“You don’t get them in America,” said a voice which was beginning to be recognised.  “We try at any rate,” said the Senator.  “Now is it possible that an accident of birth should give you excellence and wisdom?  What is the result?  Not a tenth of your hereditary legislators assemble in the beautiful hall that you have built for them.  And of that tenth the greater half consists of counsellors of state who have been placed there in order that the business of the country may not be brought to a standstill.  Your hereditary chamber is a fiction supplemented by the element of election, the election resting generally in the very bosom of the House of Commons.”  On this subject, although he had promised to be short, he said much more, which was received for the most part in silence.  But when he ended by telling them that they could have no right to call themselves a free people till every legislator in the country was elected by the votes of the people, another murmur was heard through the hall.

“I told you,” said he waxing more and more energetic, as he felt the opposition which he was bound to overcome, “that what I had to say to you would not be pleasant.  If you cannot endure to hear me, let us break up and go away.  In that case I must tell my friends at home that the tender ears of a British audience cannot bear rough words from American lips.  And yet if you think of it we have borne rough words from you and have borne them with good-humour.”  Again he paused, but as none rose from their seats he went on, “Proceeding from hereditary legislature I come to hereditary property.  It is natural that a man should wish to give to his children after his death the property which he has enjoyed during their life.  But let me ask any man here who has not been born an eldest son himself, whether it is natural that he should wish to give it all to one son.  Would any man think of doing so, by the light of his own reason,—­out of his own head as we say?  Would any man be so unjust to those who are equal in his love, where he not constrained by law, and by custom more iron-handed even than the law?” The Senator had here made a mistake very common with Americans, and a great many voices were on him at once.  “What law?” “There is no law.”  “You know nothing about it” “Go back and learn.”

“What!” cried the Senator coming forward to the extreme verge of the platform and putting down his foot as though there were strength enough in his leg to crush them all; “Will any one have the hardihood to tell me that property in this country is not affected by primogeniture?” “Go back and learn the law.”  “I know the law perhaps better than most of you.  Do you mean to assert that my Lord Lambswool can leave his land to whom he pleases?  I tell you that he has no more than a life-interest in it, and that his son will only have the same.”  Then an eager Briton on the platform got up and whispered to the Senator for a few minutes, during which the murmuring