en convicted, as _might_ happen under the
excitement of such a crime, they very well know nobody would be hanged.
Honesty is always too passive in matters that do not immediately press
on its direct interests. It is for the interest of every honest man in
the State to set his face against this anti-rent movement, and to do all
he can, by his vote and influence, to put it down into the dirt, out of
which it sprang, and into which it should be crushed; but not one in a
hundred, even of those who condemn it _toto caelo_, will go a foot out of
their way even to impede its progress. All depends on those who have the
power; and they will exert that power so as to conciliate the active
rogue, rather than protect the honest man. You are to remember that the
laws are executed here on the principle that 'what is everybody's
business is nobody's business.'"

"You surely do not believe that the authorities will wink at an open
violation of the laws!"

"That will depend on the characters of individuals; most will, but some
will not. You and I would be punished soon enough, were there a chance,
but the mass would escape. Oh! we have had some precious disclosures in
our corner of the car! The two or three men who joined Newcome are from
anti-rent districts, and seeing me with their friend, little reserve has
been practised. One of those men is an anti-rent lecturer; and, being
somewhat didactic, he favoured me with some of his arguments,
_seriatim_."

"How! Have they got to lectures? I should have supposed the newspapers
would have been the means of circulating their ideas."

"Oh, the newspapers, like hogs swimming too freely, have cut their own
throats; and it seems to be fashionable, just at this moment, not to
believe them. Lecturing is the great moral lever of the nation at
present."

"But a man can lie in a lecture, as well as in a newspaper."

"Out of all question; and if many of the lecturers are of the school of
this Mr. Holmes--'Lecturer Holmes,' as Seneca called him--but, if many
are of _his_ school, a pretty set of liberty-takers with the truth must
they be."

"You detected him, then, in some of these liberties?"

"In a hundred: nothing was easier than for a man in my situation to do
that; knowing, as I did, so much of the history of the land-titles of
the State. One of his arguments partakes so largely of the weak side of
our system, that I must give it to you. He spoke of the gravity of the
disturbances--of the