quarantine would practice upon one in the time of greatest need. It is adverse to every impulse of sympathy-antagonistic to all the kindly emotions of the heart, it inculcates a beastly selfishness and fratricidal barbarism which has, in the nature of causes, always brought upon the enforcers of it a retributory certainty of infliction with the worst horrors of their imagination, in a degree of concentrated strength proportionate to their efforts to restrain it. The barricaders of black death who were infatuated by the hideous terror of judgments inflicted for secret sins, were in some degree excusable in acts measured by the light of science, but that such inhumanity, such remorseless heartlessness and cowardly selfishness should exist and be tolerated now, is surely the most inconceivable incident of barbarism connected with the present age.

There are at this time agitators for the removal of the New York quarantine from its present site to a greater distance from this city, with the avowed object of effecting a more perfect seclusion of the sick. Surely every individual of common intelligence can now comprehend the practical truth, that pure air is the only real security against epidemics. In all the regulations of quarantine this prime necessity has ever been overlooked; confinement in a foul atmosphere has been the distinguishing feature of sickly ships, quarantine hospitals and lazarettos, in all ages, everywhere; they convert common fevers into pestilence, which, in their attempts to restrain, they oftentimes render contagious, and they are of all others the most concentrated foci of disease. They constantly avert the attention of the public from the true precautionary sanitary measures, under the absurd impression that epidemics can be shut out or barricaded like unwelcome visitors.

It is unnecessary now to state that there is no disease to which mankind is heir, contagious or non-contagious, which may not be aggarvated by the infliction of quarantine, and quarantines are necessarily dangerous and disease-producing in proportion to the strictness with which the laws that govern them are enforced. What is the disease which any community would fear from contagion Small-pox is perhaps the most pre-eminently contagious epidemic that prevails, but can it prevail in any civilized community in the world? Certainly not. The guard against it from contact is perfect by vaccination, which can be made universal without an item of expense to the city or State.

There is no disease compatible with cleanliness which may occur at all, that can be otherwise influenced than aggravated by the quarantine of persons.

But of things. Well ventilated and cleanly ships rarely or never have to stand quarantine, no matter what their cargo, or port from which they last cleared.

Ships which are built without proper provision for fresh air, overcrowded with passengers, or not kept clean, are those which come into port infected. That a large number of such, congregated together, may prove a fruitful source for epidemics, there is abundant evidence; a prominent exemplification now exists at the New York quarantine. And the spread of disease from them can only be measured by the conditions adequate to its

support.

If ships are properly ventilated and kept clean they are the most healthy of human abodes, because they have the freest access of pure air. Ships without proper provision for fresh air sometimes lie for long periods in

sickly harbors and take in such cargoes as may render it impossible to prevent their accumulating the seeds of disease; others take on board loads of human beings with closely packed clothing and rubbish, frequently from the vilest dens of corruption; and others are freighted with filthy rags, hides, &c., liable to contain infection to begin with, and sure to generate it if not exposed to the free access of air, which will multiply and break forth with violence commensurate with the conditions which favor it. On arrival, the practice of quarantine is-if any one on board is sick of an infectious disease, not only to detain such one on board to continue inhaling the poison which is destroying life, but to detain all the rest, likewise, till they are also poisoned-the alternative to this is the quarantine hospital, to be surrounded by misery in order to alleviate it! Nor does it end here; the ship and cargo of poison is anchored in the midst of a populous community for the exhalations which arise from her hold to poison the air they breathe, disease and death thus stabbing in the dark, while the victim is under a false sense of security, from the traitor which he has nourished in his bosom.

Can any one now survey the quarantine ground and harbor of New York-and other quarantines are just as bad-and view the crape-clad mansions which border the finest bay in the world, without revolting from his inmost soul against quarantines?

But what should be done with infected ships and cargoes; the infected THINGS which entail disease and death? The principles of economy alone will dictate a ready reply. Let storehouses be erected, with proper provision for security and the admission of free air-nature's great disinfector -at a sufficient distance from the city, and there let every infected ship be at once unladen, and the ship ventilated and permitted to go to sea again.

And of persons; would any one, can any one, apply quarantine to himself, and say, seclude them from all human sympathy, from the tender look, the gentle hand, the

No! never! Persons communicate no infection-carry no epidemics. Banish the very name of quarantine as applied to them, and require that they only be detained, when necessary, long enough to secure cleanliness, and prohibit the taking of clothing, baggage and the like, which has been subject to infection, till it is cleansed and purified.

Things and not persons cause and propagate disease.

Art. II-WESTWARD SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

THE swallow travels, and the bee builds now, as these creatures of instinct traveled and built in the days of Moses and Job; but the capabilities and acquisitions of rational man are all progressive, not only as an individual, from infancy to age, but as a species from the beginning to the end of time. This is shown by every art which man has invented and in every science he has employed. Let us proceed to open up more specifically this illustrative department of our general theme, and consider the three-fold advantages, political, mechanical and educational—which the age of Washington permits us to enjoy.

The science of government, as practiced in this country, is undoubtedly constructed on the loftiest principles of common sense, and constitutes the best model and most salutary protection to each subordinate department of productive thought. Here the division of labor has been carried to the greatest extent, not only in the deliberative, but in the executive departments; and progress is steadily pursued without attempting to anticipate results either by springing forward after crude theories or backward in attempts to copy extinct forms. Our view of liberty differs essentially from that held by the ancients. By the latter, citizenship was regarded as the highest phase of humanity, and man, as a political being, could rise no higher than to membership in a State; therefore it was that Aristotle affirmed the State to be before the individual. But with us the State, and consequently the citizenship, only affords the means of obtaining still higher objects, the fullest possible development of human faculties both in this world and in that which is to come.

The science of freedom, which is destined to spread its irresistible empire over this continent, started its primary germ in the bosom of our antipodes. Long before the words people, law, equality, independence and equitable legislation had found a place in refined languages, republicanism glowed in the mind of Moses, and was partially enbodied in the Hebrew commonwealth. The safeguard of all races as they were propagated, and the ennobler of all thoughts as they were colonized, this blessing of blessings has ever migrated with advancing humanity from age to age, till at length a fitting field has been attained for its fullest and most fruitful develop

ment.

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Heeren well observes that Greece may be considered as a sample paper of free commonwealths." But even that renowned land never saw her people enjoy their just rights; nor was such an exalted privilege realized by the nations of continental Europe, until the great principle of popular consent was recognized as the foundation of righteous authority. The crusades broke down feudalism, and elective monarchies grew increasingly representative of the popular will, up to the transition period, when James II. was hurled from his tyrannical throne, and William of Orange became the people's king. All the best political science of the old world went with the latter from the comparatively free Netherlands, to ameliorate England, and foster her colonies in America. The essence of the great revolution of 1688 was eminently pacific and progressive, occasioning no sacking of towns nor shedding of blood. According to Macaulay, it announced that the strife between the popular element and the despotic element in the government, which had lasted so long, and been so prolific

in seditions, rebellions, plots, battles, sieges, impeachments, proscriptions, and judicial murders, was at an end; and that the former, having at length fairly triumphed over the latter, was thenceforth to be permitted freely to develop itself, and become predominant in the English polity.

In tracing kindred paths of human progress, we have constantly had occasion to note how the affairs of all consecutive ages, though produced immediately by the voluntary agency of diversified actors, have, nevertheless, been controlled by the divine counsel, and contributed to execute the perfected unity of the divine plan. How great and manifold were the purposes which Providence comprehended in the discovery of America, and the peculiar colonies planted on its shores, we need not attempt to portray. But it is impossible to doubt that prominent among these were improvements in the science of government, the evolution of new theories of civil polity, and a grander application of such principles as had already been made known.

As a new world was about to be civilized, and required the highest measure of free intelligence, Bacon, Harrington, Sidney, Milton, Locke, Grotious, Puffendorf and Montesquieu, arose to pour successive shafts of light upon the new but sombre skies. Parental injustice and colonial strife for a while darkened earth and heaven; but in due time the sun of American freedom ascended with auspicious splendor, when the mists of prejudice was dispersed and the fresh revelations of a new political science appeared like some glorious landscape, amid clear shining after rain. All the brightest beamings of antecedent light fell concentrated in that ray which illumined the cabin of the Mayflower, and kindled the fairest beacon of freedom on the eastern extremity of our continent. It was an effulgence given to be thenceforth diffused westward evermore, often buffeted, indeed, by adverse elements, but never impeded in its predominating progress, and much less diminished or obscured.

* ** *

Before the pilgrim fathers disembarked, on the 11th of November, 1620, off Cape Cod, they drew up and subscribed a formal social compact, from which is the following extract: "We, whose names are under-written * * * do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, * and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names." To this remarkable document were appended the names of all the male adults on board the ship; the whole number of both sexes being a hundred and one, who took possession of a desert island, where day now first dawns on the sublimest republic of earth.

According to an Eastern fable the world is a harp. Its strings are earth, air, fire, flood, life, death and wind. At certain intervals an angel, flying through the heavens, strikes the harp. Its vibrations are those mighty issues of good and evil, the great epochs which mark the destiny of our race. In allusion to this, E. C. Wines remarks: "The mystic harp was touched when the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. Its quivering strings discoursed their most eloquent music. The burden of the notes was human freedom, human brotherhood, human rights, the sovereignty of the people, the supremacy of law over will, the divine right of man to

govern himself. The strain is still prolonged in vibrations of ever-widening circuit. That was an era of eras. Its influence, vitalized by the American Union, is fast becoming paramount throughout the civilized world. Europe. feels it at this very moment to her utmost extremities, in every sense, in every fiber, in every pulsation of her convulsed and struggling energies. The great birth of that era is practical liberty; liberty based on the principles of the Gospel; liberty fashioned into symmetry and beauty and strength by the molding power of Christianity; liberty which places sovereignty in the hands of the people, and then sends them to the Bible that they may learn how to wear the crown.' And what a birth! Already is the infant grown into a giant. Liberty, as it exists among us, that is, secured by constitutional guaranties, impregnated with Gospel principles, and freed from alliance with royalty, has raised this country from colonial bondage and insignificance to the rank of a leading power among the governments of earth.

"The union of these States under one government, effected by our national Constitution, has given to America a career unparalleled in the annals of time for rapidity and brilliancy. Her three millions of people have swelled, in little more than half a century, to twenty-five millions. Her one million square miles have expanded into nearly four millions. Her thirteen States have grown into thirty-one. Her navigation and commerce rival those of the oldest and most commercial nations. Her keels vex all waters. Her maritime means and maritime power are seen on all seas and oceans, lakes and rivers. Her inventive genius has given to the world the two greatest achievements of human ingenuity, in the steamboat and the electric telegraph. Two thousand steamers ply her waters; twenty thousand miles of magnetic wires form a net-work over her soil. The growth of her cities is more like magic than reality. New York has doubled its population in ten years. The man is yet living who felled the first tree and reared the first log-cabin on the site of Cincinnati. Now that city contains one hundred and fifty thousand souls. It is larger than the ancient and venerable city of Bristol, in England."

Thus the founders of our national compact have proved themselves the unsurpassed adepts in political science. They unquestionably belonged to that select number of whom Bolingbroke said that it has pleased the author of nature to mingle them from time to time, at distant intervals, among the societies of men, to maintain the moral system of the universe at an elevated point. Nor shall we find less variety of profound invention, or less popular advantages derived from practical applications in the realm of American mechanical science, than in the primary one of civic excellence just considered.

The labors of cotemporaries generally are in harmony with the epoch; and in America especially do they all tend to promote that ultimate destiny which promises to be much better as well as greater than the past sufferings, commotions and hopes of mankind. The Westering career of inventive genius reminds one of Milton's hero marching through the dark abyss to discover fairer realms beyond. Though assailed by feelings of discouragement, and fantastic apparitions rise before him, still he persistingly rises from the dark depths, to set his foot on the gigantic bridge that leads from gloom to brightness, and sees at length the pendant new world hanging in a golden chain, fast by the empyreal heaven, "with opal towers and battlements adorned of living sapphire."