Sam Vaknin - "The Labor Divide"

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "New Thought Pastels"

Sara Yorke Stevenson - "Maximilian in Mexico"

Christopher Leadem - "Highland Ballad"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature and Human Nature

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> Nature and Human Nature





1 Dead heads may perhaps be best explained by substituting the words
"the unproductive class of operatives," such as spend their time in
ale-houses; demagogues, the men who, with free tickets, travel in
steam-boats, frequent theatres, tavern-keepers, &c.

2 Pliable politicians, men who are accessible to personal influences
or considerations.

3 A man is said to be on a fence who is ready to join the strongest
party because he who sits on a fence is in a position to jump down,
with equal facility, on either side of it.

4 "Political come-outers" are the loose fish of all parties.
Dissenters from their own side.--See Bartlett's definitions.


"Seeing the elephant," said the doctor, "was he so large a man as
that?"

"Lord bless you," sais I, "no, he is a man that thinks he pulls the
wires, like one of Punch's small figures, but the wires pull him and
set him in motion. It is a cant term we have, and signifies 'going out
for wool and coming back shorn.' Yes, he actually shed tears, like a
cook peelin' onions. He reminded me of a poor fellow at Slickville,
who had a family of twelve small children. His wife took a day, and
died one fine morning, leaving another youngster to complete the
baker's dozen, and next week that dear little innocent died too. He
took on dreadfully about it. He boo-hooed right out, which is more
than the politicioner did over his chloroformed bill.

"'Why,' sais I, 'Jeddediah, you ought to be more of a man than to take
on that way. With no means to support your family of poor helpless
little children, with no wife to look after them, and no airthly way
to pay a woman to dry-nurse and starve the unfortunate baby, it's a
mercy it did die, and was taken out of this wicked world.'

"'I know it and feel it, Mr Sam,' said he, lookin' up in a way that
nobody but him could look, 'but--'

"'But what?' sais I.

"'Why,' says he, 'but it don't do to say so, you know.'

"Jist then some of the neighbours came in, when he burst out wuss than
before, and groaned like a thousand sinners at a camp-meetin'.

"Most likely the radical father of the strangled Reform Bill comforted
himself with the same reflection, only he thought it wouldn't do to
say so. Crocodiles can cry when they are hungry, but when they do it's
time to vamose the poke-loken,1 that's a fact. Yes, yes, they
understand these things to England as well as we do, you may depend.
They warn't born yesterday. But I won't follow it out. Liberalism is
playing the devil both with us and the British. Change is going on
with railroad haste in America, but in England, though it travels not
so fast, it never stops, and like a steam-packet that has no freight,
it daily increases its rate of speed as it advances towards the end of
the voyage. Now you have my explanation, Doctor, why I am a
conservative on principle, both at home and abroad."


1 Poke-loken, a marshy place, or stagnant pool, connected with a
river.


"Well," said the doctor," that is true enough as far as England is
concerned, but still I don't quite understand how it is, as a
republican, you are so much of a conservative at home, for your
reasons appear to me to be more applicable to Britain than to the
United States."

"Why," sais I, "my good friend, liberalism is the same thing in both
countries, though its work and tactics may be different. It is
destructive but not creative. It tampers with the checks and balances
of our constitution. It flatters the people by removing the restraints
they so wisely placed on themselves to curb their own impetuosity. It
has shaken the stability of the judiciary by making the experiment of
electing the judges. It has abolished equity, in name, but infused it
so strongly in the administration of the law, that the distinctive
boundaries are destroyed, and the will of the court is now substituted
for both. In proportion as the independence of these high officers is
diminished, their integrity may be doubted. Elected, and subsequently
sustained by a faction, they become its tools, and decide upon party
and not legal grounds. In like manner, wherever the franchise was
limited, the limit is attempted to be removed. We are, in fact, fast
merging into a mere pure democracy,1 for the first blow on the point
of the wedge that secures the franchise, weakens it so that it is sure
to come out at last. Our liberals know this as well your British
Gerrymanderers do."


1 De Tocqueville, who has written incomparably the best work that has
ever appeared on the United States, makes the following judicious
remarks on this subject: "Where a nation modifies the elective
qualification, it may easily be foreseen, that sooner or later that
qualification will be abolished. There is no more invariable rule in
the history of society. The further electoral rights are extended, the
more is felt the need of extending them; for after each concession,
the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with
its strength. The ambition of those who are below the appointed rate
is irritated, in exact proportion of the number of those who are above
it. The exception at last becomes the rule, concession follows
concession, and no step can be made, short of universal suffrage."


"Genymanderers,"1 he said, "who in the world are they? I never heard
of them before."


1 This term came into use in the year 1811, in Massachusetts, where,
for several years previous, the federal and democratic parties stood
nearly equal. In that year, the democratic party, having a majority in
the Legislature, determined so to district the State anew, that those
sections which gave a large number of federal votes might be brought
into one district. The result was, that the democratic party carried
everything before them at the following election, and filled every
office in the State, although it appeared by the votes returned, that
nearly two-thirds of the votes were Federalists. Elridge Gerry, a
distinguished politician at that period, was the inventor of that
plan, which was called Gerrymandering, after him.--Glossary of
Americanisms.


"Why," sais I, "skilful politicians, who so arrange the electoral
districts of a State, that in an election one party may obtain an
advantage over its opponent, even though the latter may possess a
majority of the votes in the State; the truth is, it would be a long
story to go through, but we are corrupted by our liberals with our own
money, that's a fact. Would you believe it now, that so long ago as
six years, and that is a great while in our history seein' we are
growing at such a rate, there were sixty thousand offices in the gift
of the general government, and patronage to the extent of more than
forty million of dollars, besides official pickings and parquisites,
which are nearly as much more in the aggregate? Since then it has
grown with our growth. Or would you believe that a larger sum is
assessed in the city of New York, than would cover the expenses of the
general government at Washington? Constructive mileage may be
considered as the principle of the party, and literally runs through
everything."

"What strange terms you have, Mr Slick," said he; "do pray tell me
what that is."

"Snooping and stool-pidgeoning," sais I.

"Constructive mileage, snooping and stool-pidgeoning!" said he, and he
put his hands on his ribs, and running round in a circle, laughed
until he nearly fell on the ground fairly tuckered out, "what do you
mean?"

"Constructive mileage," says I, "is the same allowance for journeys
supposed to be performed as for those that are actually made, to and
from the seat of government. When a new president comes into office,
Congress adjourns of course on the third of March, and his
inauguration is made on the fourth; the senate is immediately convened
to act on his nominations, and though not a man of them leaves
Washington, each is supposed to go home and return again in the course
of the ten or twelve hours that intervene between the adjournment and
their reassembling. For this ideal journey the senators are allowed
their mileages, as if the journey was actually made. In the case of
those who come from a distance, the sum often amounts, individually,
to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars."

"Why, Mr Slick," said he, "that ain't honest."

"Honest," said I, "who the plague ever said it was? but what can you
expect from red republicans? Well, snooping means taking things on the
sly after a good rumage; and stool-pidgeoning means plundering under
cover of law; for instance, if a judge takes a bribe, or a fellow is
seized by a constable, and the stolen property found on him is given
up, the merciful officer seizes the goods and lets him run, and that
is all that ever is heard of it--that is stool-pidgeoning. But now,"
sais I, "sposin' we take a survey of the place here, for in a general
way I don't affection politics, and as for party leaders, whether
English reformers or American democrats, critters that are dyed in the
wool, I hate the whole caboodle of them. Now, having donated you with
my reasons for being a conservative, sposin' you have a row yourself.
What do you consider best worth seeing here, if you can be said to see
a place when it don't exist? for the English did sartainly deacon the
calf^1 here, that's a fact. They made them smell cotton, and gave them
partikilar Moses, and no mistake."


1 To deacon a calf, is to knock a thing on the head as soon as born or
finished.


"Of the doings of the dead," he said, "all that is around us has a
melancholy interest; but of the living there is a most extraordinary
old fellow that dwells in that white house on the opposite side of the
harbour. He can tell us all the particulars of the two sieges, and
show us the site of most of the public buildings; he is filled with
anecdotes of all the principal actors in the sad tragedies that have
been enacted here; but he labours under a most singular monomania.
Having told these stories so often he now believes that he was present
at the first capture of the fortress, under Colonel Pepperal and the
New England militia in 1745, and at the second in 1754, when it was
taken by Generals Amherst and Wolfe. I suppose he may be ninety years
of age; the first event must have happened therefore nineteen and the
other six years before he was born; in everything else his accuracy of
dates and details is perfectly astonishing."

"Massa," said Sorrow, "I don't believe he is nuffin' but a
reeblushionary suspensioner (a revolutionary pensioner), but it peers
to me dem folks do libb for ebber. My poor old missus used to call 'em
King George's hard bargains, yah, yah, yah. But who comma dere,
Massa?" said he, pointing to a boat that was rapidly approaching the
spot where we stood.

The steersman, who appeared to be the skipper of a vessel, inquired
for Cutler, and gave him a letter, who said as soon as he had read it,
"Slick, our cruise has come to a sudden termination. Blowhard has
purchased and fitted out his whaler, and only awaits my return to take
charge of her and proceed to the Pacific. With his usual generosity,
he has entered my name as the owner of one half of the ship, her
tackle and outfit. I must go on board the 'Black Hawk' immediately,
and prepare for departing this evening."

It was agreed that he should land the doctor at Ship Harbour, who was
anxious to see Jessie, which made him as happy as a clam at
high-water, and put me ashore at Jordan, where I was no less in a
hurry to see a fair friend whose name is of no consequence now, for I
hope to induce her to change it for one that is far shorter, easier to
write and remember, and, though I say it that shouldn't say it, one
that I consait she needn't be ashamed of neither.

On our way back, sais the doctor to me:

"Mr Slick, will you allow me to ask you another question?"

"A hundred," sais I, "if you like."

"Well," sais he, "I have inquired of you what you think of state
affairs; will you tell me what you think about the Church? I see you
belong to what we call the Establishment, and what you denominate the
American Episcopal Church, which is very nearly the same thing. What
is your opinion, now, of the Evangelical and Puseyite parties? Which
is right and which is wrong?"

"Well," sais I, "coming to me about theology is like going to a goat's
house for wool. It is out of my line. My views on all subjects are
practical, and not theoretical. But first and foremost, I must tell
you, I hate all nick-names. In general, they are all a critter knows
of his own side, or the other either. As you have asked me my opinion,
though, I will give it. I think both parties are wrong, because both
go to extremes, and therefore are to be equally avoided. Our Articles,
as dear old Minister used to say, are very wisely so worded as to
admit of some considerable latitude of opinion; but that very latitude
naturally excludes anything ultra. The Puritanical section, and the
Newmanites (for Pusey, so far, is stedfast), are not, in fact, real
churchmen, and ought to leave us. One are Dissenters and the other
Romanists. The ground they severally stand on is slippery. A false
step takes one to the conventicle and the other to the chapel. If I
was an Evangelical, as an honest man, I would quit the Establishment
as Baptist Noel did, and so I would if I were a Newmanite. It's only
rats that consume the food and undermine the foundations of the house
that shelters them. A traitor within the camp is more to be dreaded
than an open enemy without. Of the two, the extreme low-churchmen are
the most dangerous, for they furnish the greatest number of recruits
of schism, and, strange to say, for popery too. Search the list of
those who have gone over to Rome, from Ahab Meldrum to Wilberforce,
and you will find the majority were originally Puritans or
infidels--men who were restless, and ambitious of notoriety, who had
learning and talent, but wanted common sense. They set out to astonish
the world, and ended by astonishing themselves. They went forth in
pursuit of a name, and lost the only one they were known by. Who can
recognise Newman in Father Ignatius, who, while searching for truth,
embraced error? or Baptist Noel in the strolling preacher, who uses a
horse-pond instead of a font, baptizes adults instead of infants, and,
unlike his Master, 'will not suffer little children to come unto him?'
Ah, Doctor, there are texts neither of these men know the meaning of,
'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' One of them has yet to learn that
pictures, vestments, music, processions, candlesticks, and
confessionals are not religion, and the other that it does not consist
in oratory, excitement, camp-meetings, rant, or novelties. There are
many, very many, unobtrusive, noiseless, laborious, practical duties
which clergymen have to perform; what a pity it is they won't occupy
themselves in discharging them, instead of entangling themselves in
controversies on subjects not necessary to salvation! But, alas! the
Evangelical divine, instead of combating the devil, occupies himself
in fighting his bishop, and the Newmanite, instead of striving to save
sinners, prefers to 'curse and quit' his church. Don't ask me
therefore which is right; I tell you, they are both wrong."

"Exactly," sais he.


"In medio tutissimus ibis."


"Doctor," sais I, "there are five languages spoke on the Nova Scotia
coast already: English, Yankee, Gaelic, French, and Indian; for
goodness gracious sake don't fly off the handle that way now and add
Latin to them! But, my friend, as I have said, you have waked up the
wrong passenger, if you think I am an ecclesiastical Bradshaw. I know
my own track. It is a broad gauge, and a straight line, and I never
travel by another, for fear of being put on a wrong one. Do you take?
But here is the boat alongside;" and I shook him by the hand, and
obtained his promise at parting that he and Jessie would visit me at
Slickville in the autumn.

And now, Squire, I must write finis to the cruise of the "Black Hawk,"
and close my remarks on "Nature and Human Nature," or, "Men and
Things," for I have brought it to a termination, though it is a hard
thing to do, I assure you, for I seem as if I couldn't say Farewell.
It is a word that don't come handy, no how I can fix it. It's like
Sam's hat-band which goes nineteen times round, and won't tie at last.
I don't like to bid good-bye to my Journal, and I don't like to bid
good-bye to you, for one is like a child and the other a brother. The
first I shall see again, when Hurst has a launch in the spring, but
shall you and I ever meet again, Squire? that is the question, for it
is dark to me. If it ever does come to pass, there must be a
considerable slip of time first. Well, what can't be cured must be
endured. So here goes. Here is the last fatal word, I shut my eyes
when I write it, for I can't bear to see it. Here it is--


Ampersand.



THE END.