With us, it is exactly the contrary. As the District of Columbia elects no one, everybody living in Washington officially is more or less expatriated, and the social life it offers is a poor substitute for the circle which most families leave to go there. That, however, is not the most important side of the question. Go to any great lawyer of either New York or Chicago, and propose sending him to Congress or the Senate. His answer is sure to be, "I cannot afford it. I know it is an honor, but what is to replace the hundred thousand dollars a year which my profession brings me in, not to mention that all my practice would go to pieces during my absence?" Or again, "How should I dare to propose to my family to leave one of the great centres of the country to go and vegetate in a little provincial city like Washington? No, indeed! Public life is out of the question for me!" Does any one suppose England would have the class of men she gets in Parliament, if that body sat at Bristol? Until recently the man who occupied the position of Lord Chancellor made thirty thousand pounds a year by his profession without interfering in any way with his public duties, and at the present moment a recordership in London in no wise prevents private practice. Were these gentlemen Americans, they would be obliged to renounce all hope of professional income in order to serve their country at its Capital. Let us glance for a moment at the other reason. Owing to our laws (doubtless perfectly reasonable, and which it is not my intention to criticise,) a man must reside in the place he represents. Here again we differ from all other constitutional countries. Unfortunately, our clever young men leave the small towns of their birth and flock up to the great centres as offering wider fields for their advancement. In consequence, the local elector finds his choice limited to what is left--the intellectual skimmed milk, of which the cream has been carried to New York or other big cities. No country can exist without a metropolis, and as such a centre by a natural law of assimilation absorbs the best brains of the country, in other nations it has been found to the interests of all parties to send down brilliant young men to the "provinces," to be, in good time, returned by them to the national assemblies. As this is not a political article the simple indication of these two causes will suffice, without entering into the question of their reasonableness or of their justice. The social bearing of such a condition is here the only side of the question under discussion; it is difficult to over-rate the influence that a man's family exert over his decisions.