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, it's 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 everything and all manner of politics;
there ain't the beat of 'em to be found anywhere. If you was to hear
'em, I consait you'd hear genuine pure English for once, anyhow; for
it's 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 hadn't
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 e'enamost as lives use the whip sometimes,
as to be for everlastinly 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 lettin' his tongue outrun his good manners.
"I was down to Rhode Island one summer to larn gildin' 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 all-fired hurry; and, says he, 'I wonder,' says he, 'if there's
ary 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. Hog-reave Slick,' says he, 'here's a job
out here for you.' Folks snickered a good deal, and I felt my spunk
a-risin' 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 ain't 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 hadn't
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 your'n; how you made the folks larf,
didn't you? You are e'enamost 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 hog-reave
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 warn't 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 'ere
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 warn't 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 his'n this time. It don't
convene to one of our free and enlightened citizens, to tag arter any
man, that's a fact; it's too English and too foreign for our glorious
institutions. He's bound by law to be there at ten 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 'ere 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 honour. 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 hain't yet come), half a yard of blue ribbon is a plaguy cheap
way of rewardin' merit, as the English do; and, although we larf at
'em (for folks always will larf at what they hain't got, and never
can get), yet titles ain't bad things as objects of ambition, are
they?' Then, tappin' 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, honour, 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 it's e'enabout
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 flavour 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 somehow 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; our'n will gradually approximate to their'n, and
their'n to our'n. 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 won't 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
belie 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, railroad companies, factory corporations, and so on,
every man's vote is regilated by his share and proportion of stock;
and if it warn't 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 wagon. 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 ain't an amazin' fine shot, too, Considerin' how the critter was
a-runnin' the whole blessed time; if I hain'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 'ere 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."