ure of
things, be below the level of the freeholder, and by destroying the
system of having landlords and tenants, two great evils are created--the
one preventing men of large fortunes from investing in lands, as no man
will place his money where it will be insecure or profitless, thereby
cutting off real estate generally from the benefits that might be and
would be conferred by their capital, as well as cutting it off from the
benefits of the increased price which arise from having such buyers in
the market; and the other is, to prevent any man from being a husbandman
who has not the money necessary to purchase a farm. But they who want
farms _now_, and they who will want votes next November, do not look
quite so far ahead as that, while shouting "equal rights," they are, in
fact, for preventing the poor husbandman from being anything but a
day-labourer.

We obtained tolerably decent lodgings at our inn, though the profoundest
patriot America possesses, if he know anything of other countries, or of
the best materials of his own, cannot say much in favour of the sleeping
arrangements of an ordinary country inn. The same money and the same
trouble would render that which is now the very _beau ideal_ of
discomfort, at least tolerable, and in many instances good. But who is
to produce this reform? According to the opinions circulated among us,
the humblest hamlet we have has already attained the highest point of
civilization; and as for the people, without distinction of classes, it
is universally admitted that they are the best educated, the acutest,
and the most intelligent in Christendom;--no, I must correct myself;
they are all this, except when they are in the act of leasing lands, and
then the innocent and illiterate husbandmen are the victims of the arts
of designing landlords, the wretches![1]

We passed an hour on the piazza, after eating our supper, and there
being a collection of men assembled there, inhabitants of the hamlet, we
had an opportunity to get into communication with them. My uncle sold a
watch, and I played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popular.
After this beginning, the discourse turned on the engrossing subject of
the day, anti-rentism. The principal speaker was a young man of about
six-and-twenty, of a sort of shabby genteel air and appearance, whom I
soon discovered to be the attorney of the neighbourhood. His name was
Hubbard, while that of the other principal speaker was Hall. T