form in some measure to its demands; and this necessity,
which lies at the foundation of all progressional law,
threw over the moral and physical aspect of the peo-
ple the same general tint. All had come hither to
achieve gold ; sudden acquisition of enormous wealth
was the one idea, and all those social fictions which
common sense vainly seeks a reason for were thrown
to the winds. High and low, educated and ignorant,
polished and rude, are all confounded in an all-absorb-
ing fraternity of labor. Under the woolen shirt and
grizzled beard the former dandy may scarcely be dis-
tinguished from the blacksmith, or the master from
his man.
How sadly has the world degenerated ! See that ragged blear-eyed tailor. Twenty years ago he was a white-shirted, shaved and mustachioed gambler, with his monte bank, his mistress, and his mule, all the gayest of the gay. The songbirds were not lighter-hearted than he, as he went home in the morning and turned into bed for a sleep after a successful night of it. Then how professions have changed and mixed themselves up since then. There are mechanics turned preachers; preachers turned politicians; edi- tors turned lawyers and lawyers editors ; a whilom bartender now practises medicine, and yonder scrawny- featured, shaggy-headed individual in Sam Slick cos- tume takes photographs — very bad ones — in the mornings, and sits upon the judicial bench dealing out justice, too often as blurred as his pictures, in the afternoon. Dram-sellers have become millionaires, and millionaires and paupers alike have passed down the dance of death to the time-racket of delirium tre- mens. Ancient washerwomen are drawn through the streets in satin-lined carriages by caparisoned horses, and attended by liveried servants, while those who have known better days sit pale and sad of heart sewing from early till late for bread.
Yet, with all their Acherons and rivers of sorrow rolling over them, conscious always of sowing here
