e directors. Of course, no man of sense or delicacy would ever
expose himself and family to the insult of being black-balled; and
these institutions, which are calculated to promote general happiness,
become, in consequence, a source of mortification to the majority of a
neighbourhood, and of petty and inadequate gratification to those
whose inanity of character, or obsequiousness of manners, have
rendered them tolerable to the family, or small junto, who usually
take it upon themselves to govern such assemblies.

Some observations on this subject merit record, because happiness is
the end of life, the proper business of study, and the true object of
all disquisition; and there is no point in which families are rendered
more uncomfortable, and in which the spirit of caprice and tyranny is
more successfully exerted, than in the institution and conduct of
country assemblies; while, at the same time, nothing would be easier
than to render them a means of happiness to all who are capable of it.
It is evident, that many persons, by habit and education, are
ill-adapted to take part in the polite amusements of an assembly; that
some men are odious by their vices; and that many females of equivocal
character ought not to be allowed to mix with the virtuous part of the
sex; consequently, every inhabitant of a district ought not to be
admitted to join in amusements which imply the contact of dancing and
cards. It is also too certain, that a contemptible and unworthy pride
often accompanies the wealth which assumes an ascendancy in
assemblies; that scandal and falsehood more commonly govern the
decisions of society than charity and truth; and that the base
passions of envy and malice mix themselves more or less with all human
conduct. What then is the security against the intrusion of the
vicious? A ballot, in which one black-ball in ten, or sometimes two or
three among the whole body of the subscribers, operate as an
exclusion, that is to say, are a means of setting a mark on a family,
and placing it at issue with a considerable portion of the
neighbourhood! What a pernicious engine for the gratification of
pride, scandal, envy, and malice! What an inquisition of the few bad
by which to torment the many good! What a dagger in the hands of
tolerated assassins! In short, what a perversion of reason, what a
disease in the very bosom of society, what a lurking demon stationed
at the threshold of every happy family, to blast and thwar