theories and statements that have been boldly advanced in connection with
this subject. In our view, New York is at this moment, much the most
disgraced state in the Union, notwithstanding she has never failed to pay
the interest on her public debt; and her disgrace arises from the fact that
her laws are trampled underfoot, without any efforts, at all commensurate
with the object, being made to enforce them. If _words_ and _professions_
can save the character of a community, all may yet be well; but if states,
like individuals, are to be judged by their actions, and the "tree is to be
known by its fruit," God help us!

For ourselves, we conceive that true patriotism consists in laying bare
everything like public vice, and in calling such things by their right
names. The great enemy of the race has made a deep inroad upon us, within
the last ten or a dozen years, under cover of a spurious delicacy on the
subject of exposing national ills; and it is time that they who have not
been afraid to praise, when praise was merited, should not shrink from the
office of censuring, when the want of timely warnings may be one cause of
the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of institutions like
ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's business, is nobody's
business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very
dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives of the honest man.




CHAPTER I.

"Look you,
Who comes here: a young man, and an old, in solemn talk."