and if by chance you find one on a farm, he insists on living and eating with the overseer.  So jealous are they of the appearance of service, that on many of the railways there was considerable difficulty in getting the guard, or conductor, to wear a riband on his hat designating his office, and none of the people attached to the railway station will put on any livery or uniform by which they can be known.  I wonder if it ever occurs to these sons of the Republic, that in thus acting they are striking at the very root of their vaunted equal rights of man, and spreading a broader base of aristocracy than even the Old World can produce.  Servants, of course, there must be in every community, and it is ridiculous to suppose that American gentlemen ever did, or ever will, live with their housemaids, cooks, and button-boys; and if this be so, and that Americans consider such service as degrading, is it not perfectly clear that the sons of the soil set themselves up as nobles, and look upon the emigrants—­on whom the duties of service chiefly devolve—­in the light of serfs?

I may, while discussing service, as well touch upon the subject of strikes.  The Press in America is very ready to pass strictures on the low rate of wages in this country, such as the three-ha’penny shirt-makers, and a host of other ill-paid and hard-worked poor.  Every humane man must regret to see the pressure of competition producing such disgraceful results; but my American friends, if they look carefully into their own country, will see that they act in precisely the same way, as far as they are able; in short, that they get labour as cheap as they can.  Fortunately for the poor emigrant, the want of hands is so great, that they can insure a decent remuneration for their work; but the proof that the Anglo-Saxon in America is no better than the rest of the world in this respect, is to be found in the fact that strikes for higher wages also take place among them.  I remember once reading in the same paper of the strike of three different interests; one of which was that indispensable body, the hotel-waiters.  The negroes even joined with the whites, and they gained their point; they knew the true theory of strikes, and made their move “when the market was rising.”  The hotels were increasing their charges, and they merely wanted their share of the prosperity.

I now propose to consider one of the brightest features in the national character—­Intelligence.  Irresistible testimony is borne to their appreciation of the value of education, not merely by the multitudes of schools of all kinds, and by the numbers that attend them, but also by that arrangement of which they may be so justly proud, and which opens the door to every branch of study to their poorest citizens free of expense.  No praise is too high for such a noble national institution as the school system of the Republic.  How far it may be advisable to bring all the various classes of the community together at that early age