Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848

We have already seen how Mr M'Culloch would deal with the difficulty of disturbing the devolution of lands already limited in perpetual entail – namely, by "saving the rights of living heirs of entail, and of heirs born under existing marriage-contracts." We think our author has not, in this passage, expressed himself with due legal perspicuity and precision. The phrase "living heirs of entail" is somewhat vague and uncertain; we presume Mr M'Culloch intended the living issue of the heir of entail in possession, and all living heirs-substitute and their living issue. Again, what are existing marriage-contracts? Probably those marriage-contracts are intended, which are annexed to marriages solemnised before the introduction of a new system. Both these suggestions, as we have interpreted them, might with justice, and advantage have formed part of the new law. It is true that this would, at all events for a considerable period of time, stop short of that assimilation of the Scottish law to the English which seems to have been a great object with the framers of this bill. But the two systems would gradually correspond; and we hold that there is a principle of justice involved in the upholding of contracts the objects of which are as yet unfulfilled. Where an English settler has limited lands to a man for life, remainder to his first and other sons successively in tail, he knew, at the time of making the settlement, that it was liable to be barred with consent of the eldest son on his coming of age. But it was not so with a Scotch settler who executed a deed of tailzie to several brothers as successive heirs-substitute; and the legislature has no right, without the gravest public cause, to step in and defeat his intention.

But the bill, though intending to give far greater liberty to the owner of an entailed estate than Mr M'Culloch does, or, as we think, is consistent with justice, sets about affording him aid in the most ambiguous and misty manner conceivable. The 2d clause enacts that the heir of entail in possession, born after the date of the act, may disentail in the manner provided by the act; and an heir of entail born before the date of the act may similarly disentail, "with the consent (and not otherwise) of the heir-substitute next in succession, and heir-apparent under the entail of the heir in possession," he being born after the date of the act, and capable of contracting.

We should recommend the tenant in tail to be very cautious how he attempts to "acquire his estate in fee-simple" under the provisions of this clause. He is to obtain the consent of the heir-substitute next in succession. So far his course is clear. But the same person is also designated by the term "heir-apparent under the entail of the heir in possession." Now, is this a qualification of the general term "heir-substitute next in succession," and must such person, under the act, be also heir-apparent? If so, what is the particular qualification required of him under the expression "heir-apparent?" Adhering to the use of the phrase in popular language, we must take, as the only circumstances under which the next heir-substitute and the heir-apparent are one and the same person, the case in which the first estate under the entail is limited to a man and the heirs of his body, and the second to his second son and the heirs of his body; then, supposing the eldest son to die in the lifetime of his father, the second son would be both the next heir-substitute and also the heir-apparent. Is this, therefore, the only case within the act? Scarcely, we should think, was it so intended. Are we, then, to interpret the word heir-apparent in the sense in which the phrase heir-presumptive is generally used; and must we suppose that the cases indicated are those in which there is no issue under the first entail, and therefore the next heir-substitute is what we should call heir-presumptive to the person in possession? If so, what is to become of the numerous cases where there is issue to take under the existing estate-tail? Or can it be that the issue in tail is altogether forgotten by this act, and that the person whose consent is required is merely the next heir-substitute in any case? We are inclined to think this the most probable explanation of this unfortunate clause, but can scarcely imagine that it will be suffered to pass into a law. A further ambiguity, however, arises with respect to this term heir-apparent, from its having a peculiar technical meaning in the Scottish law. "He who is entitled," says Erskine, "to enter heir to a deceased ancestor is, before his actual entry, styled, both in our statutes and by our writers, apparent heir." If the bill intends any reference to this legal acceptation of the phrase, we can only understand the person whose consent is required, to be such person as, being next heir-substitute, would, on the immediate decease of the possessor, be his apparent heir, or entitled to enter on the lands. This, again, shuts out all those estates where the possessor has issue in tail, and would, consequently, limit the operation of the bill to exceptional cases. We think we have said enough to convince our readers that this clause is not likely to set free many entailed estates in Scotland – at all events, not without a chaos of litigation, in which the elements of profit will have a tendency to range themselves on the side of the lawyers.

The person whose consent is to be obtained (whoever that mysterious person may be) is, as we have seen, to be born after the date of the act. In conformity with this principle, one would have supposed that where the next heir-substitute shall have been born before that date, then it should be necessary to obtain the consent of the first person entitled to take per formam doni, who shall be born after this date, together with the consent of all those who are to take before him. The third clause, however, introduces a new form of protection to the settlement, and merely enacts that, in such cases, the consent of a certain number of the heirs-substitute is to be obtained, (the blank left for the number was filled up with the word "three" in committee of the House of Commons. Nothing said about the issue in tail, as before.

Where the main enactments of the bill are so incomprehensible, it is useless to dwell on its details. We can only say, that whatever evils may be shown to exist under the present law, they will not only fail to be cured, but must be aggravated tenfold, by such a product of off-hand legislation —

"Sent before its time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,"

that it must necessarily die of its own deformity, unless the law-courts will lick it into shape by their decisions, – a shape (as it must be) in which its own parents would not know it again.

The law of real property in France exhibits a system so distinctly antagonistic to our English and Scottish law of entail, that we cannot be surprised at the attention with which Mr M'Culloch has investigated its influences.

"According to the law of France, a person with one child may dispose at pleasure of a moiety of his property, the child inheriting the other moiety as legitim, or matter of right; a person having two children can only dispose of a third part of his property; and those having more than two must divide three-fourths of their property equally amongst them, one-fourth part being all that is then left at their disposal. When a father dies intestate, his property is equally divided among his children, without respect to sex or seniority. Nothing can be more distinctly opposed to the principles we have endeavoured to establish, and to the system followed in this country, than this law. It is therefore lucky that it is now no novelty. It has been established for more than half a century, so that we may trace and exhibit its practical influence over the condition of the extensive population subject to its operation. Such an experiment is of rare occurrence, but when made is invaluable. And if its results should confirm the conclusions already come to, it will go far to establish them on an unassailable basis." – P. 80-81.

We have already seen how these results may be traced in the state of French agriculture. They may also, we think, be discerned in the relative position which the landholders of France bear to other classes in the social scale. These, numbering between four and five millions, ought, as a class, to constitute the leaders of the nation. So far from this being the case, they are perhaps the most inert and uninfluential portion of the community, having apparently had little or no voice in the two revolutions which have swept over their heads within the last eighteen years, and as little in the erection, maintenance, or downfall of the Throne of the Barricades. It yet remains to be seen whether they will continue to accept every thing which the clubs of Paris are willing to force upon them. As tax-payers and cultivators of the soil, it can hardly suit them to be propagandists; as men who have something to lose, they will not readily give in to the dictatorial vagaries of Ledru Rollin. If, however, they would hold their own, it is time for them to be up and doing. France has been governed by a minority before now.

We have always regarded it as one of the main advantages of a landed aristocracy, that it raises up a principle of social rank antagonistic to that of mere wealth. In France, the constant subdivision and transfer of land breaks down this influence, and causes land to be regarded as a mere marketable article and equivalent for money.

"In countries where the custom of primogeniture exercises a powerful influence, families become identified with estates – the family representing the estate, and the estate the family. The wealth and consideration enjoyed by the latter depend upon, and are intimately connected with, the possession of the lands which have descended to them from their ancestors. They estimate their value by another than a mere pecuniary standard. They are attached to them by the oldest and most endearing associations; and they are seldom parted with except under the most painful circumstances. Hence the perpetuity of property in England in the same families, notwithstanding the limited duration of entails; great numbers of estates being at this moment enjoyed by those whose ancestors acquired them at or soon after the Conquest. But in France such feelings are proscribed. Estates and families have there no abiding connexion; and at the demise of an individual who has a number of children, his estate can hardly escape being subdivided. And this effect of the law tends to imbue the proprietors with corresponding sentiments and feelings. 'Non seulement,' says M. De Tocqueville, 'la loi des successions rend difficile aux familles de conserver intacts les mêmes domaines, mais elle leur òte le désir de le tenter, et elle les entraîne, en quelque sorte, à coopérer avec elle à leur propre ruine.'" – P. 85-86.

But Mr M'Culloch dwells more particularly on the injurious effects to agriculture from the parcelling out of the land into small properties. He shows that a small proprietor is not so efficient a cultivator of the soil as a tenant, in which doctrine Arthur Young had preceded him. He shows, also, that the subdivision of properties leads to the subdivision of farms, and urges that it is impossible to have good farming on small patches of land. Of the miseries of an agricultural system carried on by small farmers on petty holdings, we have already a sufficient example in Ireland. We cannot but think, however, that the progress of things in England has too much swallowed up those little farms of from thirty to fifty acres, which at one time were common over the country. Not but what capital is employed at a great disadvantage on these little holdings – but where there is a general system of good-sized farms, an intermixture, of smaller farms is not attended with injurious effects proportional to those which arise where the whole of the land is split up into minute parcels. And then small farmers furnish a link between the yeomanry and peasantry, which it is useful to maintain, cheering the poor man's lot by pointing out to him a path by which lie may advance from the position of a day-labourer to that of an occupier of land. On the same principle, we are rejoiced to observe the gradual extension of the allotment system; although it would have a still more beneficial effect, we think, if the land was granted in the shape of a croft about the cottage, thus giving the tenant a greater interest, and more individual sense of proprietorship, than when his piece of land is packed, along with a number of others, into a mass of unsightly patches.

In connexion with the small holdings in Ireland, it should not be forgotten that this subdivision of the land results mainly from the practice of sub-letting; and this again has arisen in a great degree from the practice of granting long leases, the want of which in England has served, among many other things, for an outcry against the landlords. Mr M'Culloch has pointed out the evils of too long leases on the farming tenant, that they superinduce a sense of security which easily degenerates into indolence. But the influence on Ireland is even worse, by breaking up the land into small patches, on which the occupier can but just maintain himself, paying an exorbitant rent to the middleman. For it is not the eager demand for land amongst the Irish peasantry, as we sometimes hear, that has produced this subdivision of the land, but the subdivision that has produced the demand, by putting the cultivation of the land into the hands of a class who are unable, through want of skill and capital, to carry it on; who cannot, therefore, furnish employment for the labourers, and thus drive them to grasp at little parcels of land as their only means of securing a wretched subsistence; and this security, as we know, has more than once proved but a fancied one, as in the disastrous failure of the potato crop.

While we are on this subject, we may draw the reader's attention to a very able pamphlet by an Irish gentleman, on Irish matters, which, though we believe it has never been published, has had an extensive private circulation. We allude to "An Address to the Members of the House, of Commons on the Landlord and Tenant Question, by Warren H. R. Jackson, Esq." The work, though somewhat tinged with the hard politico-economical school, is written with great shrewdness of thought and freedom from prejudice, and is well worthy the careful attention of the honourable House. The writer, in discussing the vexed question he has taken in hand, fully coincides with the general principles laid down by Mr M'Culloch. "This," he says, (speaking of the subdivision of land) "is one of the monster grievances of Ireland, and you will do little good unless you abate it." This abatement he would bring about mainly by prospective laws, as by placing all contracts for subletting hors la loi, and so taking away from the first lessee all power of recovering his rent from the actual tenant. We cannot but think that this would be found a most salutary enactment. It should be remembered, that the occupier is responsible to the owner of the freehold by the power of distress vested in the latter, and it is but just that he should be relieved from the liability to pay two rents – a liability which it is manifest no good farmer would incur, but which the squalid ravager of the soil in Ireland is always eager for.

It has been said that no further legislative enactment is required in Ireland, and that administrative wisdom must do what yet remains to be done. Mr Jackson, however, shows that there are such deep-seated evils in Ireland as cannot be cured except by the direct interference of the legislature. But we think he expects too much from the Sale of Encumbered Estates Bill. An extensive change of proprietorship would, we are persuaded, be a great evil in Ireland. There is an attachment in general to the "ould stock" among their poorer neighbours, which would naturally be followed by a jealousy and prejudice against the new comers who displaced them. And this prejudice would of itself neutralise any efforts for improvement which the landlord might otherwise be disposed to make – although, in most cases, we should not expect much effort in this direction from a stranger mortgagee, often an unwilling purchaser, who would naturally be anxious to contract with those parties from whom he could obtain his rents with least trouble, leaving them to deal with the land as they liked, and thereby continuing and increasing the odious middleman system.

Mr M'Culloch does not confine his examination of the compulsory partition in France to its influence on agriculture. He has discerned certain political effects of that and the concomitant system of which it is a part, with a precision which subsequent events have elevated into a sort of prophecy. The preface to his work is dated December 1847, and the work was published, we believe, early in January. There can, therefore, be no grounds for classing the following passage with those anticipations which are made after the event: —

"The aristocratical element is no longer to be found in French society; and the compulsory division of the soil, while it prevents the growth of an aristocracy, impresses the same character of mobility upon landed possessions that is impressed on the families of their occupiers. Hence the prevalent want of confidence in the continuance of the present order of things in France. What is there in that country to oppose an effectual resistance to a revolutionary movement? Monarchy in France has been stripped of those old associations and powerful bulwarks whence it derives almost all its lustre and support in this and other countries. The throne stands in solitary, though not unenvied dignity, without the shelter of a single eminence, exposed to the full force of the furious blasts that sweep from every point of the surrounding level. There is nothing intermediate, nothing to hinder a hostile majority in the Chamber of Deputies from at once subverting the regal branch of the constitution, or changing the reigning dynasty." – P. 132-133.

Scarcely was the printer's ink dry on this passage when the Throne of the Barricades was gone. We have given our author full credit for his sagacity in penetrating into the future, but we think it would puzzle him to foretell what is to come next. We are disposed to doubt, however, whether an aristocracy could have preserved the throne of Louis Philippe. It is true that in our own country William of Nassau and George of Brunswick maintained their crowns by the aid of powerful sections of the nobility. But the revolutions which gave them those crowns were not the volcanic outbursts of popular force. Under such outbursts, no successful usurper, no "Hero-king," no sovereign by the will of the people, has been able to devise a principle which shall establish his throne in security, and serve in the stead of that prestige of old hereditary succession, that grand feudal idea of kingly right, which is the essential fountain of the reverence that guards royalty. Louis Philippe would have confirmed his sovereignty by means of the influence exerted upon interested officials. No sooner was his power shaken in its unstable equilibrium than the men whom his gold had bought rushed to worship the rising sun of the young Republic. Napoleon, before him, would have built up a similar power on military glory: his doom was sealed when his eagles turned from the field of Leipsic. Cromwell employed religious fanaticism to the same end: the fanaticism lasted his time; but we will venture to say that, had he lived, his protectorate would not have reached the seventeen years allotted to the democratic King of the French.

Our author is of opinion that, after all, the system of compulsory partition will fail to guard what has since become the French Republic: —

"But, though it were possible, which it is not, to obviate the mischievous influence of the French and other plans for preventing the increase and continuance of property in the same families, it may be confidently predicted that they will, in time to come as hitherto, wholly fail in their grand object of perpetuating the ascendancy of the democracy. In old settled and fully peopled countries, where the bulk of the population is necessarily poor and dependent, an aristocracy is indispensable for the support of a free system of government – 'Il importe à tous les peuples qui ont la prétention de devenir ou de rester puissants, d'avoir une aristocratie, c'est-à-dire un corps héréditaire ou non, qui conserve et perpetue les traditions, donne de l'esprit de suite à la politique, et se voue à l'art le plus difficile de tous, qu' aujourd'hui cependant tout le monde croit savoir sans l'avoir appris, celui de gouverner. Un peuple sans aristocratic pourra briller dans les lettres et les arts, mais sa gloire politique me semble devoir être passagère comme un méteore.' Chevalier, Lettres sur l'Amerique, ii. 379," pp. 171, 172.

We have already said that we think England certain to have an aristocracy of some description. The ambition of the people to advance themselves individually in the social scale will necessarily lead to a high value being set upon those advanced positions, and will tend to make them the fulcrum from which the country is governed. And we can conceive nothing more fatal to our national organisation than the result which would follow indirectly from the repeal of these laws. It may be supposed at first sight that no very vital question is involved here. Let those who suppose so, take a view of the probable condition of society which would ensue. These, and other so-called feudalities, being swept away, land becomes a commercial article, according to the desire of the plutocratic reformers. Estates are trucked about in the market like bills of exchange; constantly changing hands, their owners have little connexion with them or the people that live on them, regarding them merely in the light of so much realised capital. The old families gradually become dispossessed; mere wealth is recognised as the sole qualification for rank and influence; and the leading class in the state is composed of men who are an aristocracy by virtue of ready money. Far be it from us to undervalue the enterprise, integrity, and industry of our merchant manufacturers and tradesmen. But we will say that when we meet with a man, as we often do among those classes, endowed with a broad range of thought and high and noble aims, we regard him as possessing these qualities not as a consequence, but in spite of a commercial training. The immediate effects of such training are to narrow the mind and cramp the soul, not in respect of domestic and social life – for in these, perhaps, the middle classes are unsurpassed by any other – but in the provinces of the statesman and the politician.

In these times, it seems to be commonly supposed that a legislator – like a poet —nascitur, non fit. There is a certain kind of training, the acquisition of a certain cast of thought, which are requisites for statesmen as a class, as much as his legal reading for a lawyer, or his apprenticeship for a handicraftsman. Statesmen, however, have to deal with practical matters; and therefore we think, as we have before said, that while the predominance of these requisites in the legislature is essential to good government, there may with advantage at the same time be a certain admixture of the men practically versed in commerce and manufactures. But this should be always a subordinate, not a leading, element in the principles which regulate the administration of government. – We repeat, that the counting-house, the loom, and the anvil, are not the best schools for legislators. For that office, a man requires leisure and education. We shall be told that a "Squire" is not necessarily an educated man. We do not maintain that he is. But, in the first place, as we cannot well have an education-test, we must go to the class in which, as a class, we find the highest and most enlarged form of education; and we believe that this qualification can, without question, be claimed for the leisure-class, or gentlemen of England. In the second place, it should be remembered, that if the squire is not always individually what we should call an educated man, he yet imbibes his thoughts and notions from those who are such, who give tone to the society in which he moves. In investigating the characteristics of classes, it can scarcely be but that a number of exceptions to our general rules will force themselves upon our attention. Yet, in good truth, we believe that almost all the individual examples which can be cited will bear out our estimate. The highest contributions to the legislature, on the part of the middle or commercial classes, have been the shrewd practical men of business, men of the stamp of Mr Hawes. As for the Cobdens and Brights, et hoc genus omne, their only motive principle appears to be the interests of My Shop. Their notion of loyalty, patriotism, and British prosperity, is nothing but low wages, high profits, and a brisk trade in calicoes.

Many of our readers will recollect a passage in Cicero, (Off. i. 42,) in which he reprobates, more or less, all commercial pursuits, in respect of their operations on the moral insight of man, and finishes with the praise of the culture of the soil, in these words: "Omnium rerum ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agriculturâ meliùs, nihil uberiùs, nihil dulciùs, nihil homine libero digniùs." In this country we should find it difficult to go along with the feelings of the old Roman republican on these points. But though we have already expressed our high sense of the social and domestic virtues of the middle or trading classes, yet we are most confident in the truth of our position, that the shop is the worst possible preparation for the senate. We know that there is a talk abroad about earnest workers, drones of the hive, and so forth. By all means, let every man work who is fit to work. But it is not necessary, nor is it desirable, that every man should work for gain. On the contrary, we hold that a class endowed with leisure is indispensable, not only for the grace and civilisation, but even for the moral well-being of a community. That money should become the one grand loadstar of thought and action is the bane of those societies where the pursuit of money is the general employment; but where there is such a leisure-class as we have spoken of, forming the topmost rank of a nation otherwise chiefly mercantile, there are numberless influences derived from it which percolate through the underlying masses, and check or modify the exclusive reverence for wealth to which they would otherwise be prone. Even a mere blind respect for rank or title exalts the mind immeasurably as compared with mammon-worship.

While on the subject of our leisure-class, which is pretty nearly synonymous with the landed gentry, we must not pass over in silence a subject in connexion with which the outcry against "the drones of the hive" is frequently introduced. We refer to the Game-Laws. The whole question of these laws has been so fully discussed in a recent Number of this magazine, that we will not attempt in any way to open that controversy. But they are so commonly coupled with the Laws of Entail as "feudalities," and as interfering with the transmission of land according to "commercial principles," that we could not altogether omit the mention of them. We will at this time only observe, that the denunciation of the Game-Laws is a part of the crusade which Hard-Cash, that arrogant monopolist who bears no brother near his throne, is waging against all other objects of interest or devotion. Let it not be supposed that laws are of minor importance because they relate to the amusements of any portion of the community. They may derive their importance from that circumstance as tending to raise up something which shall cope with the lust of gold. The game-preserving interest is worth maintenance if only as clashing with mammonism.

While the brawlers about "improvement" and "progress," are heaping their meaningless abuse upon feudalities, we should be glad to know what they purpose to do with that greatest feudality of all, the Crown? Already there are symptoms of an intention to take that matter in hand. Mr Cobden and some of his Calibans have talked in the House of Commons about curtailing the "barbarous splendour" of the throne. They know nothing and care nothing about the historical association and constitutional truths embodied in the ancient appendages of royalty. How should they? They want somebody to look after the police, and take care that no one robs their till; that is their idea of government. They want a man (some of them being willing to allow him a small salary, though others think that it does not pay) to preach to the masses, and tell them not to steal, and to be content with their wages; that is their idea of the church. We do not think, however, that the tone of thought prevalent among the Manchester school is destined yet to lead the mind of England. And we are the less inclined to look forward to such a national debasement when we find so enlightened an advocate of free-trade policy as Mr M'Culloch – the advocate of a theory which we hold to be erroneous, but not the selfish and greedy clamourer for the gain of himself and his class – thus coming forward to vindicate the laws which preserve the hereditary character of our aristocracy, which lend so efficient an aid in shielding us from the crushing tread of mammonism, and in preventing "commercial principles" from introducing the ledger and day-book into our manor houses, and the counter into our farmers' parlours. In this view we most heartily thank our author for his noble and energetic contribution to our National Defences at the present time; and as there is a wide field open in connexion with the subject he has so powerfully handled, we cannot take leave of him without expressing a hope that we may before long listen to him again "on the same side."

LIFE IN THE "FAR WEST."

PART II

[The reader is informed that "Life in the Far West" is no fiction. The scenes and incidents described are strictly true. The characters are real, (the names being changed in two or three instances only,) and all have been, and are, well known in the Western country.]

"And Mary Brand herself, – what is she like?"

"She's 'some' now; that is a fact, and the biggest kind of punkin at that," would have been the answer from any man, woman, or child, in Memphis County, and truly spoken too; always understanding that the pumpkin is the fruit to which the ne-plus-ultra of female perfection is compared by the figuratively speaking westerns.

Being an American woman, of course she was tall, and straight and slim as a hickory sapling, well formed withal, with rounded bust, and neck white and slender as the swan's. Her features were small, but finely chiselled; and in this, it may be remarked, the lower orders of the American women differ from, and far surpass the same class in England, or elsewhere, where the features, although far prettier, are more vulgar and commonplace. She had the bright blue eye, thin nose, and small but sweetly-formed mouth, the too fair complexion and dark brown hair, which characterise the beauty of the Anglo-American, the heavy masses (hardly curls) which fell over her face and neck contrasting with their polished whiteness. Such was Mary Brand: and to her good looks being added a sweet disposition, and all the good qualities of a thrifty housewife, it must be allowed that she fully justified the eulogiums of the good people of Memphis.

Well, to cut a love-story short, in the which not a little moral courage is shown, young La Bonté fell desperately in love with the pretty Mary, and she with him; and small blame to her, for he was a proper lad of twenty – six feet in his moccassins – the best hunter and rifle-shot in the country, with many other advantages too numerous to mention. But when did the course, &c. e'er run smooth? When the affair had become a recognised "courting," (and Americans alone know the horrors of such prolonged purgatory,) they became, to use La Bonté's words, "awful fond," and consequently about once a-week had their tiffs and makes-up.

However, on one occasion, at a "husking," and during one of these tiffs, Mary, every inch a woman, to gratify some indescribable feeling, brought to her aid jealousy – that old serpent who has caused such mischief in this world; and by a flirtation over the corn-cobs with Big Pete, La Bonté's former and only rival, struck so hard a blow at the latter's heart, that on the moment his brain caught fire, blood danced before his eyes, and he became like one possessed. Pete observed and enjoyed his struggling emotion – better for him had he minded his corn-shelling alone; and the more to annoy his rival, paid the most sedulous attention to the pretty Mary.

Young La Bonté stood it as long as human nature, at boiling heat, could endure; but when Pete, in the exultation of his apparent triumph, crowned his success by encircling the slender waist of the girl with his arm, and snatched a sudden kiss, he jumped upright from his seat, and seizing a small whisky-keg which stood in the centre of the corn-shellers, he hurled it at his rival, and crying to him, hoarse with passion, "to follow if he was a man," he left the house.

At that time, and even now, in the remoter states of the western country, rifles settled even the most trivial differences between the hot-blooded youths; and of such frequent occurrence and invariably bloody termination did they become, that they scarcely produced sufficient excitement to draw together half a dozen spectators of the duel.

In the present case, however, so public was the quarrel, and so well known the parties concerned, that not only the people who had witnessed the affair, but all the neighbourhood thronged to the scene of action, where, in a large field in front of the house, the preliminaries of a duel between Pete and La Bonté were being arranged by their respective friends.

Mary, when she discovered the mischief her thoughtlessness was likely to occasion, was almost beside herself with grief, but she knew how vain it would be to attempt to interfere. The poor girl, who was most ardently attached to La Bonté, was carried, swooning, into the house, where all the women congregated, and were locked in by old Brand, who, himself an old pioneer, thought but little of bloodshed, but refused to let the "women folk" witness the affray.

Preliminaries arranged, the combatants took up their respective positions at either end of a space marked for the purpose, at forty paces from each other. They were both armed with heavy rifles, and had the usual hunting-pouches, containing ammunition, hanging over the shoulder. Standing with the butts of their rifles on the ground, they confronted each other, and the crowd drawing away a few paces only on each side, left one man to give the word. This was the single word "fire;" and after this signal was given, the combatants were at liberty to fire away until one or the other dropped.

At the word both the men quickly raised their rifles to the shoulder, and as the sharp cracks rung instantaneously, they were seen to flinch, as either felt the pinging sensation of a bullet entering his flesh. Regarding each other steadily for a few moments, the blood running down La Bonté's neck from a wound under the left jaw, whilst his opponent was seen to place his hand once to his right breast, as if to feel the position of his wound, they commenced reloading their rifles. As, however, Pete was in the act of forcing down the ball with his long hickory wiping-stick, he suddenly dropped his right arm, – the rifle slipped from his grasp, – and, reeling for a moment like a drunken man, – he fell dead to the ground.

Even here, however, there was law of some kind or another, and the consequences of the duel were, that the constables were soon on the trail of La Bonté to arrest him. He, however, easily avoided them, and taking to the woods, lived for several days in as wild a state as the beasts he hunted and killed for his support.

Tired of this, however, he resolved to quit the country, and betake himself to the mountains, for which life he had ever felt an inclination.

When, therefore, he thought the officers of justice had tired of seeking him, and the coast was comparatively clear, he determined to start on his distant expedition to the Far West.

Once more, before he carried his project into execution, he sought and had a last interview with Mary Brand.

"Mary," said he, "I'm about to break. They're hunting me like a fall buck, and I'm bound to quit. Don't think any more about me, for I shall never come back." Poor Mary burst into tears, and bent her head on the table near which she was sitting. When again she raised it, she saw La Bonté, with his long rifle on his shoulder, striding with rapid steps from the house; and year after year rolled on, and he never returned.

A few days after this he found himself at St Louis, the emporium of the fur trade, and the fast rising metropolis of the precocious settlements of the west. Here, a prey to the agony of mind which jealousy, remorse, and blighted love mix into a very puchero of misery, La Bonté got into the company of certain "rowdies," a class which every western city particularly abounds in; and anxious to drown his sorrows in any way, and quite unscrupulous as to the means, he plunged into all the vicious excitements of drinking, gambling, and fighting, which form the every-day amusements of the rising generation of St Louis.

Perhaps in no other part of the United States, where indeed humanity is frequently to be seen in many curious and unusual phases, is there a population so marked in its general character, and at the same time divided into such distinct classes, as in the above-named city. Dating, as it does, its foundation from yesterday, – for what are thirty years in the growth of a metropolis? – its founders are now scarcely passed middle life, regarding with astonishment the growing works of their hands; and whilst gazing upon its busy quays, piled with grain and other produce of the west, its fleets of huge steamboats lying tier upon tier alongside the wharves, its well-stored warehouses and all the bustling concomitants of a great commercial depot, they can scarcely realise the memory of a few short years, when on the same spot nothing was to be seen but the few miserable hovels of a French village – the only sign of commerce the unwieldy bateaux of the Indian traders, laden with peltries from the distant regions of the Platte and Upper Missouri. Where now intelligent and wealthy merchants walk erect, in conscious substantiality of purse and credit, and direct the commerce of a vast and numerously-populated region, but the other day stalked, in dress of buckskin, the Indian trader of the west; and all the evidences of life, mayhap, consisted of the eccentric vagaries of the different bands of trappers and hardy mountaineers, who accompanied, some for pleasure and some as escort, the periodically arriving bateaux, laden with the beaver skins and buffalo robes collected during the season at the different trading posts in the Far West.

These, nevertheless, were the men whose hardy enterprise opened to commerce and the plough the vast and fertile regions of the West. Rough and savage though they were, they alone were the pioneers of that extraordinary tide of civilisation which has poured its resistless current through tracts large enough for kings to govern; over a country now teeming with cultivation, where, a few short years ago, countless herds of buffalo roamed unmolested, the bear and deer abounded, and where the savage Indian skulked through the woods and prairies, lord of the unappreciated soil which now yields its prolific treasures to the spade and plough of civilised man. To the wild and half-savage trapper, who may be said to exhibit the energy, enterprise, and hardihood characteristic of the American people, divested of all the false and vicious glare with which a high state of civilisation, too rapidly attained, has obscured their real and genuine character, in which the above traits are eminently prominent – to these men alone is due the empire of the West – destined in a few short years to become the most important of those confederate states which compose the mighty union of North America.

Sprung, then, out of the wild and adventurous fur trade, St Louis, still the emporium of that species of commerce, preserves even now, in the character of its population, many of the marked peculiarities which distinguished its early founders, who were identified with the primitive Indian in hardiness and instinctive wisdom. Whilst the French portion of the population retain the thoughtless levity and frivolous disposition of their original source, the Americans of St Louis, who may lay claim to be native, as it were, are as particularly distinguished for determination and energy of character as they are for physical strength and animal courage; and are remarkable, at the same time, for a singular aptitude in carrying out commercial enterprises to successful terminations, which would appear to be incompatible with the love of adventure and excitement which forms so prominent a feature in their character. In St Louis, nevertheless, and from her merchants, have emanated many commercial enterprises of gigantic speculation, not confined to its own locality or the distant Indian fur trade, but embracing all parts of the continent, and even a portion of the Old World. And here it must be remembered that St Louis is situated inland, at a distance of upwards of one thousand miles from the sea, and three thousand from the capital of the United States.