introduced, or will follow from the nature and
force of circumstances, which, if not checked
(though it may be shrouded in sophistry and
disguise), will ultimately revolutionise our civil
institutions."

But, what Mr. Olmsted's travels have
especially demonstrated to him is, that the slave
system does not pay in any true sense. It gives
to a certain number of men, money but not
money's worth. A cultivated southerner will
always wish to have his children educated where
they shall be free from the demoralising association
with slaves. But, only a few children can be
so removed, and as the new generations rise, the
old type of the southern gentleman becomes
more and more rare. A gentleman of the south
told Mr. Olmsted that he had once numbered
among his friends two youths who were
themselves intimate friends, till one of them, taking
offence at foolish words, challenged the other.
A large crowd assembled to be present at the
duel. At the first interchange of rifle-shots, the
challenged man fell, disabled by a ball in the
thigh. The other, throwing down his rifle,
walked towards him, knelt by his side, drew a
bowie-knife, and deliberately butchered him.
No bystander interfered. The murderer, who has
since married, gained rather than lost social
position by a murder of which the atrocity would
have been felt anywhere but in a region of which
the men had been trained under a most brutalising
influence.

In the region of Mississippi—to which
we have confined our notes of an exploration
that has left none of the southern slave
states unvisited or undescribed—great wealth
is undoubtedly to be made by individual
slave-owners. But, there are few or no
prosperous families established, and few or no
homes in a civilised sense of the word. The
monotony of slave industry, the isolation within
rings of debased men, degrades inevitably the
white population. There are none of the varied
interests and occupations that must always be
associated with the general activity of commerce
in its many forms. Neighbours who can be
associates live far apart, and, when they meet,
the life of the one has been the life of the
other: there is no contact with fresh thought
and differing experience to keep the mind in
health. " From the banks of the Mississippi to
the banks of James," says Mr. Olmsted, " I did
not (that I remember) see, except perhaps in
one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a book of
Shakespeare, nor a pianoforte or a sheet of music,
nor the light of a carcel or other good
centre-table or reading-lamp, nor an engraving or a
copy of any kind of a work of art of the slightest
merit." Upon these fertile states of the south,
from which commerce, science, and the arts are
excluded, the hold of literature and religion
will, if there shall come no change in the downward
course of civilisation, at last cease to be.

Mr. Olmsted, who has observed with the eye
of a practical farmer, dissents from the common
opinion that slave labour is necessary for the
production of cheap cotton. In his judgment,
cotton culture more resembles culture of corn
than culture of tobacco. The production of
corn per man or per acre, is far larger from the
free labour of Ohio than from the slave labour
of Virginia. Per acre, the com crop of Ohio is
thirty-six bushels; that of Virginia, just half as
much. Had climate permitted cotton to be
grown on both banks of the Ohio, Mr. Olmsted
believes that free labour would have been as
superior to slave labour in the cotton-field as in
the corn-field.

The south is so far from being of this mind,
that it wants with the maintenance of its system
more and cheaper slaves, and sees for
itself a gold mine in the reopening of the
African slave trade. A Florida jury, which had
lately the captain of a slaver in its hands,
published a card pledging its members to work for
the repeal of all checks upon slavery, and calling
the prejudice against a slave traffic with
Africa—"a sickly sentiment of pretended
philanthropy." An edifying list might be made of
the evils which it is in the eyes of persons
interested in their maintenance " sickly sentiment"
to speak the truth about!

If the south want a dense labouring
population, and cannot reopen the African slave
traffic, why may it not be content to avoid
scattering the slaves already on the land, and
endeavour to restrict rather than enlarge the
area dependent upon " the peculiar institu-
tion"? Mr. Olmsted's feeling concerning
slavery in the United States, is, that the
interests of slave-holders and slaves could alike be
served, while a basis would be obtained for safe
and gradual abolition of the slave system, if a
way were made for the working out, by slaves, of
their own freedom through years of hearty toil:
which would be so far voluntary as to grow into
a habit, and which would prepare them for a
vigorous and independent life as hired farm
servants.

ON THE PARISH.

A CERTAIN story tells us how two gentlemen
attended to hear a charity sermon, and while
one was visibly affected by the preacher's
eloquence, the other was totally unmoved.

"Beautiful discourse," said the impressionable
listener; " so simple, and yet so full of spirit."

"Very likely," replied the listless member of
the congregation, almost yawning. " I belong
to another parish."

History has not handed down the name of the
last speaker, nor has it told us anything about
his position and occupation; but whatever he
may have been, he was a parochial genius.
Those few words contain the philosophy of a
thousand vestries—the rule of action which
guides, or ought to guide, their officers. That
mysterious line, or boundary, which is " beaten"
every year; which disappears behind factories;
dives under houses and gardens; comes up again
in thoroughfares; embraces churches,
skittlegrounds, and theatres; the tracing of which few
ol us ever considered a necessary part of our