dition; but it is the result of circumstances in a new country, where all are poor, where all are incommoded, all seeking the one thing needful (worldly speaking), and seeking it in the same way, and surrounded by nearly similar accidents. The ladies in the towns are not very easy under it, and try to remedy it; but they go again to the other extreme, and the result of the separation and selection which is adopted in the little towns is infinitely amusing, and a sufficient burlesque upon the more pretending, but generally equally oddlyassorted, select circles of the rich and vulgar in the larger cities. This condition of things is rather unfriendly to the courtesies and premeditated civilities of social intercourse, which are still more hindered by that want of acquaintance which is a necessary incident to the sudden filling up of a new country with people from all parts of the world. There is a general prejudice against the New Englander throughout the south and west, which, among the ignorant here, amounts to detestation; but, with this exception, the population agree very well.

The condition of the territories in regard to schools is not good, and the standard of education is low in the whole country, including that portion within the States. The standards of the bar, the pulpit, and in medical science, are all at a low point. A young man who has had a schooling of one year, and the same amount of reading in law, frequently without instruction or direction, sometimes by an apprenticeship, is made a lawyer; such, at least, he is designated by legislative enactment, and the license of the court, but he is often, in a double sense, an infant in law. I believe a less qualification suffices for the pulpit, or the practice of medicine. There are also instances of a similar want of preparation in other pursuits. Persons are found. engaged in trade, and employed in some of the mechanic

arts, without having passed the usual apprenticeship. This condition of things pervades the whole fabric of society. Judges have been appointed here of less than twenty-five years of age, and of only two or three years' practice at the bar; and a judge of that green age sits alone on a trial involving life or death! In this way, the laws are administered, under the sanction of Congress and the government of the United States!

There has been a singular and radical change of the system of law by which this country is governed. The whole of this territory was first discovered and settled by Frenchmen, and charters and ordinances for its government were granted and established by the king of France. By this means, the civil law was extended over the country, and became the birthright of its inhabitants, in the same way and by the same means that the common law became the birthright of the original thirteen States. The country west of the Missisippi was afterwards possessed and governed by Spain, which, as well as France, has the civil law for its code. Thus, in the portion of country west of the Missisippi, the civil law prevailed by a double title ;-both by birth and baptism it became the law of the land. It has never been formally abrogated, yet it is utterly extinct. By the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory, the common law was extended over that country; and, by subsequent enactments, it has been established west. of the river. Perhaps it was supposed that the system of the common law was so entirely repugnant to that of the civil, as to operate a repeal of the latter. It is, however, more probable that the lawyers and judges, who had been practitioners of the common law, did not inquire if that might be engrafted on the civil, but wholly overlooked the fact that the latter had ever had force there. However that may be, whether by

some real or supposed efficacy of the ordinance, or by some other means, the principles of the forum have been supplanted by those of Westminster;-and the common law, with some statute modifications, is the only law.

The character of the legislation is not so good as it might be. The members of the legislature are mostly very young, and uninstructed in the principles of legislation or the operation of law. The enactments are of course neither conceived in wisdom nor drawn up with skill. In this particular, however, some of the old states are not at all in advance. The most objectionable enactments of the territories will stand comparison with the laws of Maryland.

Society here is yet in that stage when a man's only thought is to gain a subsistence; and he cannot give attention to the improvement or refinement of his own mind, or of the public mind or morals.

By the constitution of Iowa, however, a most extensive and solid foundation for a system of Public Schools in that State has been laid, by the following provisions :

"2. The General Assembly shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvement. The proceeds of all lands that have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State for the support of schools, which shall hereafter be sold or disposed of, and the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to the new states under an act of Congress distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the several states of the Union, approved A.D. 1841, and all estates of deceased persons, who may have died without leaving a will or heir; and also such per cent. as may be granted by Congress on the sale of lands in this State, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which, together with all the rents of the unsold lands, and such other means

as the General Assembly may provide, shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools throughout the State.

"3. The General Assembly shall provide for a system of common schools, by which a school shall be kept up and supported in each school district at least three months in every year; and any school district neglecting to keep up and support such a school, may be deprived of its proportion of the interest of the public fund during such neglect.

"4. The money which shall be paid by persons as an equivalent for exemption from military duty, and the clear proceeds of all fines collected in the several counties for any breach of the penal laws, shall be exclusively applied in the several counties in which such money is paid or fine collected, among the several school districts of said counties, in the proportion of the number of inhabitants in such districts, to the support of common schools, or the establishment of libraries, as the General Assembly may from time to time provide by law."

The principal employments here must always be those connected with agriculture. The soil, greatly superior as it is to all other within the United States, cannot fail to invite a crowd of laborers to the harvest. But it is better even for grazing than for tillage. The grasses, in several varieties, grow with astonishing luxuriance. Some of the bottoms bear a grass from eight to nine feet high.

The prairies have been mentioned and partially described already. The geological structure of these lands was exhibited, and the general appearance of their surface indicated in speaking of the physical geography of the Upper Missisippi. The prairie lands are similar on both sides of the Missisippi. Conjecture is at fault in endeavors to account for their origin. Two circumstances unite to retain them in

their condition, and prevent the growth of grove and forest over the spaces covered only with the long grass and flowers. The roots of the grass are exceeding tough, and form a sward which keeps down the slower vegetation of the embryo, forest, which is here, as elsewhere, conceived within the mould of the teeming earth. This sward is so compact and strong, that five or six yoke of oxen are necessary for a breaking team, with a very large plough running on wheels, called a prairie plough. The other circumstance adverse to forest growth, beside the sward, is the annual burning of the prairies by the Indians and hunters, which has been practised since the country was first visited by the French in the seventeenth century, and is said, by the discoverer of the Missisippi, to be an old custom of the natives. The bodies of timber are almost exclusively on the streams, and the spaces between are prairie; presenting, at their junction, the similitude of shore and sea; which likeness, no doubt, induced an old sailor (whom I know) to fix his residence and build his house on one of these points, as the projections of the groves into the prairie are called, where, in prospect lay before him a wide expanse of prairie

The prairie has, for the most part, this undulating surface. Some of it is broken by ridges and deep ravines, some only slightly undulating, sufficient to shed the waters, some a dead level as true as could be drawn with a line. Of course some of these tracts of prairie are wet, others dry. On these prairies, so long as the country is only partially settled,