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.

Political ambition is exceedingly rare among our women of position; when
the American husband is bitten with it, the wife submits to, rather than
abets, his inclinations. In most cases our women are not cosmopolitan
enough to enjoy being transplanted far away from their friends and
relations, even to fill positions of importance and honor. A New York
woman of great frankness and intelligence, who found herself recently in
a Western city under these circumstances, said, in answer to a flattering
remark that "the ladies of the place expected her to become their social
leader," "I don't see anything to lead," thus very plainly e