their overrunning of Kansas with slave-state
military, and laying waste towns
and villages; their striking down a defenceless
senator at his desk; their virulent opposition
to all proposals for mediation and arbitration;
their ridiculous pretensions to birth
and blood, supported with revolver-fights and
laudatory addresses to Preston S. Brooks,
are so many moans to an end precisely
opposite to that end which they strive to attain.
Their sober, earnest, reflective fellow-citizens of
the north are only strengthened both morally
and politically by every outrage, either against
common sense or common humanity which they
perpetuate. The assertion that slavery is a
domestic institution of their own, with
which other states have no right to interfere,
is a vain and a false one. Slavery is,
in the abstract, an abomination; but persisted
in under such laws as those existing in
the United States, it is something more. The
federal legislature has interfered in favour
of the institution by passing the Fugitive
Slave Bill, and it is equally bound to interfere
against it.

Many of the views here stated are those of
the thoughtful and thorough abolitionist,
whose journey in the Sea-board Slave States
we have already mentioned. Mr. Olmsted
observes with accuracy and reflects with care.
He would not carry out manumission— as
its opponents prefer to perpetuate— it at the
point of the sword, or mate the freedom of
the slaves with the destruction of the masters;
and, although he is not prepared with a
remedy for American Slavery, he is a careful
and temperate pathologist of the disease. Some
of his descriptions have unusual merit. So
little are they tainted with exaggeration that
his most hideous traits of slave life are
depicted from the unconscious revelations of the
masters themselves.

TWO-PENCE AN HOUR.

FIRST and last, she has had a pretty hard
battle of it; and may be allowed, as a woman
of experience, to lay down the law concerning
it. She always says this when she has been
brought out on the subject of Governessing.
She always asks, when she hears that any
mother meditates training her daughter as a
teacher, or that any girl is intending to strike
for independence through the briary paths of
knowledge, "Is she pretty? Is she gentle-spirited?
Is she of a loving disposition? Is
she of attractive manners?" These questions
being replied to in the affirmative, she
immediately responds, "Then, she won't do
for a governess," and proceeds to explain
categorically why those qualifications, which
are most pleasing in women generally, are
hindrances to teachers in particular. Miss
Green is then supposed to be reciting the
fruits of her own experience. She was a
contemporary of my own at Miss Thoroton's,
and possessed, in an eminent degree, all those
endowments which she deprecates as
stumbling-blocks She is forty-seven now,
methodical, quiet, and very grey. Nobody would
ever suspect that she had been of a lively,
animated beauty, and cheerful temper. It is
the life, she says, that destroys that, very
early.

I have known, she adds, in a candid
matter-of-fact way which does not invite
contradiction, I have known governesses called
impertinent for looking pretty; forward,
presuming, forgetful of their stations— what
not? The women do not like it, and— yes—
let her be as modest, as self-possessed, and as
quiet as she will— the men (it is the young
ones, whose sense and moustaches are not
fully fledged) will speak to her cavalierly, and
stare at her rudely, as they would not do at
their host's daughter. In nine cases out of
ten, governesses put up with the insolence
calmly; a slight blush, perhaps, and a little
quiver of womanly indignation, disturbs
them for a moment, and passes. There are
not many Becky Sharpes amongst us. We
take the extended brace of digits and are
thankful. Women snub us, or patronise us,
or walk over us, and we are silent under the
harrow. We cannot afford to play the same
pranks; and I do not think, as a class, we
are disposed to do it. We are a hard-working,
conscientious, well-principled, and
well-educated race of young persons; a little
despised, a little pitied, and a little neglected;
all of which it would be advisable to support
with a little more equanimity, seeing that
long experience has proved these trifles
inseparable from our condition. People have
written books about us, and have invested us—
or tried to do so— with an interest we have not
got; and, generally speaking, they have done
us more harm than good. Becky Sharpe, for
instance, is quite exceptional; Jane Eyre less
so; in short, her governness experience, up
to her flight from Thornfield, is true. I have
known parallel cases, in which, with temptation
not less than hers, girls have fought
their battles as bravely, as painfully, and as
successfully; but, with the final romantic
result, no! Little Miss Cann, Miss Quigley,
and Ruth Pinch are satisfactory, especially
Miss Cann— a clever, shrewd, kind-hearted,
sharp-spoken, plain little woman, with just
romance enough about her to be a woman
and not a machine. I approve Miss Cann.
She is respectable, she is good, and she is nice.
I dare say everybody who employed her,
from her youth upward, designated her, in
the distinctive phraseology, as applied to
governesses, "a pains-taking young person,
and a very deserving woman," and treated
her with a civil impertinence as a domestic
serf and necessary nuisance. Pretty and
attractive a governess ought not to be; it is
not set down in the bond that she should be.
A set of sharp features and a sedate manner
are most becoming to her. She must not
straighten her waist and play with her