recovered it has been, in some measure; and, were the pens of the country
true to their owners' privileges, we should soon come to a just view of
the sacred nature of private character, as well as the target-like
vulnerability of public follies and public vice. It is certain that, for a
series of dangerous years, notions just the reverse of this have prevailed
among us, gradually rendering the American press equally the vehicle of
the most atrocious personal calumny, and the most flatulent national
self-adulation. It is under such a state of things that the few evils
alluded to in this work have had their rise. Bodies of men, however
ignorant or small, have come to consider themselves as integral portions
of a community that never errs, and, consequently, entitled to esteem
themselves infallible. When in debt, they have fancied it political
liberty to pay their debts by the strong hand; a very easy transition for
those who believe themselves able to effect all their objects. The disease
has already passed out of New York into Pennsylvania; it will spread, like
any other epidemic, throughout the country; and there will soon be a
severe struggle among us, between the knave and the honest man. Let the
class of the latter look to it. It is to be hoped it is still
sufficiently powerful to conquer.

These few remarks are made in explanation of certain opinions of Mr.
Wallingford, that have been extorted from him by the events of the day, as
he was preparing this work for the press; remarks that might seem out of
place, were it not a part of his original plan, which contemplated
enlarging far more than he has, indeed, on some of the prominent
peculiarities of the state of society in which he has passed the greater
part of his days.