‘There,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, possessed of these facts, and indeed having experienced in his own person the unrelaxing grip of the law, ‘is the precise point of difference between the state of society in English and other communities. In other lands, notably in America, the vast distances and what are superficially called the rude circumstances of early settlement, are permitted to condone infringements upon the social rights. When these become too flagrant Judge Lynch interferes, and rude justice, or injustice, is done. In the meantime, right has often suffered irrevocably at the hands of might. But an Englishman, in what far land soever under the flag of his country, suffers under no such policy of expediency. He carries his law with him. He relies for protection of life and property upon the Queen’s Government, to which he has for his life long appealed in his hour of need, and never in vain; and he generally receives justice, whether he be in the heart of a continent or in a populous and accessible seaport.’ Southward of the future city, Mr. Neuchamp observed farms, orchards, enclosed pasture-lands—all the signs of a thriving agricultural district,—great stacks of grain and hay, fields of maize, pigs, and poultry in profusion; while the steam flour mills, whose mechanical whirr and throb ceased not, night or day, showed that the supply of the staff of life was large and continuous. Every farm had been but recently occupied, and yet on all sides fencing, building, girdling trees, the manifold acts of agriculture combined with pasture, were proceeding energetically. The land was richer, the timber more dense, and possibly the climate more temperate and humid than the northerly division following the downward course of the river exhibited. In this direction the metalled road after a couple of miles abruptly terminated, the way thenceforth continuing by a broad Indian-like trail, which led towards the fervid north. Few trees were seen after this immediate vicinity of the town was quitted, and the immense plain lost itself in a soft and silvery haze which enveloped the far distance and spread to the horizon. ‘Well,’ soliloquised Ernest, ’this is perhaps not exactly the place a half-pay officer would come to or a reduced merchant’s family, anxious to discover cheap living, good society, efficient teaching, musical tuition, and an agreeable climate, in perfect combination. But even they might do worse. The great secret of steady, inevitable prosperity here is the wonderful cheapness of land combined with its abundance. ‘What a rush would there be in Buckinghamshire, if “persons about to marry,” or others, could “take up,” that is merely mark out and occupy, as much land as they pleased up to a square mile in extent, previously paying down “five shillings the acre”—save the mark!