A Body without a Head.
I allot you had ought to visit our great country Squire,
said the Clockmaker, afore you quit for good and all. I
calculate you don't understand us. The most splendid
location atween the Poles is the United States, and the
first man alive is Gineral Jackson, the hero of the age,
him that skeered the British out of their seven senses.
Then there's the great Danel Webster, its generally
allowed, he's the greatest orator on the face of the
airth, by a long chalk, and Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. Clay,
and Amos Kindle, and Judge White, and a whole raft of
statesmen, up to every thing, and all manner of politics;
there aint the beat of 'em to be found any where. If you
was to hear 'em, I concait you'd hear genuine pure English
for once, any how; for its generally allowed we speak
English better than the British. They all know me to be
an American citizen here, by my talk, for we speak it
complete in New England.
Yes, if you want to see a free people--them that makes
their own laws, accordin to their own notions--go to
the States. Indeed, if you can falt them at all, they
are a little grain too free. Our folks have their head
a trifle too much, sometimes, particularly in Elections,
both in freedom of speech and freedom of Press. One hadnt
ought to blart right out always all that comes uppermost.
A horse that's too free frets himself and his rider too,
and both on em lose flesh in the long run. I'd een a most
as lives use the whip sometimes, as to be for everlastenly
a pullin at the rein. One's arm gets plaguy tired, that's
a fact. I often think of a lesson I larnt Jehiel Quirk
once, for letten his tongue outrun his good manners. I
was down to Rhode Island one summer to larn gilden and
bronzin, so as to give the finishin touch to my clocks.
Well, the folks elected me a hog reave, jist to poke fun
at me, and Mr. Jehiel, a bean pole of a lawyer, was at
the bottom of it. So one day, up to Town Hall, where
there was an oration to be delivered on our Independence,
jist afore the orator commenced, in runs Jehiel in a most
allfired hurry; and, says he, I wonder, says he, if
there's are a hog reave here, because if there be I
require a turn of his office. And then, said he, a lookin
up to me and callin out at the tip eend of his voice,
Mr. Hogreave Slick, says he, here's a job out here for
you. Folks snickered a good deal, and I felt my spunk a
risen like half flood, that's a fact; but I bit in my
breath, and spoke quite cool. Possible, says I; well
duty, I do suppose, must be done, though it tante the
most agreeable in the world. I've been a thinkin, says
I, that I would be liable to a fine of fifty cents for
sufferin a hog to run at large, and as you are the biggest
one, I presume, in all Rhode Island, I'll jist begin by
ringin your nose, to prevent you for the futur from pokin
your snout where you hadnt ought to, and I seized him by
the nose and nearly wrung it off. Well, you never heerd
sich a shoutin and clappin of hands, and cheerin, in your
life--they haw hawed like thunder. Says I Jehiel Quirk
that was a superb joke of yourn, how you made the folks
larf didn't you? You are een amost the wittiest critter
I ever seed. I guess you'll mind your parts o' speech,
and study the ACCIDENCE agin afore you let your clapper
run arter that fashion, won't you?
I thought, said I, that among you republicans, there were
no gradations of rank or office, and that all were equal,
the Hogreave and the Governor, the Judge and the Crier,
the master and his servant, and although, from the natur
of things, more power might be entrusted to one than the
other, yet that the rank of all was precisely the same.
Well, said he, it is so in theory, but not always in
practice, and when we do pracTISE it, it seems to go a
little agin the grain, as if it warnt quite right neither.
When I was last to Baltimore there was a Court there,
and Chief Justice Marshall was detailed there for duty.
Well, with us in New England, the Sheriff attends the
Judge to Court and, says I to the Sheriff, why don't you
escort that are venerable old Judge to the State House,
he's a credit to our nation that man, he's actilly the
first pot hook on the crane, the whole weight is on him,
if it warnt for him the fat would be in the fire in no
time, I wonder you don't show him that respect--it wouldn't
hurt you one morsel, I guess. Says he, quite miffy like,
don't he know the way to Court as well as I do? if I
thought he didn't, I'd send one of my niggers to show
him the road. I wonder who was his lackey last year, that
he wants me to be hisn this time. It don't convene to
one of our free and enlightened citizens, to tag arter
any man, that's a fact; its too English and too foreign
for our glorious institutions. He's bound by law to be
there at 10 o'clock, and so be I, and we both know the
way there I reckon.
I told the story to our minister, Mr. Hopewell (and he
has some odd notions about him that man, though he don't
always let out what he thinks); says he, Sam, that was
in bad taste, (a great phrase of the old gentleman's
that) in bad taste, Sam. That are Sheriff was a goney;
don't cut your cloth arter his pattern, or your garment
won't become you, I tell you. We are too enlightened, to
worship our fellow citizens as the ancients did, but we
ought to pay great respect to vartue and exalted talents
in this life; and, arter their death, there should be
statues of eminent men placed in our national temples,
for the veneration of arter ages, and public ceremonies
performed annually to their honor. Arter all, Sam, said
he, (and he made a considerable of a long pause, as if
he was dubersome whether he ought to speak out or not)
arter all, Sam, said he, atween ourselves, (but you must
not let on I said so, for the fullness of time han't yet
come) half a yard of blue ribbon is a plaguy cheap way
of rewarden merit, as the English do; and, although we
larf at em, (for folks always will larf at what they hant
got, and never can get,) yet titles aint bad things as
objects of ambition, are they? Then, tappen me on the
shoulder, and lookin up and smilin, as he always did when
he was pleased with an idee, Sir Samuel Slick would not
sound bad, I guess, would it Sam?
When I look at the English House of Lords, said he, and
see so much larning, piety, talent, honor, vartue, and
refinement, collected together, I ax myself this, here
question, can a system which produces and sustains such
a body of men, as the world never saw before and never
will see agin, be defective? Well, I answer myself,
perhaps it is, for all human institutions are so, but I
guess its een about the best arter all. It wouldn't do
here now, Sam, nor perhaps for a century to come, but it
will come sooner or later with some variations. Now the
Newtown pippin, when transplanted to England, don't
produce such fruit as it does in Long Island, and English
fruits don't preserve their flavor here, neither; allowance
must be made for difference of soil and climate--(Oh
Lord! thinks I, if he turns in to his orchard, I'm done
for; I'll have to give him the dodge some how or another,
through some hole in the fence, that's a fact--but he
passed on that time.) So it is, said he, with constitutions;
ourn will gradually approximate to theirn, and theirn to
ourn. As they lose their strength of executive, they will
varge to republicanism, and as we invigorate the form of
government, (as we must do, or go to the old boy) we
shall tend towards a monarchy. If this comes on gradually,
like the changes in the human body, by the slow approach
of old age, so much the better; but I fear we shall have
fevers, and convulsion-fits, and cholics, and an everlastin
gripin of the intestines first; you and I wont live to
see it Sam, but our posteriors will, you may depend.
I don't go the whole figur with minister, said the
Clockmaker, but I do opinionate with him in part. In our
business relations we bely our political principles--we
say every man is equal in the Union, and should have an
equal vote and voice in the Government; but in our Banks,
Rail Road Companies, Factory Corporations, and so on,
every man's vote is regilated by his share and proportion
of stock; and if it warnt so, no man would take hold on
these things at all.
Natur ordained it so--a father of a family is head, and
rules supreme in his household; his eldest son and darter
are like first leftenants under him, and then there is
an overseer over the niggers; it would not do for all to
be equal there. So it is in the univarse, it is ruled by
one Superior Power; if all the Angels had a voice in the
Government I guess--Here I fell fast asleep; I had been
nodding for some time, not in approbation of what he
said, but in heaviness of slumber, for I had never before
heard him so prosy since I first overtook him on the
Colchester road. I hate politics as a subject of
conversation, it is too wide a field for chit chat, and
too often ends in angry discussion. How long he continued
this train of speculation I do not know, but, judging by
the different aspect of the country, I must have slept
an hour.
I was at length aroused by the report of his rifle, which
he had discharged from the waggon. The last I recollected
of his conversation was, I think, about American angels
having no voice in the Government, an assertion that
struck my drowsy faculties as not strictly true; as I
had often heard that the American ladies talked frequently
and warmly on the subject of politics, and knew that one
of them had very recently the credit of breaking up
General Jackson's cabinet.--When I awoke, the first I
heard was "well, I declare, if that aint an amazin fine
shot, too, considerin how the critter was a runnin the
whole blessed time; if I han't cut her head off with a
ball, jist below the throat, that's a fact." There's no
mistake in a good Kentucky rifle! I tell you. Whose head?
said I, in great alarm, whose head, Mr. Slick? for heaven's
sake what have you done? (for I had been dreaming of
those angelic politicians the American ladies.) Why that
are hen-partridge's head, to be sure, said he; don't you
see how special wonderful wise it looks, a flutterin
about arter its head. True, said I, rubbing my eyes, and
opening them in time to see the last muscular spasms of
the decapitated body; true, Mr. Slick, it is a happy
illustration of our previous conversation--A BODY WITHOUT
A HEAD.