urd institutions; yet still we must admire the steadiness which
constitutes the national character, the immutability which reigns in
the administration of their laws and in the exercise of their public
functions, the unwearied assiduity of this nation to do and to promote
what is useful, and a hundred other things of a similar nature. That
so numerous a people as this should love so ardently and so
universally (without even a single exception to the contrary) their
native country, their Government, and each other--that the whole
country should be, as it were, enclosed, so that no native can get
out, nor foreigner enter in, without permission--that their laws
should have remained unaltered for several thousand years--and that
justice should be administered without partiality or respect of
persons--that the Governments can neither become despotic nor evade
the laws in order to grant pardons or do other acts of mercy--that the
monarch and all his subjects should be clad alike in a particular
national dress--that no fashions should be adopted from abroad, nor
new ones invented at home--that no foreign war should have been waged
for centuries past--that a great variety of religious sects should
live in peace and harmony together--that hunger and want should be
almost unknown, or at least known but seldom,--all this must appear
improbable, and to many as impossible as it is strictly true, and
deserving of the utmost attention." He goes on to say, "If the laws in
this country are rigid, the police are equally vigilant, while
discipline and good order are scrupulously observed. The happy
consequences of this are extremely visible and important, for hardly
any country exhibits fewer instances of vice. And as no respect
whatever is paid to persons, and at the same time the laws preserve
their pristine and original purity, without any alterations,
explanations, and misconstructions, the subjects not only imbibe, as
they grow up, an infallible knowledge of what ought or ought not to be
done, but are likewise enlightened by the example and irreproachable
conduct of their superiors in age.

"Most crimes are punished with death--a sentence which is inflicted
with less regard to the magnitude of the crime than to the audacity of
the attempt to transgress the hallowed laws of the empire, and to
violate justice, which together with religion they consider as the
most sacred things in the whole land. Fines and pecuniary mulcts they
regard