a charge of theft, was a boy. This lad, instead of being committed
to a common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and
there taught a trade; and in the course of time he would be bound
apprentice to some respectable master. Thus, his detection in this
offence, instead of being the prelude to a life of infamy and a
miserable death, would lead, there was a reasonable hope, to his
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being reclaimed from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society.
I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many
of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous. Strange as it
may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the
wig and gown – a dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing
for the part – which encourages that insolent bearing and language,
and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth,
so frequent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot help doubting
whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities and
abuses of the old system, may not have gone too far into the
opposite extreme; and whether it is not desirable, especially in
the small community of a city like this, where each man knows the
other, to surround the administration of justice with some
artificial barriers against the ‘Hail fellow, well met’ deportment
of everyday life. All the aid it can have in the very high
character and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it
has, and well deserves to have; but it may need something more:
not to impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the
ignorant and heedless; a class which includes some prisoners and
many witnesses. These institutions were established, no doubt,
upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making
the laws, would certainly respect them. But experience has proved
this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better than the judges
of America, that on the occasion of any great popular excitement
the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert its own
supremacy.
The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness,
courtesy, and good breeding. The ladies are unquestionably very
beautiful – in face: but there I am compelled to stop. Their
education is much as with us; neither better nor worse. I had
heard some very marvellous stories in this respect; but not
believing them, was not disappointed. Blue ladies there are, in
Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in most other
latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to be so.
Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose attachment to the
forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are
most exemplary. Ladies who have a passion for attending lectures
are to be found among all classes and all conditions. In the kind
of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the
Pulpit has great influence. The peculiar province of the Pulpit in
New England (always excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear
to be the denouncement of all innocent and rational amusements.
The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, are the only means of
excitement excepted; and to the church, the chapel, and the
lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.
Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an
escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its
ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please.
They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of
brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and
leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous;
and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the
difficulty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true
believers certain of going there: though it would be hard to say
by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. It is
so at home, and it is so abroad. With regard to the other means of
excitement, the Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always