For Liberty is a thing which no one in America can escape. The old inhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. At every turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. If an aspirant to the citizenship of the Republic declined to be free, he would doubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until he consented to accept the precious boon. You cannot pick up a newspaper without being reminded that Liberty is the exclusive possession of the United States. The word, if not the quality, is the commonplace of American history. It looks out upon you--the word again, not the quality--from every hoarding. It is uttered in every discourse, and though it irks you to listen to the boasting of "Liberty", as it irks you when a man vaunts his honour, you cannot but inquire what is this fetish which distinguishes America from the rest of the habitable globe, and what does it achieve for those who worship it. In what, then, does the Liberty of America consist? Is it in freedom of opportunity? A career is open to all the talents everywhere. The superstitions of Europe, the old-fashioned titles of effete aristocracies, are walls more easily surmounted than the golden barricades of omnipotent corporations. Does it consist in political freedom? If we are to believe in the pedantry that Liberty is the child of the ballot-box, then America has no monopoly of its blessings. The privilege of voting is almost universal, and the freedom which this poor privilege confers is within the reach of Englishman, German, or Frenchman. Indeed, it is America which sets the worst stumbling-block in the voter's path. The citizen, however high his aspiration after Liberty may be, wages a vain warfare against the cunning of the machine. Where repeaters and fraudulent ballots flourish, it is idle to boast the blessings of the suffrage. Such institutions as Tammany are essentially practical, but they do not help the sacred cause commemorated in M. Bartholdi's statue; and if we would discover the Liberty of America, we must surely look outside the ring of boodlers and politicians who have held the franchise up to ridicule. Is, then, the boasted Liberty a liberty of life? One comes and goes with ease as great in England as in America. There are even certain restrictions imposed in the home of Freedom, of which we know nothing on this side the Atlantic, where we fear the curiosity of the Press as little as we dread the exactions of hungry monopolies. Of many examples, two will suffice to illustrate the hardships of a democratic tyranny. Not long since the most famous actress of our generation was prevented by a trust of all-powerful managers from playing in the theatres of America, and was compelled to take refuge in booths and tents. Being a lady of courage and resource, she filled her new _role_ with perfect success, and completely outwitted her envious rivals. The victory was snatched, by the actress's own energy, from the very jaws of Liberty.