ment to the whole work, prevent many complaints, and greatly promote the public accommodation.

Perhaps it will not be out of place to consider what may be the working of the new system in regard to the postage of Congress, which is now such a big affair. The Postmaster-General, in his report of the present month, (December, 1849,) states the value of the postage of Congress at $792,700, in addition to the sums allowed to postmasters for distributing free letters; amounting, probably, to $150,000 more. The labor of franking so many speeches and documents, which custom has imposed upon members of Congress, is felt by very many of them to be a grievous bondage, from which they would very gladly be freed, if it could be done with honor, and without the loss of popularity or of political advantage. In order to have a correct understanding of the case, it is necessary to divide the business into three classes, letters, public documents, and speeches.

The letters to and from members of Congress are very numerous, in consequence of their having the frank. And the great number of letters they receive, and of answers they write, may be a good illustration of the way letters will be multiplied when every body gets what will be equivalent to the franking privilege—that is, a rate of postage so low that no one will ever omit writing on account of the expense of postage. If the Congressional franking privilege be abolished in the "Act for establishing cheap postage," it will not tax members with the expense of postage on letters sent to them, because all such letters will be prepaid by the sender, who will also, if he is a gentleman, enclose a stamp to prepay the answer. Or, if Congress shall think it necessary, each member can be supplied with a certain quota of letter-stamps, as he is now furnished at each session with a fixed allowance of stationery.

The public documents published by Congress, for the information of the people, have been the subject of much censure that they do not deserve. It will be a bad day when Congress shall cease the circulation of documentary details of the public business. It may be that there has sometimes been an excess. But of this Congress must be the only judge. We must have decuments published, large ones, in large numbers. And they must be circulated through the mail, at least to a great extent, because there is no other channel through which they can be spread to all parts of the country. All that the friends of cheap postage should ask is, that the expense of circulating these documents should be paid by Congress, and not made a tax upon the letter correspondence as at present. In that case the documents would be enveloped for the mail, and each one officially stamped, "Document of the Senate," or "Document of the House of Representatives." A member, on learning the number and description of documents allotted to his disposal, would have nothing more to do but to hand to the proper clerk a list of names to whom they should be forwarded, and they would be directed and sent, the whole being weighed at the post-office, and the postage charged to the House fund. If members wish to have the documents show from whence they come, it would be easy to procure stamps with each member's name to be applied to all his documents.

The business of franking speeches and electioneering documents will all be superceded by the provision of stamped bands or envelopes, at one cent, for all newspapers and pamphlets not exceeding two ounces in weight. There is the whole matter of Congressional postage, disposed of with the emancipation of members from the burden of franking.

As soon as the system of cheap postage shall be adopted the public will demand its extension to the ocean also. It will be a sorry blunder if our statesmen allow Great Britain to take the lead of us in establishing" ocean penny postage." With 3,000,000 of citizens who were born in the old world, and half a million more coming over every year, it is an abuse for Congress to allow their correspondence with the "loved and left beyond the sea," to be clogged with an enormous tax. There is no reason whatever why the principles of cheap postage should not be as well applied on the sea as on the land, and with as good success. By establishing sea postage at two cents in all American packets and vessels, we should lay three millions of capillary tubes, through which the principles and example of our freedom would be communicated to the hearts of the people all over Europe.

The great convenience of stamps for prepayment of postage is well worthy of consideration. This has not been realized in the use of stamps under, the present system, because no special inducement has been offered for prepayment. With the existing rates of postage it would not do to charge a double rate on unpaid letters. But with a postage of two cents, when prepaid with stamps, and the stamps kept for sale at every post-office and every shop, their use would become universal. They would answer to remit small sums by mail. There is no trouble of making change at the window, no loss of money by a child in going to the post-office. In a word, the difference in the ease and despatch of business, between cheap postage and any possible modification of the present system, is as great as between a well-ordered railroad, and an old-fashioned two-horse stage, without springs, on a muddy winter road.

It is hardly within the compass of possibility that the expectations of the friends of cheap postage should not be much more than realized in its success. It is not credible that we should not send 120,000,000 or 130,000,000 of letters the first year; or that we should not double again in five or six years more. Why, Ireland, poor Ireland, in her squalid misery, without a legislature, and without foreign commerce, and with millions of people who never taste of bread-Ireland mails 28,587,996 letters in a year, under the influence of cheap postage. Scotland, with but 2,628,957 inhabitants, and no. great commercial center, or political metropolis, sends 28,669,169 letters yearly. Scotland and Ireland together, with 11,000,000 of inhabitants, send 57,000,000; only 5,000,000 less than the number we have reached in the fourth year of our reduced postage.

Does any sensible man, who is acquainted with the working of cheap postage in Great Britain, entertain a doubt that this system is to be adopted here? Nothing short of it can satisfy the reasonable demands of the people. Why delay? Why waste time in experiments that we know must be futile? It will cost less money, create less complaint, and confer greater benefits, to do at once, what all must see is to be done at last. How many generations will honor the memory of the thirty-first Congress, if they will make their first act of general legislation the "ACT TO ESTABLISH CHEAP: POSTAGE."

Art. V.-COMMERCIAL CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE UNITED STATES.

NUMBER XIX.

THE CITY OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

LOCATION-EARLY SETTLEMENT AND HISTORY-MANUFACTURES-PROGRESS IN POPULATION—WEALTH AND TAXATION-BANKING INSTITUTIONS-SAVINGS BANK-RAILROADS, ETC.

THE town, or rather city of Worcester, this ancient and flourishing place having recently been admitted to the rank and liberties of a municipal incorporation, is the shire town of Worcester county, Massachusetts. It is situated 40 miles west from Boston, 50 miles east from the Connecticut River at Northampton, about half-way, therefore, between the two, 194 miles from the city of New York, and 394 miles from Washington. The Connecticut is the nearest navigable stream of importance. Through the valley of Worcester flows the Blackstone, which, with its branches, rill, rivulet, and brook, penetrates to almost every farm, and drains the whole valley. The largest body of water in the vicinity is a pond, or rather lake, lying partly in Worcester and partly in Salesbury township, which extends, from north to south, about four miles in length, with bold shores, dotted with islands, some of which are said to be still clothed with their primeval forests, and whose waters, uniting with those of Half Moon, Round, and Flint Ponds, find an outlet in the Little Blackstone. This lake, sometimes called Long Pond, is, we are assured by the antiquarian and historian, entitled to the ancient Indian name of Quinsigamond. By this name the district, as well as the pond, are designated in the early colonial records.

Like most Massachusetts towns, Worcester is lucky enough to have an origin which, without a stretch of language, may be called ancient, and a history running far enough back into the past, to possess an interest for the antiquarian, and to perplex him with its obscurity.

As early as the 18th May, 1664, a grant of 3,200 acres, made by the colony as early as 1657 to Mr. Increase Nowell, was located on the east side of Quinsigamond, Quansiggemuck, Quinsigamug, or Quonsigamong, which are a few of the various readings which antiquity supplies of this ancient

name.

The Indians of this region were of the Nipmuck, or Nipnet, Tribe, whose lands are believed to have extended over part of the north of Worcester county, the whole of the southern part, into Connecticut, and, possibly, as far west as the Connecticut River.*

In 1665, commissioners were appointed by the "Great and General Court to make a survey, and determine if there be "a meet place for a plantation, that it may be improved for that end, and not spoiled by granting farms."

No survey was made until 20th October, 1668, when a report was presented recommending the reservation of the site for a town, it "being conveniently situated, and well watered with ponds and brooks, and lying near midway between Boston and Springfield, about one day's journey from either." The land is pronounced "very good chesnut-tree land." The Court thereupon appointed a committee of four to settle the town so recommended in

The reader who would learn the whole history of this town is referred to the well-written and interesting "History of Worcester, Massachusetts." BY WILLIAM LINCOLN, Worcester, 1837.

the report. The committee held its first meeting in Cambridge, July 6, 1669, and formed a plan for the settlement, in which it was proposed to divide the territory into ninety twenty-five acre house lots; that the most convenient place, nearest the middle of the town, should be set apart and improved for placing the meeting-house for the worship of God; a convenient lot of fifty acres for the first minister should be laid out as near to it as might be; another lot in the next convenient place, not far from thence, for the ministry that should succeed in all future times; that twenty acres should be reserved, near the center, for a training field, and to build a school-house upon; that a lot of twenty-five acres should be appropriated for a school and school-master, to remain in that use forever; and that two hundred and fifty acres should be for the use of the county.

Thus careful was colonial wisdom, in laying the foundation of their State, to secure religion and learning for its corner-stone, and whatever doubts political theory may suggest as to the policy and justice of uniting church and State, who can fail to see that, under the circumstances, the founders of Worcester pursued the only wise course, and showed true foresight?

In 1675, the work of settlement went on with vigor, surveys were made, numerous grants confirmed, and six or seven houses erected. The settlement clustered around the "old Indian fort," a block house erected at an early period on the ancient "county road" to Connecticut, which passed near the pond. The time was not yet gone by when such prudence was needless. Although the Nipmuck of Pokachoag were of a more gentle and peaceful character than other tribes, and although the pious labors of Elliot, who visited them in September, 1674, had not been without effect, yet overruled by their fiercer neighbors, and by the genius of Philip, they also became a dangerous enemy.

The town, from which the inhabitants had fled on the approach of the Indians, was destroyed by them, December 2, 1675. On the return of peace vigorous efforts were made to rebuild it; the land, be it observed, had been before purchased of the Indians, but one Sagamore Paunasunet not having joined in the conveyance, his title was purchased of his heirs.

On the 10th September, 1674, the "Great and General Court" permitted the "plantation at Quansigamond to be called Worcester." But, on the breaking out of Queen Anne's War, when danger from the Indians again threatened, the town, or rather the attempt to build, was again abandoned. "The inhabitants fled, and the place was given up to decay."

Finally, a last successful attempt was made in 1713, and Colonel Adam Winthrop, Gershon, Jonas Rice, and others, are th emen to whose daring, or whose enterprise, Worcester owes its first successful settlement. The first male child born in Worcester was Adonijah, the son of Jonas Rice, on the 7th November, 1714. In 1718, it was estimated to contain fifty-eight dwelling houses.

But it is not our design to detail the past fortunes so much as the present prosperity of Worcester. In all the struggles and dangers of Indian and French wars, in the trials and perils which afforded so useful, not to say necessary, a preparation to the people of colonial America for the revolutionary struggle that was coming on, the citizens of Worcester shared fully and honorably.

Worcester was, in fact, a sort of interior capital of the State, the center of the more western counties, and, from the beginning of the contest of words

and negotiation to the end of that of the sword, its citizens never failed to respond to the call of patriotism from the eastern capital, Boston.

On the 21st October, 1765, the town instructed its representatives to join in no measure countenancing the Stamp Act. At the same time the people of Worcester, through their grand jury, with the discrimination of the true patriot, condemned the rioters who destroyed the property of Governor Hutchinson, in Boston.

The tax on tea called forth from Worcester a cry of indignation and remonstrance, and a spirit of resistance full as deep and strong as from any other place. Many of the inhabitants entered into an agreement not to buy any European commodity but what was absolutely necessary; "that we will not at funerals use any gloves, except those made here, or purchase any article of mourning but what shall be absolutely necessary." They consented to abandon the use of all foreign tea, "which are clearly superfluous, our own fields abounding in herbs more healthful." A convention of ladies, animated by the spirit of these resolutions, held at Boston, recommended the Labrador tea (Ledum Palustre) as a substitute.

Worcester was the home of many obstinate tories as well as zealous whigs. Chandler, whose family was distinguished in the early history of the town, and Putnam, a most able lawyer, put forth their strength to check the spirit of rebellion; but, after a struggle, the rogated party was prostrated. The energy and vigilance of such men as Timothy Bigelow, Jonas Hubbard, and a little later of Isaiah Thomas, insured the triumph of the whigs.

In March, 1775, minute men were organized, who trained half a day in each week. The tradition is yet preserved in many of the villages of Worcester, of a horseman mounted on a white horse, death's messenger, if not death, who came riding into town on the morning of the 19th April, 1775, shouting, as he passed, "To arms! to arms! the war is begun!" When he reached the church his horse fell exhausted, his white sides red with blood, and wet with sweat. That day, one hundred and ten men, under Captain Bigelow, marched from Worcester. In the daring and disastrous march against Quebec, Arnold was joined by Major Bigelow, Captain Hubbard, and twelve men from Worcester. From the Kennebec, the heroic Hubbard wrote to his wife :-"I know not whether I shall ever see you again. The weather grows severe cold, and the woods, they say, are terrible to pass; but I do not value life or property, if I can secure liberty for my children." The terrible forests were passed, but the "son of liberty" fell in the attack at the head of his command. He refused to be removed from the falling snow and flying balls. "I came here to serve with you, I will stay here to die with you," were his dying words.

It was to Worcester that Isaiah Thomas took refuge from the persecution which the patriotic tone of the "Massachusetts Spy" called down upon him at Boston. His press having been previously removed in secret, after a busy day at Lexington on the 19th, where Mr. Thomas was with the militia, musket in hand, he journeyed all night, and reached Worcester the next day. The Spy, then first published at Worcester, has been continued to this day, running a career ancient and honorable. The activity and industry of Isaiah Thomas, succeeded in building up one of the most extensive, and, we think, earliest printing and publishing establishments in the country. His "History of Printing," in two octavo volumes, was published at Worcester in

1810.

A copy of the New Testament in the original, bearing the colophon "Wigormal, Massachusetteusi, Excudebat Isaias Thomas, Jr., April, 1800,"