[DA] When the assembly is in session, Richmond is full of country
gentlemen from Western Virginia, real giants, taller, stouter, and
broader than the giants who are exhibited among us for money. When
I found myself surrounded by these men, with their loud voices and
Herculean frame, I experienced the same feeling with the companions
of Magellan, when they found themselves alone amidst a crowd of
Patagonians. These good people, to testify their good will, lavish
upon you the same weighty caresses, as those which the Spaniards at
first took for blows, and when you feel their heavy hands fall like
a sledge upon your European shoulders, nothing less than the frank
smile that lights up their broad faces, would convince you of their
friendly disposition. The first time I was in Richmond, I occupied the
chamber, that had just been left by one of these gentlemen; wishing to
consult some of the papers of the session, I sought in vain for any
thing like his library. His whole parliamentary outfit consisted of a
mass of empty bottles, a barrel of biscuit, a case of liquors, and the
fragments of a huge cheese.
[DB] A gang of negroes rose against their masters in Southampton in
1831, and murdered several white families, without distinction of age
or sex, and the alarm became general through the country. The murderers
were soon captured and executed.
[DC] The respect of the Americans for old names and titles is shown in
their retaining most of those that were in use under the English rule.
Thus the States are divided into counties, and there are in several
towns, for instance, in Charleston, a King's Street and a Queen's
Street. In Virginia, there are Prince Edward's, Prince George's,
King's and Queen's, King George's and King William's Counties. Georgia
retained its name, even when at war with the monarch in honour of
whom it bore it. I was very much surprised to hear a court of justice
in Pennsylvania opened with the old French word _oyez! oyez! oyez!_
repeated by the crier, without his understanding the meaning. The
English received it from the Normans, and the Americans have retained
it, because they received it from their fathers. In France we not only
changed the name of Choisy-le-Roi into Choisy-le-Peuple, but we even
suppressed the prefix of Saint, in the names of the Streets.
[DD] It is unnecessary to say that the author has here fallen into a
gross error. Even in the affair of the convent at Charlestown, it was
the supposed abuse of a particular institution, not the Roman Catholic
religion itself, that kindled the flame.--TRANSL.
[DE] I doubt if the power of the community over the individual has
been pushed to such an extent anywhere else as in New England; in
Connecticut there were laws forbidding a person to continue tippling
more than half an hour at a tavern, or to drink more than half a
pint of wine, and it was ordered that taverns and victualling-houses
should be closed at half past nine o'clock. No young man not married
could keep house without the consent of the town; and no housekeeper
could receive a young man to sojourn in his family without the same
permission. Laws were made against swearing, lying, uttering false news
or reports, or using tobacco without a certificate from a physician
that it was necessary to health. Other regulations prohibited smoking
in public places, and this very year the city government of Boston has
forbidden smoking in the Mall, which, however, I do not consider a
measure of excessive rigour. It is unnecessary to say that the laws of
the New England colonies were extremely severe in religious matters;
every individual was required to join some Congregational society,
and no one was eligible to any public trust, unless he had so done.
Dissenters were taxed for the support of the established church. Jews
and Quakers were banished, and forbidden to return under pain of death.
The _Blue Laws_ of Connecticut contained some curious provisions in
respect to marriage, and at Taunton, in Massachusetts, in 1836, two
justices forbade the bans of matrimony, on the ground that the parties
could not provide for themselves after the marriage, and that they had
not sufficient discernment to enter into a contract of such moment.