Note 1. Bigamy is not uncommon in the United States from the women being in too great a hurry to marry, and not obtaining sufficient information relative to their suitors. The punishment is chipping stone in Sing Sing for a few years. It must, however, be admitted, that when a foreigner is the party, it is rather difficult to ascertain whether the gentleman has or has not left an old wife or two in the Old World.
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Note 2. A Washington belle related to me the sad story of the death of a young man who fell from a small boat into the Potomac in the night,-- it is supposed in his sleep. She told me where and how his body was found; and what relations he had left; and finished with "he will be much missed at parties."
The majority are always in the _right_, so says Miss Martineau, and so have said greater people than even Miss Martineau; to be sure Miss Martineau qualifies her expression afterwards, when she declares that they always will be right in the _end_. What she means by that I do not exactly comprehend; the end of a majority is its subsiding into a minority, and a minority is generally right. But I rather think that she would imply that they will repent and see their folly when the consequences fall heavily upon them. The great question is, what is a majority? must it be a whole nation, or a portion of a nation, or a portion of the population of a city; or, in fact, any _plus_ against any _minus_, be they small or be they large. For instance, two against one are a majority, and, if so, any two scoundrels may murder an honest man and be in the right; or it may be the majority in any city, as in Baltimore, where they rose and murdered an unfortunate minority [see note 1]; or it may be a majority on the Canada frontier, when a set of miscreants defied their own government, and invaded the colony of a nation with whom they were at peace--all which is of course right. But there are other opinions on this question besides those of Miss Martineau, and we shall quote them as occasion serves.
I have before observed, that Washington left America a republic; and that in the short space of fifty years it has sunk into a democracy.