This country is certainly prospering; but I 'm not so certain that it can continue to do so.' Their industry is now stimulated to a high state of productiveness, because they are daily extending their railroads; but there must come an end to that, and it strikes me that a country that only deals with itself is pretty much what the adage says of the "man that is his own doctor." They are now, however, enjoying what your political economists all agree in pronouncing to be the great test of prosperity. Everything has nearly doubled in price: house rent, meat, vegetables, wages, clothes, luxuries of all kind, and, of course, taxation. I own to you I never clearly understood this problem; it always seemed to me as if a whole population took to walk upon stilts, for the pleasure of thinking themselves nine feet high.
These matters put me in mind of Vickars. I now see that I was wrong in not going over to the election. His tone is quite changed, and he writes to me as if I were a deputation from the distressed hand-loom weavers. He acknowledges mine of the 5th ult, and he deplores, and regrets, and feels constrained to remind me, and so on, ending with being "humble and obedient,"--two things that I believe his own mother never found him. The fact is, Tom, he's in Parliament, and he is a Lord of the Treasury, and he does n't care a brass farthing for one of us. Do you remark how the Ministerial papers praise the Government for promoting Irishmen? It is not on the ground of their superior capacity for office, their readiness and natural ability. Nothing of the kind; it is simply the unbounded generosity of the administration, and perhaps as a proof of their humility! They put an Irishman in the Cabinet, just as the Roman Conqueror took a slave in his chariot, to show that they don't intend to forget themselves!
I wish "Punch" would make a picture of it. Pat with his pipe in his mouth beside the Premier; the roguish leer of the eye, the careless ease of his crossed legs, and smallclothes open at the knee, would be a grand contrast to the high-bred air of his companion.
Don't bother me any more about the salmon weirs; make the best bargain you can, and I 'll be satisfied. It appears to me, however, the more laws we have, the less fish we catch. In my father's time there was no legislation at all, and salmon was a penny a pound. The fish seem to hate Acts of Parliament just as much as ourselves. And, talking of that, I 'm glad we 're out of our scrape with the Yankees.