bills_, and so we were tided over. And now we have got the bills,
and we have got cheap labor too! And we are as near to "no government"
as any people ever was except wild Indians; and that we know--for the
doctrinaires say so--is Paradise. If it is not that, what in Heaven's
name is it?

There was once a notion that the men who had knowledge, and experience,
and strength, should think for and act for those who had not; in short,
that those who were strong should protect and care for the weak. The
father in some countries--not all--yet does pursue this plan; he is
head and master of his household, and is expected to know how to act
and what to do better than his boys and girls.

We have exploded that idea. Under this "best government upon which the
sun ever shone," we have made discoveries. We find that children know
what _they_ want better than their fathers; that women are really
stronger than men, have larger brains, more sense, more heart, and more
purity; and that when women and children both vote (mistress Biddy too)
the world will go right--for they--the pure, the honest--_will_ "holler
out gee!"

This old paternal or family government was a _despotism_, tempered
with love, to be sure, but a despotism not to be tolerated in an
enlightened age. Shovel it out, shovel it out!

It is a sad fact that children now, while wiser and purer than their
fathers, are not physically quite so strong. But it is found that the
pistol puts the holders upon a _perfect equality_, and that is the
thing to be aimed at. The redress of the weak is therefore in the
pistol, which I expect to see in every child's pocket soon. The tyrant
man will then be degraded to his place. With women voting, and children
holding pistols, men and fathers will be pulled down from the pedestal
they have usurped so long.

We know that women have more virtue than men (?), and that children
have more purity, and therefore, knowing well the "good, the true, and
the beautiful," they must and shall govern the land. They shall be
tyrannized no longer.

And so, as New England has cut into old England, and has set her own
machinery and steam to work making many things cheaper than old England
can make them, and bids fair to starve out some of her garrisons of
workers, just in the same way have Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, and
Chicago taken it into their heads to set their machinery and steam to
work; and now torrents of hats, and shoes, and woollens, and cott