"
"I trust it will be long, very long, my friend," said I, "ere the
rage for speculation introduces 'the money-changers into the temple,'
with us."
Mr. Slick looked at me with a most ineffable expression of pity and
surprise. "Depend on it, sir," said he, with a most philosophical
air, "this Province is much behind the intelligence of the age. But
if it is behind us in that respect, it is a long chalk ahead on us in
others. I never seed or heerd tell of a country that had so many
natural privileges as this. Why, there are twice as many harbours and
water-powers here, as we have all the way from Eastport to New
OrLEENS. They have all they can ax, and more than they desarve. They
have iron, coal, slate, grindstone, lime, firestone, gypsum,
free-stone, and a list as long as an auctioneer's catalogue. But they
are either asleep, or stone blind to them. Their shores are crowded
with fish, and their lands covered with wood. A government that lays
as light on 'em as a down counterp'in, and no taxes. Then look at
their dykes. The Lord seems to have made 'em on purpose for such lazy
folks. If you were to tell the citizens of our country that these
dykes had been cropped for a hundred years without manure, they'd
say, they guessed you had seen Col. Crockett, the greatest hand at a
flam in our nation. You have heerd tell of a man who couldn't see
London for the houses? I tell you, if we had this country, you
couldn't see the harbours for the shipping.
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