Ohio send abroad their circulating phalanxes of this kind of foragers, to compete with the Yankees for the professions and trade of the more western states. In Ohio this class bears by far the greatest proportion to the cultivators, of any part of the valley. Yet in Ohio, from the returns of the very accurate census of 1820 in this state, it appears, that out of a population of nearly 600,000, there were only 18,956 manufacturers, and 1,459 merchants and traders. Thus it appears, that nearly twenty-nine out of thirty of this whole population were engaged in agriculture.

It would require a separate and distinct article, if we were to trace the influence of slavery upon population and improvement. This discussion, too, would more properly fall under the head of an article, presenting a contrasted view of the condition and progress of the slave holding, compared with the non-slave holding states. It is sufficient for our present purposes to remark, that, with the exception of some districts that are particularly sickly, the blacks increase still more rapidly than the whites.

From the general fertility of the soil, and the abundance with which it yields all the supplies of life,-from the comparative rareness and small proportion of sterile, mountainous and marshy lands, that can not be easily brought into cultivation, no thinking mind can have failed to foresee, that this country must and will ultimately sustain a great and dense population of farmers. Taking into view soil, climate, and the means of easy communication, the most material and natural elements upon which to calculate, in regard to future increase of population, and no country can be found, which invites increase more strongly, than ours. In half a century, the settled parts of it will, probably, have become as healthy as any other country. In that lapse of time, it can hardly be sanguine to calculate, that by improving the navigation of the existing rivers, by the numerous canals which will be made, in aid of what nature has done, in a region where there are no mountains, and few high hills, and no intermixture of refractory granite,-where the rivers, which rise almost in the same level, interlock, and then wind away in opposite directions,-where, from these circumstances, and the absence of granite hills, canals can be made with comparative ease, that the country will be permeated in every direction, either by steam boats, or sea vessels towed by them, or by transport conducted by rail-road power. No country, it is generally supposed here, can be found, which contains so great a proportion of culti vable and habitable land, compared with the whole extent of its surface. Humboldt, so well qualified to judge by comparison, has pronounced it the largest valley in the world. It has a less propor tion of swamps, sterile plains, and uncultivable mountains, than any other region of the same extent. When it shall have been inhabited as long as Massachusetts and Virginia, what limits can imagination assign to its population and improvement?

No one can fail to have foreseen, at this time of the day, that the period is not far distant, when the greater mass of the population of our country will be on this side the mountains. We would not desire, in anticipation, to vex the question, where the centre of our national government will then be? We are connected already with the Atlantic country by noble roads. We shall shortly be connected with the Hudson, Delaware and Chesapeake bays, by navigable canals. We already hear of the assumption, by individuals, of the stock of an association for the gigantic project of a rail-road between Baltimore and the Ohio. Our different physical conformation of country, and the moral circumstances of our condition, have assigned to us, as we think, agriculture, as our chief pursuit. Suppose manufactures to flourish among us to the utmost extent, which our most honest and earnest patriots could desire, and we should still, as we think, find ourselves bound by the ties of a thousand wants, to the country north and east of the mountains. The very difference of our physical and moral character contributes to form a chain of mutual wants, holding us to that region by the indissoluble tie of mutual interest. At present, the passage of the mountains, formerly estimated by the Atlantic people something like an India voyage, and not without its dangers, as well as its difficulties, is no more, than a trip of pleasure of two or three days. We shall soon be able to sail, at the writing desk, or asleep, from New Orleans, Fort Mandan, or Prairie du Chien, through the interior forests to the beautiful bay of New York. The time is not distant, when the travelled citizen of the other side the mountains will not be willing to admit, that he has not taken an autumnal or vernal trip of pleasure, or observation, from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. The landscape painter and the poet will come among us, to study and admire our forest, river and prairie scenery, and to imbibe new ideas, from contemplating the grandeur and the freshness of our nature.

For us, as a people, we look over the mountains, and connect our affections with the parent country beyond, by the strong ties of natal attachment; for there, to the passing generation at least, was the place of their birth. There still live our fathers and our brethren. There are the graves of our ancestors; and there are all the delightful and never forgotten remembrances of our infancy and our boyhood. We have hitherto been connected to that country, by looking to it exclusively for fashions models and literature. The connexion, will remain, not as we hope, a slavish one; for duty, interest and self-respect imperiously call upon us to set up for ourselves, in these respects, as fast as possible. But as younger members of the family, thrust into the woods, to give place to those, who had the rights of primogeniture, and obliged to find our subsistence by cutting down the trees, we have as yet had but little leisure to think of any thing, beyond the calls of necessity,

and the calculations of immediate interest and utility. As soon as we have the leisure for higher purposes, we shall be unworthy of our family alliance, if we do not immediately institute a friendly rivalry in these respects, which will be equally honorable and useful for each of the parties. We know our rights, and we are able to maintain them. It is only the little minded and puny, that allow themselves to indulge in a causeless and fretful jealousy. There must be a real, palpable and continued purpose to undervalue us, and curtail our rights, and arrest our advancement and prosperity, before we would allow ourselves to remember our great chain of mountains, and our world by itself. Our patriotism has been tampered with, more than once, even in our infancy. We came forth with honor from every trial. Every link of the golden, and, we hope, perpetual chain of the union, will be grasped as firmly by the citizens of the West, as of the Atlantic. We fiatter ourselves, that we have had uncommon chances to note the scaleof the western thermometer, in this respect. We have every where seen and felt a spirit, which has given us the assurance of conviction, that the popularity of that demagogue would be blasted, and would wither forever, who should for a moment manifest the remotest incipient wish to touch the chain of this union with an unhallowed hand. The interests and affections of the western people hold to that, as strongly, and as proudly, to say no more, as those of the East. From time to time demagoges will spring up, and atrocious and unprincipled editors will be found, to meditate any thing, and to dare to inculcate, and write, and publish what they meditate. But the strength and virtue of the community will never bear them out.

Wherever attempts may be made to disaffect, alienate and sever one section of this great union from the rest, may God avert the omen! that attempt will not be commenced with us. They may reproach us with being rough, untrained, and backwoodsmen. But as a people we are strong for the union, and the whole union. Every true son of the West will join in the holiest aspirations, 'esto perpetua.' May it last as long as the sun and moon shall endure!

NEWSPAPERS.

After the refreshment and exhiliration of evening tea, to repair the wasting of the toils and cares of the day, we regularly devote a couple of hours to the perusal of a selection of newspapers from Maine to the Sabine. Thus easily, pleasantly and cheaply, from the loop holes of our retreat, we survey the bustle and scramble of the great world. Its conflicts,its passions, and disasters, are told us by noiseless guests, who travel hundreds of leagues, to bring us the news, and are dismissed without affront, the moment they be come tedious or impertinent.

Instead of conning prosing and dry philosophical discussions of the influence of climate, we see it here, palpably exemplified before our eyes. In the details and discussions of the northern papers, we mark the restraining tendency of general example, and of religious institutions. There we see the passions of society, as coals smothered under ashes. Thought, feeling and purpose are deeper, and more concentered, and more permanent. In the South, nature is left more to her own wayward direction, and the tendency of the, thin skin and the inflamed blood is manifest in sudden bursts of passion, and out-breaking acts. Of course, we read in the northern papers of actions for slander and libel, and suits for breach of promise of marriage. Newspaper abuse is couched in sneer, insinuation and inference, and malignant feeling evaporates in long tirades of windy abuse. In the South the charge is direct, and categorical. It is a word and a blow, and the blow first; and dirks are drawn, and pistols discharged, and one, and in some instances, both the combattants fall. Such a state of society, every one must admit, is barbarous and horrible. The southerner admits it, and laments it, but is so influenced by climate, custom and prevalent opinion, that when the temptation besets him, he conducts like the rest.

But it will tend to diminish our abhorrence, or regret, to know the fact, that they, who fall in these rencontres, are, for the most part, the sort of people who enlist in the wars, after a long peace, and who are to the country, what self-righteousness is said to be to the possessor: the more she has of them, the poorer she is.Society, if it were correctly informed, would, indeed, shudder at the example. But it more generally congratulates itself, that a worthless and quarrelsome member is slain out of the way, without the tediousness, uncertainty and expense of a trial.

The northern newspapers teem with the enumeration of southern duels, shootings and dirkings; and while they pronounce, that society in these regions must be verging back to barbarism, the

editors felicitate themselves, that they live in a more regulated and polished order of things, where they have a better chance for the security of life and limb. Far be it from us, to extenuate these atrocities in the slighest degree. But the state of the case would stand in a fairer light, if it were more generally understood, that in these rencontres, there is very generally an equal participation in the parties of the guilt of the affray. In nine cases in ter, when the trial is had, the most honest and stern minded jury acquit the defendant. An honest and a quiet man, who deports himself peaceably, and neither loses self-respect, nor the command of his temper, walks as safely in the South, as at the North, and, for all the chances of violence, lives on as securely to the end of the chapter. In Ohio the annual number of deaths from violence, for three years past, has been less, in proportion to its population, as we believe, than in any other state in the Union; and this circumstance is the more surprising, considering that, for some time, Ohio has been the torrid zone of politics, exhibiting in its papers the extreme of violence and abuse.

Even in those states, where the greatest number of deaths occur from violence, which it would be invidious to name, if the inference were drawn, that the people there are generally quarrelsome and murderous in their dispositions, no conclusion would be wider from the fact. A stranger, going into these regions with proper introduction, is astonished, and most agreeably disappointed, to find the general aspect of society so pleasant, and the people so amiable and respectable. Circumstances have sifted into these states an undue proportion of reckless and lawless spirits, who would have been murderers in any other state, as certainly as in these.

In all the different sections of the country, there are newspapers that exhibit talent and smartness, especially in the department of satire and invective. The story of the poor Greeks is almost done up. There are few bulletins, and descriptions of battles, and 'gar. ments rolled in blood,' to fill up the interest of their columns; and having rung their political changes through all possible combinations, in these dull and news-lacking times of peace, they are obliged to eke out the remaining side of the sheet with tales.Tales seem to be the rage of the day, and they are served up to the people, we should think, to a surfeit. Some of them, espe cially the Irish ones, are well told. We have seen few of the Scotch ones, since those of the Lights and Shadows,' and 'Sir Andrew Wylie,' that we could read through to the end. Ours of the United States are marked with genius; but are otherwise spoiled, by being dizened with epithets, and rendered flaunty to ridiculousness by extraneous finery and fourth of July pompous ness. Some of our sophomores, too, purloin a simple and beau tiful story from some book, change the names, garble the facts, and give it a meretriciousness with gaudy coloring, and pass it for an