in New York, and the discouragements from various local causes in the other Colonies, Rhode Island and Maryland excepted, the colonists were healthily moral. The schoolmaster got early abroad; and, generally boarding around in the school district, and making himself miscellaneously useful, wedged some educating notions into the heads of all,—in the younger by day, and in the older during the evenings. And thus the church, the school-house, industry, which pushed back idleness and its brood of vices, simple agricultural ways, the absence of city sores, and the rugged, conscientious pursuit of wholesome livelihoods in largely ventilated spaces, all concurred to hand up the Colonies along the unplanked roads of the age, to the outstretched hand of the eighteenth century. _Thirdly_, THE HABITS of the period were few and simple; generally made of conscientious, native materials, coarse but strong; and were exceedingly well preserved. They were of a mixed color, but on the whole good. _Fourthly_, THE LAWS were at first and usually imported. Most of them were designed and upholstered in those second-class shops in London, the proprietors’ manufactories, which were owned by certain royal joint-stock subscribers, whose object was to make as much money as possible out of their articles. With this supreme object in view, their enactments were mainly framed to secure to themselves as much as could be of the proceeds of colonial labor, and leave the colonial purchasers to pay their own expenses and run the risks from the weather, poor crops, and Indian interruptions. To accomplish this, the proprietors sought to have the colonists devote as much of their time as possible to work. They endeavored to relieve them from the necessity of wasting precious moments in disposing of their products or in supplying themselves with materials, or in gossiping in assemblies about foolish rights, or in squandering their days in electing officers, or gadding about the townships in electioneering for themselves or others. Did the Colonies want materials, wheat to sow the first year, crockery, furniture, store goods? The companies could so easily send over a ship with them. Did the prosperous colonist wish to dispose of his surplus crop? The companies would take it for him, and sell it in England. Was a governor, a judge, an office-holder of any kind, such as collector, portwarden, etc., needed? Why, the companies kept them already made at their manufactory in London, and would express one through by their fast-sailing line in ample time, even if it took three months, and would deliver them wherever desired, at Plymouth, Hartford, Charleston, or Jamestown. [Illustration: EXPRESSING A COLONIAL GOVERNOR FROM LONDON. (p. 189) ]