defended his own roof-tree, and when it was necessary to take refuge in the forts, all united for the common defence, and the danger overpast, all betook themselves to the tilling of their fields. Upon their own right hands they relied for protection against foes, and those hands were skilled to wield the axe and the implements of husbandry.

That these strong, brave men did not rise to the hight of granting to others the liberty claimed for themselves, is scarcely to be marveled at. But one country in all the world had granted to its people religious freedom-that country was not England-and for those who had fled from persecution to preserve pure their faith to become in turn persecutors when that faith is threatened, is only evidence of the human failings of the Pilgrim Father's themselves.

But in the New England colonies all had a share in the government—that is to say, all men. Then, as now, woman was the mere adjunct of man, a sort of adscripta homini, with no recognized individual existence except as tax-payer and criminal, though the tenderness naturally felt for those who had sacrificed so much and braved so much for them, led to modifications of the old English law and a little velvet sheathing of the iron hand it laid so heavily upon woman. New England held slaves, it is true; but in Massachusetts, without any formal act of emancipation, they were held to be free according to the provisions of the Bill of Rights; and as we follow her history down from 1620, we find constant efforts to remove disabilities, and utter refusal to recognize a governing class. Since, in this grand old commonwealth, all men are now absolutely equal before the law, it is there more clearly than elsewhere perceived that, as no class of men is fit to legislate for another class, so one sex is not fit to legislate for the other. Doubtless the day is not far distant

when, in the land of Adams and Hancock, the truths which lie at the base of our government will be accepted in practice as well as in theory, and on this trinity of truths, limited in application only by humanity, will be reared the fairest superstructure of government the world has seen.

In beautiful Florida the reverse of all this has been going on. During generations she looked to a power outside herself for protection and support; the representatives of that power were ever the soldier and the priest. After the territory became by purchase the propperty of the United States, a few persons who owned immense tracts of land "planted" successfully and became wealthy; but the State as such was poor. The manorial distribution of land prevented the growth of villages, and necessarily the establishment of schools. The patroon of the manor provided for the education of his family by private tutors, or by sending his children to Northern schools or to Europe. The occasional mails brought him the papers, reviews and books of the outside world, and in neighboring States there were colleges for higher education for the people nothing. It was a penal offense to teach a slave to read, and for the poor white no one thought. Thus was maintained a governing class made up of the few rich and educated, between whom and the proletaire there was nothing; no provision for recruiting the ranks of the higher from the lower class; no provision by which the serf, for such he was, but without the advantages of the serfs of feudal times, could rise from his abject condition.

By the foulest deeds that ever disgraced a Christian land, the only people aside from "the plantation hands" who were in any sense agriculturists, were driven from the soil, and all but a feeble remnant departed beyond the Mississippi. In this vile, shameful contest, carried on by a government

that by its charter promised freedom to all men, treasure enough was spent to have made roads and built schoolhouses all over Florida. But instead of doing any thing so useful as to educate a people, we thrust from their homes those in whom love of native land was as strong as in Swiss or Hungarian, and left the home of the orange and the palm to the dominion of reptiles and wild Nature.

With little real progress to note, we come down to 1861, when a handful of men, acting for a State again, brought the horrors of war upon this devoted land; and, as ever before, it came with a weight more crushing than elsewhere. Laws with regard to taxes, never enforced in other localities, were executed here; and without any confiscation act, or any settled purpose of compelling the South to pay the expenses of the war, Floridians saw themselves stripped of their possessions, and poverty, such as exists nowhere else, became their portion. Strangers, politicians "of the baser sort," have taken possession of their State government; all their offi cials are foreigners in every sense of that term; and as they governed in the past so are they governed now. The spirit of oppression has made its vicious round, and they who denied all share in the making of laws, by which they were to be governed, to red men, to black, and to the poor of their own color, are now legislated for by red men, by black, by the poor and ignorant, not only of their own State, but by those who have come upon them like the plague of flies upon the oppressors

of old.

Many no doubt find a sort of justice in this, and derive intense satisfaction from its contemplation. To me there is none. As in the human body one

member can not suffer but all the members suffer with it, so, in a country, one portion of the people can neither oppress nor be oppressed without involving all in the consequences. Only criminal indifference could have allowed such a constitution as its present one to be forced upon a people, and until it is changed there will be but little real progress. When there shall be no disfranchised class-when all shall have a fair representation, a fair share in the making of laws—then, and then only, will the question be answered: Will Florida be rapidly settled?

When she can offer to the emigrant, as does the North, the school, the newspaper, and the church, her climate and natural productions will attract the people of Southern Europe and those in the North who love not the cold and cruel winter, as Wisconsin and Minnesota do the Scandinavians. Lake Harney, instead of the solitary hut that now graces its shores, will be bordered with towns, to which, in winter, people will flock, as they do in summer to the lakes of Maine and New Hampshire. Fishermen and mariners will utilize the waters, farmers will till the now desolate wastes, lumbermen will cut from the pathless forests woods beautiful as those brought from the Indies, and Florida will do her part towards perfecting the ideal American—the human being that is to combine the conquering force of the Briton, the endurance of the Scandinavian, the vivacity of the Celt, the fire of the Italian, the religious fervor of the Spaniard without his bigotry, the thrift of the Lowlander, all elevated and refined by the thought and culture of Vaterland. This American, free himself, living in a truly free land, will be the apostle of freedom to all peoples.

WHAT'S his name?" "Nestor."

"A good name, and a good steed, I'll be bound. That neck's a beauty-and not a bad shoulder, either. I believe you, Rolette; he ought to skim the turf without crinkling a daisy, and from his limbs I should judge he would make an expert dodger on a trail through chaparral thickets and underbrush. What a chest! Why, he ought to take you up a mountain on a full gallop! Well, it's sauce for a man with any relish for horse-flesh to see a well-bred and welltrained horse in this country. We've got some average horses in our party -you see them over there, grazing by the bend of the river; they're comfortable on a dead lope, but after all, are subject to the hereditary mustang infirmity of tricking a man in the very worst place possible. The faintest cross of mustang blood shows itself as certain as scrofula in a family. Half of these California horses will behave admirably around home; but you once get stuck in a slough, or put them to a little tough work a hundred miles from where they are known, and they'll betray you every time. Sometimes they ride finely for six months, until the owner wishes to sell them and stands just ready to warrant their reliability, when of a sudden they will astonish his senses by the most unparalleled feats of kicking and backing and rolling over -inbred, of course.

"But, Rolette, I was just thinking how much this horse-Nestor, you call him (what a sleek coat he's got!)-how much he reminds me of a horse I knew in the Army of the Tennessee, owned by an officer of the Signal Corps. Just

his size, same color-dappled chestnut -and an eye-the very same thing. Well, sir, that was the most knowing horse I ever saw that hadn't been trained in a circus. When the troops were on a march he would lie down every night where his master told him, and coil his neck around for a sort of pillow for his master's head, and there he'd lie till morning, without stirring his feet or changing his position. He had a sole affection for his master, so that if he were left saddled and bridled anywhere he would wait hours for the return of his rider; and when left in that way, checked with the bridle rein, he would never allow any person to come near him except his owner, and his light heels were lifted toward everybody but him. He cultivated but one friendship, and but one.-Look-a-here, if you must be going, don't forget my message. Tell Judge Deming and his party to drop around this evening, and come yourself, with your friends. Our ladies wish to see you all, and we keep open camp and no pickets out. It so rejoices me to meet you in the valley; we must have a round talk. Don't forget."

"Aye, aye, Craig, I'll do it," was the brief response, and with a low chirp and the gentlest prick of a spur the horse wheeled away from the bank of the Merced and shot off toward the trail, with a grace that roused Craig's admiration and made him watch his gait and listen to the thud of his nimble hoofs on the springy meadow until he was out of sight.

Craig turned away toward the tethered horses, thinking of the delight of his eyes in meeting his old friend