"I am ready enough to allow that, sir; it is too plain to be denied." "Wa-all, I should like to hear _you_ p'int 'em out; that I might see if we agree in our sentiments." "Demagogues are a highly privileged class. The editors of newspapers are another highly privileged class; doing things, daily and hourly, which set all law and justice at defiance, and invading, with perfect impunity, the most precious rights of their fellow-citizens. The power of both is enormous; and, as in all cases of great and irresponsible power, both enormously abuse it." "Wa-all, that's not my way of thinking at all. In my judgment, the privileged classes in this country are your patroons and your landlords; men that's not satisfied with a reasonable quantity of land, but who wish to hold more than the rest of their fellow-creatur's." "I am not aware of a single privilege that any patroon--of whom, by the way, there no longer exists one, except in name--or any landlord, possesses over any one of his fellow-citizens." "Do you call it no privilege for a man to hold all the land there may happen to be in a township? I call that a great privilege; and such as no man should have in a free country. Other people want land as well as your Van Renssalaers and Littlepages; and other people mean to have it, too." "On that principle, every man who owns more of any one thing than his neighbour is privileged. Even I, poor as I am, and am believed to be, am privileged over you, Mr. Newcome. I own a cassock, and have two gowns, one old and one new, and various other things of the sort, of which you have not one. What is more, I am privileged in another sense; since I can _wear_ my cassock and gown, and bands, and _do_ wear them often; whereas you cannot wear one of them all without making yourself laughed at." "Oh! but them are not privileges I care anything about; if I did I would put on the things, as the law does not prohibit it." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Newcome; the law does prohibit you from wearing _my_ cassock and gown contrary to my wishes." "Wa-all, wa-all, Mr. Warren; we never shall quarrel about that; I don't desire to wear your cassack and gown." "I understand you, then; it is only the things that you _desire_ to use that you deem it a privilege for the law to leave me." "I am afraid we shall never agree, Mr. Warren, about this anti-rent business; and I'm very sorry for it, as I wish particularly to think as you do," glancing his eye most profanely towards Mary as he spoke. "I am for the movement-principle, while you are too much for the stand-still doctrine." "I am certainly for remaining stationary, Mr. Newcome, if progress mean taking away the property of old and long established families in the country, to give it to those whose names are not to be found in our history; or, indeed, to give it to any but those to whom it rightfully belongs."