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did not really want to send to America, and did not send. We let them off on that excuse, however, and I came away,--leaving the suit stone dead I rejoice that imprisonment for debt was recently abolished in France,― I trust forever. I doubt that it ever made one debtor even outwardly honest; I am sure it often compelled the relatives and friends of prodigals to pay debts which should never have been contracted. It is wrong—it is immoral to trust those who do not deserve credit,-it is doubly wrong to impose the payment of such debts upon some frugal uncle or brother of the debtor, in pity for that debtor's weeping wife and children. “Let every tub stand on its own bottom," is a sound rule, which imprisonment for debt tends strongly to subvert. Men are trusted who should not be, on the calculation, "I can get my pay out of his relatives by putting him into jail;" hence tavern-scores and merchants' accounts where cash down would have precluded extravagance and dissipation. The civilized world is not yet prepared for the repeal of all laws designed to enforce the collection of simple debts (not trusts); but this reform must come in due time, when mankind will wonder why it could so long have been resisted. False credit-credit to those who do not deserve, and will be rather harmed than helped by it—is the bane of our civilization. Every second man you meet is struggling with debts which he never should have contracted. We need a legal reform, which will greatly diminish our current facilities for running into debt.

In the latter part of June, Mr. Greeley visited the Alps again, this time with his family. The journey and the stay at Chamonix are thus described:

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On my later visit to Europe, I left Paris with my family in June; travelled by rail to Dijon, capital of the kingdom of Burgundy that was,—the palace of whose kings is now a museum of deeply interesting relics of that monarchy, and, after spending a bright day there, we took diligence at 9 P. M., were toiling up the Jura next forenoon, and were soon rattling down their southeastern slope, whence we reached Geneva before night. Passing thence up the valley of the Arve to Chamonix, we spent five days there in deeply interested observation of the adjacent peaks and glaciers. I gave one day to a visit to Montanvert and the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice), across which cattle are annually driven a practical path being first made by cutting ice and filling crevices—to a sunny southern slope ("the Garden "), 9,000 feet above tide level, on an adjacent mountain, where they are pastured till snow falls and lies, and then driven back to the valley whence they came. The ice of the Mer de Glace is so frequently seamed with deep cracks and crevices as to afford most unsafe footing for novices in Alpine pedestrianism; and I, for one, was glad to turn about, when I had gone but half-way across it, and regain the solid ground I had eagerly left. You climb thence nearly a thousand feet to a perch known as Montanvert, whence a good view is had, in clear-weather, of several lofty peaks, Mont Blanc included; and when I had thence made my way down to Chamonix

(you ascend on horse or mule back, but descend slowly on foot), I was as weary as any one need wish to be.

During my absence on this trip, my wife had undertaken to visit, with our children, the Glacier de Boissons, which seems scarcely a mile distant from the hotels at Chamonix, and easily accessible; but she had failed to reach it, lost her way and been obliged to hire a peasant-woman to pilot her, and carry our fagged-out younger child, back to our hotel. I laughed at this misadventure when we met, and volunteered to lead the party next morning straight up to the glacier aforesaid, so that they might put their hands on it; but, on trying it, I failed miserably. So many deep ravines and steep moraines were found to bar our way, where all seemed smooth and level from our hotel, and the actual was so much greater than the apparent distance, that I gave up, after an hour's rugged clambering, and contented myself with asserting that I could reach the glacier by myself,as I still presume I could, though I never tried. Either of the great glaciers is so large that it dwarfs everything around it; belittling obstacles and distances to an extent elsewhere incredible.

The Glacier des Bois is said to measure over fifty miles from the giant snow-drift wherein it originates, filling an indentation or gully leading down the east side of Mont Blanc, to the very bed of the Arve in the Chamonix valley. Indeed, the Mer de Glace itself may be considered a branch, if not the principal source, of the little river, and is approached by following up the bed of the stream for a couple of miles or so above the village, then stepping from one to another of the giant boulders, brought down by the glacier from the icy region above, and which here fill the spacious bed of the stream. I spent a forenoon here, watching the gradual dissolution of the ice by the warm breath of the valley, and noting how moraines are made.

A moraine is a ridge or bank of earth and stones, averaging four to eight feet high, and perhaps ten to twenty in width at the base, which is uniformly found bordering a glacier on either side, with one far larger— oftener two or more- at its lower extremity. It is so unfailingly separated by distances of ten to twenty feet from the glacier, that the green observer finds it difficult to comprehend that it is naturally formed of the points and fragments of rock broken off by the giant masses of ice in their imperceptible, yet constant progress at the average rate of six feet or so per day from the snow-drifts cradled between the higher peaks to the deep valleys, green with grass, and crimson with Alpine flowers.

But steady observation detects a constant wearing away, in warm weather, of the lower part of the glacier facing the valley, and a consequent formation of cavities and channels therein, whereby the stones are loosened and allowed to precipitate themselves. But, while the water falls directly downward, the stones fall outward, or, striking a lower slope of ice, are so deflected from the perpendicular that they rest at last at some distance outward from the base of the glacier. Hence moraines.

We were in Chamonix, I believe, from the 20th to the 25th of June, too early by a month. Snow fell repeatedly, though lightly; rain fre

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quently and heavily; the mountain tops were usually shrouded in cloud and fog; and we only caught a clear view of the summit of Mont Blanc on the morning of our departure. Swamp Alder (a large shrub with us) here attaining the size of a considerable tree, so that it is frequently split into fence-rails; and stretches of meadow, carpeted and blazing with the deep scarlet of innumerable flowers, — are among my recollections of that lofty, high-walled valley, so deeply embosomed in the Alps, and so rich in everything that renders the vicinage of mountains attractive to civilized

man.

Returning to Geneva, the party took steamboat on Lake Leman to Lusanne, whence they journeyed by diligence to Berne. Thence they intended to journey to Interlachen and the Bernese Oberland, but the sudden illness of one of the children prevented. They hastened back to the lovely little city of Lusanne, where Mr. Greeley left his family, and by Neufchatel, Basle, and Strasburg, proceeded to Paris. There he remained two or three weeks, and then went to London. His letters from London show that he thought vastly more of that city than of Paris. "London," he said, "deepens its impressions upon me with each visit; nay, I rarely spend a day within its vast circumference without increasing wonder and admiration. It is the capital, if not of the civilized, certainly of the commercial world, civilized and otherwise. To her wharves the raw produce of all climes and countries, to her vaults the gold of California and Australia, to her cabinets the gems of Golconda and Brazil, insensibly gravitate. From this mighty heart radiate the main arteries of the world's trade; a great crash here brings down leading and long-established houses in the South Pacific or the Yellow Sea. I dropped in today on an old friend whom I had known ten or fifteen years ago as a philosophic radical and social reformer in America. I found him in a great sugar-house under the shadow of the Bank, correcting a Price Current which he edits, having just made up a telegraphic dispatch for his house's correspondents in Bombay. I found him calm and wise as ever; more practical, some would say, but still hopeful of the good time coming; he had been several years with that house, and he told me his income was quite satisfactory, and that his eldest son was doing very well in Australia. * There is much mistaken pride and

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false dignity in England; but if a Briton insists on being proud of London, I shall not quarrel with him on that head."

He thought that the better order of speaking in the House of Commons surpassed that of the American House of Representatives, but that the average ability in London as evinced in speaking was below that of Washington City. The English, he thought, were unskilful in varnishing vice.

Of Paris he said:

Paris is the Paradise of thoughtless boys with full pockets; but I, if ever thoughtless, had ceased to be a boy some time ere I first greeted the " "gay, bright, airy city of the Seine." I presume I could now enjoy a week of the careless, sunny life of her mob of genteel idlers; but a month of it would sate and bore me. To rise reluctantly to a late breakfast; trifle away the day, from noon to 5 P. M., in riding and sight-seeing; dine elaborately; and thenceforward spend the evening at theatre, opera, or party, is a routine that soon tells on one who is indurated in the habit of making the most of every working-hour. I envy no man his happiness; I envy least of all the pleasure-sekeer, who chases his nimble, coquettish butterfly, year in, year out, along the Boulevards and around the "Places" of the giddy metropolis of France.

He embarked at Liverpool under the deep impression that something had gone wrong with his family, a presentiment which gave him solicitude throughout the homeward voyage, which, on account of sea-sickness, was one of even unusual torture. Upon reaching New-York, he learned that his mother had died upon the day of his departure from Liverpool.

CHAPTER XVI.

CAMPAIGN OF 1852-THE WHIG PARTY EXIT.

The Dawn of a New Political Era-The Political Canvass of 1852-The Nominations- Mr. Greeley Mildly Supports General Scott, and "Spits Upon the Platform" - His Individual Platform-A Lively Campaign Terminating in Utter Rout.

HORACE GREELEY had now coöperated with the Whig party since its organization, but from the year 1848 with diminished zeal. Theretofore, his "abstractions" had been upon subjects other than political; his "visions" had turned his eyes upon other scenes. His philanthropy, broad and earnest as it ever was, had not been practically exercised in behalf of the slave. He had thought closely, worked with singular fervour in behalf of the labouring man. That which was called his Socialism was, with him, the Emancipation of Labour; that which was derisively called his "Fourierite bill" was the germ of the beneficent Homestead policy. Herein he was so far in advance of his times, until at last he dragged the times up to him, that, as is usual in such cases, he was the common butt of satire and obloquy. But in politics, he was extremely practical. He doubtless considered the abolitionists "fanatics." He surely saw the dawn of a new political era almost as early as any one. If this be claiming too much, it will be agreed that, almost as soon as any one, he saw the sun go down on the old era with abiding trust that it would soon again shine forth in a brighter, better day.

With him the political canvass of 1852 was the night between the old era of small issues and the new one of great questions, upon the settlement of which depended the cause of freedom and the eventual happiness of all mankind.

This presidential campaign, so far as the two great political parties were concerned, was a fraud. The people were deliberately deceived by both those parties, as after events demon

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