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at the seat of government should exhibit more of candour on both sides than we are accustomed to see. They should speak truly and justly both of men and things; avoiding the infliction of unnecessary pain upon the feelings of any one, and also refraining from the bestowment of unmerited praise.

"But this habit of indiscriminate eulogy or condemnation is not confined to letter-writers. It is but too common among the conductors of the press themselves. How strikingly is it evinced in the notices of orators at public meetings, whereby a foreigner at a distance might well suppose us to be a nation of Hamiltons, Sheridans, and Cicéros; a people born in the possession of universal knowledge, every tongue tipped with the oil of eloquence, and every lip dropping with the honey of persuasion."

In the Baltimore papers, as in all the others that I had yet seen, there is the same taste for odd and quaint displays of editorial singularity, and especially respecting the difficulties of getting their distant subscribers to pay up their arrears, an evil under which most of the newspapers seem to labour, and which they evidently feel to be a serious one, notwithstanding all their good-humoured jests about it. The following are three specimens, taken from the Baltimore papers of April, 1838:

"LUMBER, SOUR-KROUT, &c.-The editor of the Mohawk Courier, adjudged to be a bachelor, hangs out the following novel advertisement in his paper: For sale at this office, six hundred feet of hemlock boards, one thousand shingles, a quantity of leather, one keg of sour-krout, four yards of red flannel, nine bushels of potatoes, one barrel of vinegar, two bushels of corn, a few pounds of rusty pork, one patent screw-bedstead, and one-Crib! all of which, having been taken in payment for the Courier, will be sold 'dog-cheap.'"

"ONE IN A THOUSAND.-The Cincinnati Whig has one subscriber of which it has good reason to be particularly proud. The case is such a singular one that we must give it publicity. It says, 'He has taken the Whig ever since its commencement, and has invariably paid his subscription in advance without waiting to be called upon.'

"Too BAD.-The Mobile Mercantile Advertiser bestows a just meed of virtuous indignation upon a 'patron' of whom the editor heard that he had been seen laughing heartily over a paragraph in the paper of a previous morning, but who had not paid his subscription for two years! How could any man enjoy a joke with such a weight upon his conscience?"

The literary taste of Baltimore is quite equal to that of New-York, and its institutions as numerous and as well supported in proportion to the respective numbers of their inhabitants. Several literary and scientific societies which existed under separate names have recently associated themselves under one direction; and at the introductory address delivered before this body in the saloon of the Law-buildings during our stay here, at which I was present, a very large and attentive audience testified their deep interest in its prosperity. My own courses of lectures were also extremeVOL. I.-P P

ly well attended, and as highly appreciated and enjoyed by the audience as in any place in which they had yet been delivered. There is an excellent public library, containing upward of 10,000 volumes, well selected, especially in historical subjects; and its books are in constant use by the numerous and intelligent frequenters of this institution.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Classification of the varied Population of the City.-General Characteristics.-State of Society and Manners.-Supposed Causes of the Refinement of Baltimore.-Coexistence of depraved and abandoned Classes.-Instances of recent Outrage and Cruelty. -More disorganized State of Society in the West.-Retrospect of Baltimore Society a Century ago.-Extensive use of Tobacco by the Marylanders.-Evil Effects of this pernicious and offensive Practice.-Injury to Society by the waste of Land and Capital.-Growing opinion against the Use of Tobacco.-Cultivation of this noxious Weed by Slaves.-Exhaustion of the Soil in Virginia and Maryland.-Popular Appeal to Southern Men and Slaveholders.-Inconsistency of the Democratic Party on this subject-Public Sale of Appropriated Lands for Arrears of Taxes.-Singular names of many of these Estates.-Public Labours of the Maryland Legislature.-Registry Law.-Imprisonment for Debt.-Wearing Weapons.

Of the 100,000 inhabitants now occupying the City of Baltimore, it is estimated that there are about 75,000 whites and 25,000 coloured persons, these last being in the proportion of about 5000 slaves and 20,000 free. The slaves are mostly in the class of domestic servants and labourers for hire, and their condition is consequently more comfortable than that of field-slaves employed in cultivation. They are among the least favourable in countenance and person of any that I had yet seen in the United States; but they are admitted to be orderly and unoffending, though considered to be deficient in capacity, and, therefore, no one appears to apprehend any danger from them. There are two extensive and several smaller slave-dealers in the city, the two principal ones having amassed large fortunes in the traffic. One of them has the singularly appropriate name of Woolfolk, it being the woolly-headed race, or woolfolk, in which he deals. I did not hear, however, of acts of cruelty being attributed to any of the dealers here beyond those inseparable from the coerced imprisonment to which they subject their victims to secure them from their escape to that liberty which it is so constantly asserted they neither value nor desire, but which, nevertheless, it is never deemed prudent to place within their reach.

The free people of colour are so far above the condition of the slaves in their appearance, dress, manners, and intelligence, that, it must strike the most careless observer; it is indeed surprising that, in the face of such powerful evidence to the contrary, the whites should still insist, as many do here, that if the slaves were made free they would become deteriorated in condition, and be among the most indolent and vicious of their race. In Baltimore there are many coloured men engaged in trade, as small merchants, shopkeepers, traders, and dealers; while the coloured women, who are to be met with in great numbers in every street, are well dressed, orderly, and respectable, both in appearance and behaviour. Schools for coloured children abound; there are several coloured preachers; and in no instance that I could learn were the free coloured people implicated in any of the riots and mobs by which Baltimore has been so often agitated; these being invariably begun and carried on exclusively by the "more intelligent" and "more improvable" whites!

In the white population, there is a great admixture, both of races, occupations, and conditions. The great bulk of the labouring classes are Irish or German, originally imported as emigrants, with a union of Americans, and the descendants of all three. They are in general uneducated, intemperate, and turbulent, and furnish the largest number of subjects for the asylum, the hospitals, and the jails.

The class next above these are the small shopkeepers, native mechanics, and tradesmen, who appear to be better informed, more industrious, and in better condition as to circumstances than the same class of persons in England; labour of every kind being more in demand, and better paid, and provisions of all descriptions being more abundant and more cheap.

The large shopkeepers, or storekeepers, as they are here called, are many of them opulent, almost all intelligent, and of good manners; and intercourse with them on matters of business is extremely agreeable, from the frankness, cordiality, and perfect freedom from anything like over-reaching or hard bargaining, which too often characterizes this class in all countries.

The merchants, the bankers, the medical and legal professions, and the clergy, constitute here, as elsewhere, the most intelligent and the most polished portion of society. We had the best opportunities of seeing and enjoying this, in the various parties to which we were invited during our

stay; and we were uniformly impressed, after leaving them, with the feeling that they were among the most agreeable that we had experienced in the country.

The ladies of Baltimore enjoy a high reputation throughout the Union for their personal beauty, and this reputation is well founded. There are few, if any, cities in Europe that could produce so many handsome women, out of such a population as this; pleasing in person, graceful in carriage, intelligent, well bred, cordial in manners, and, in every sense of the term, "ladylike" in accomplishments and behaviour. The men, too, struck us as much more generally well informed than the same class of persons we had seen elsewhere in the country; of handsome countenances, better dressed, and more "gentlemanlike" in their whole deport

ment.

This is accounted for in different ways by different individuals; but here the observation generally is, that this superiority of appearance, intelligence, and manners is characteristic of the South in contrast to the North; and that Baltimore, from its position and its trade, belongs to the South, and has an affinity with it in its interest and its tastes. But this in reality leaves the question just where it was, and the inquiry still presents itself, Why is it that the South possesses this superiority?

For my own part, I am inclined to attribute the elegance and refinement which characterizes the society of the higher circles of Baltimore to the influences shed upon the existing generation by the character and condition of those who were its founders.

The two hundred of the Catholic nobility and gentry who came out under the patronage of Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, under the personal protection of his brother Leonard Calvert, and the number of persons of rank, fortune, and education of the same faith who subsequently joined them in their refuge from religious persecution at home, sowed the first seeds of the fruit which their posterity now bears; and the easy circumstances in which the early settlers were soon placed rendering it unnecessary either to toil very hard or to struggle against many diffi culties, both of which were the lot of the pilgrim fathers of the North, would contribute largely to preserve that grace and urbanity which affluence and even competency is sure to generate and preserve. Add to this, instead of the rigid asperity by which the Puritans of the North were characterized, the first Catholic settlers of Maryland were liberal

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in their notions both of religion and politics, were free and easy in their own mode of living, and tolerant towards the opinions and manners of others.

The influx of the wealthy and accomplished colonists of St. Domingo, who took refuge here at the time of the revolution in that island, and who brought with them the generosity of colonial hospitality, and the ease and grace of French manners, served no doubt to give a new infusion of these qualities into the society of Baltimore; and the joint influences of these two causes being again strengthened by the effect of the Catholic religion and the existence of slavery-both of these having a tendency to make men less anxious about the future, and more disposed to enjoy the present-account sufficiently, to my mind at least, for the elegance, ease, and agreeable manners which characterize the best society of Baltimore, and make their social parties the most cordial, and their gayer soirées the most agreeable that can be enjoyed.

It must not be supposed, however, that Baltimore is entirely free from that admixture of evil which seems in all communities to be infused, in greater or lesser degrees, with the good. Here, as elsewhere, are men of abandoned characters and dissipated habits, who obtain their subsistence by preying on their more industrious fellow-citizens, and who squander what they obtain in the most vicious indulgences, as well as others who are guilty of the grossest cruelty and tyranny towards those who are in their power. The follow ing instances are selected from many reported in the Baltimore papers of April, 1838.

"BRUTAL OUTRAGE.-Our city is infested, disgraced, by a gang of ruffians, who, in defiance of every sense of shame, promenade the streets in company with the most abandoned of the other scx, and at night prowl about, insulting decent females, and, like assassins, waylaying peaceable citizens. They are dressed like gentlemen, and profess to be men of honour; but a chimney-sweep has more gentility, and a footpad is a better man. Three scoundrels, who, if they are not of this class, are fully entitled to rank among their number, rushed into the store of a highly respectable citizen in Market-street on Wednesday night, and, without cause or provocation, one of them struck him a severe blow in the face. The gallant youths then ran off, we presume to some of their haunts, to entertain their companions in iniquity with a description of their exploits. Measures have been taken for the arrest of these miscreants, when we hope our citizens will be shown that their lives and property will be protected by the law, without having recourse. to those means of defence which heaven and the laws of nature authorize them to use when the ministers of the law fail to do their duty. "IMPUDENT VILLAINS.-One day last week three well-dressed fellows went into a hat store in Pratt-street, and pretended to bargain with the