time, a great encourager of idleness,
and a deadly bane to the prosperity and morals of the people. Finally, he
issued an edict, prohibiting the smoking of tobacco throughout the New
Netherlands. Ill-fated Kieft! Had he lived in the present age, and
attempted to check the unbounded license of the press, he could not have
struck more sorely upon the sensibilities of the million. The pipe, in
fact, was the great organ of reflection and deliberation of the New
Netherlander. It was his constant companion and solace--was he gay, he
smoked: was he sad, he smoked; his pipe was never out of his mouth; it was
a part of his physiognomy; without it, his best friends would not know
him. Take away his pipe? You might as well take away his nose!

The immediate effect of the edict of William the Testy was a popular
commotion. A vast multitude, armed with pipes and tobacco-boxes, and an
immense supply of ammunition, sat themselves down before the governor'