where education has scarcely yet shed one ray of light among them; if so, yet so limited, as still to be invisible to the traveller. Among this people, politeness und hospitality are . terms unknown--and honesty is scarcely understood in theory, even by the most virtuous and enlightened of the inhabitants; and a man at noonday, like Diogines, might seek in vain for such a character, though many might be found assuming such a disguise" like whitened sepulchres, fair without, but within, full of dead men's bones and rottenness ;" and no one could reside a month in the place, without the fullest conviction of the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. As regards business, the traders are rustics, consequently are generally very ignorant; their whole knowledge consisting of a small stock of ideas, and these wholly exercised in over-reaching one another, being in number far more than the small sorry place will support on the common principles or usual mode of doing business, which naturally induces great competition; consequently it is conducted rather after the manner of jockeys than intelligent and regularly bred merchants. The only hotel,* if we may be allowed to debase the term by calling it so, is kept by-0-a very mercenary, avaricious and senseless man, whose sole object is making money, without any regard to the comfort and pleasure of the traveller. The house is built in very bad taste, and every way incommodious, he being the archtect; there is, however, one fine thing in the kitchen-a large sink opening in the floor, dark as the hole of Calcutta, where all the filth of the house is emptied, and carried *The Hotel has changed hands since the above was written, and is now improved and kept in good style. off below by silver pipes. (!) The table is served in the most barbarous style, as you will scarcely ever find a decent piece of meat on it, which could be masticated with common good teeth-the beef steak being always cut from the thigh or neck of a bullock, consequently cheaper, and never half cooked, the fresh blood still dripping from it. This is not strange however, when we consider the character of the landlord, whose excessive selfishness and avarice are visible in almost every thing about the house. The yard before the door is ever animated by the presence of a great variety of swine, of every color, like Laban's sheep-ring-streaked and speckled-attracted there, no doubt, by something like fellow-feeling. It is true a license has not been granted this year by the Town-Council, yet I think you may probably find no great difficulty in obtaining any kind of liquor, such as it is, which you may happen to wish, provided you pay the cash;-I will not presume to say positively, however, that rum presents itself as formerly, under its own name, and with the same complexion. In this place is also a Church, resembling rather the school-house of a factory village, built on an elevated site, in style, suited to the place; raised like a beacon on high, to warn sinners from afar, to flee from the wrath to come, and to shed its spiritual light around; where the unfledged theological student, still on the confines of a college, sometimes enters, to whet his beak, and stretch his spiritual wings. On the environs are several factories, owned, some of them, by noble, generous, polite, and very honest men, which give a tone to the manners and customs of the people, uncouth, boorish and brbarous in the extreme. Scandal is the peculiar and most interesting subject of conversation among the females, and a dish served up and mutually devoured with great zest and avidity by virgins, old maids and married women—the most wanton and basest kind, is principally confined to the widows and married ladies, calling themselves polite;—they are, however, constant at church, Doth day and night, without discovering any visable, moral improvement, in their conduct or manners. What constitutes here, true nobility among the traders and manufacturers, is to pursue their business successfully for a time, then declare their bankruptcy or incompetency to pay their just and honest debts, make an assignment to some lawyer or younger member of the family; defraud their crediters, many times very honest and industrious men with a family, (and perhaps machinists, and unable to lose without distressing themselves,) build magnificient houses, furnish them with elegant furniture, purchase a carriage and horses, wearing at the same time a smooth exterior, laugh at the importunities of their creditors, and live in style-this last is an evil however coextensive even with civilization and refinement,— though the barbarian may sometimes imitate successfully the vices of society, when he cannot copy individual excellence. There is also established a weekly news-paper, from which eminates, ever and anon, gleams of light, to illumine the path of the natives, groping in moral, intellectual and religious darkness. The principal Bookstore is kept by Mr. a meek, demure looking man, sitting in his store, like the patriarch Abraham of old, among his friends and kindred, at the door of his tent. Here are several Lawyers of respectable talents-one of them, however, keeps himself generally kennelled like a Fox-hound, and feeds on hasty-pudding, to quicken his scent when in pursuit of legal prey; his appearance when he moves, is like the pitch of a lumber vessel in a heavy swell of the ocean; he is a disinterested man, and does every thing for the good of morals and the public; and is a great admirer of the fair sex. The most popular lawyer of the place, for his manners, fitted himself for the Pulpit, and preached for a time, said to be a good reader, and of very grave deportment; but finding his profession unsuited to that meridian, relinguished the laws of God, to advocate those of men, as perhaps thinking, also, the profession more lucrative. The last though not least, practices on the immutable principle, that self is the main-spring of every good and noble action. Their courts are not unfrequently held in the royal hall of the Hotel; and the pleadings are sometimes not uninteresting, though somewhat swinish. The minister is a careless, easy, slouching sort of a man, and if his doctrines harmonize with his name, somewhat rigid and impracticable. A Bank is also established here-the Cashier, an intelligent, humorous and communicative man, giving however, sometimes, too *much scope to his passions, to be entitled to the epithet of a moral philosopher. They patronise also a Barber, a man of open, frank manner, and considerable soul; and with his scientific skill in his profession, will give even an ordinary head of the place, (which is wonderful) the expression of Spurzehim. Here are also several Physicians, (iucluding a droll excentric Apothecary) agreeable and intelligent men, whose practice however in medicine, is not in accordance with the principles of the Aesculapian School, but an improved mode of treatment, dosing their patients in almost all cases with Mercury, "the Samson of the Materia Medica." *Siuce the above was written, he has had a successor. In fine, almost the only thing which can attract and entertain the eye of the traveller, is the lofty cataract, tumbling in majestic grandeur over the rugged rocks, roaring and foaming in the immense and unfathomable abyss below, from whose sprays are formed under a clear and serene sky, ten thousand beautiful rainbows; while the wild, luxuriant and extensive landscape, in the distance, over which the eye wanders unsated, fills the soul with the most sublime and awful emotions. A SKETCH. I shall add to the above Characters, a brief description. of a fellow, which I met with, in a certain factory village; my first and last visit to that place: they called his name* * * * rather Weevelly-and the Superintend ant-though very difficult to be believed. I shall briefly notice him, although far beneath my contempt. He was a stranger to me, and hope he ever may be. I never saw him before, nor do I wish to see him again; yet I shall never forget his brutal, savage, and ferocious looks; no more than I should a foot-pad, who had attacked me on the high-way; and I should suppose from his general deportment and manners, his birth-place might have been Woonsocket, or some other equally obscure and immoral place: and he appeared to me, (that was my impression at the time,) to use or rather abuse his authority, like a negro slave, when raised above his fellowsbrutal in the extreme, and without mercy. He had the phisiognomy of a vile, dirty, squalid, insignificant, contemptible, dastardly, assassin-like looking wretch, just escaped from the hands of the hangman, or perhaps, rather like a resuscitated body, which had been buried |