All this, to
be sure, might be done by detached certificates, but neither so neatly
nor so accurately; for a man would pretend a need, that he had lost a
single certificate, oftener than he would pretend that he had lost those
he really had, or in other words, his book. Besides, the commune gives
some relief, I believe, when such a calamity can be proved, as proved it
probably might be. In addition, the authorities will not issue a
_livret_ to any but those who are believed to be trust-worthy. Of course
I sent the man a character, so far as I was concerned, for he had
conducted himself perfectly well during the short time he was in my
service.

A regulation like this could not exist in a very large town, without a
good deal of trouble, certainly; and yet what is there of more moment to
the comfort of a population, than severe police regulations on the
subject of servants? America is almost--perhaps the only civilized
country in which the free-trade system is fully carried out in this
particular, and carried out it is with a vengeance. We have the
let-alone policy, _in puris naturalibus_, and everything is truly let
alone, but the property of the master. I do not wish, however, to
ascribe effects to wrong causes. The dislike to being a servant in
America, has arisen from the prejudice created by our having slaves. The
negroes being of a degraded caste, by insensible means their idea is
associated with service; and the whites shrink from the condition. This
fact is sufficiently proved by the circumstance that he who will
respectfully and honestly do your bidding in the field--be a
farm-servant, in fact--will not be your domestic servant. There is no
particular dislike in our people to obey, and to be respectful and
attentive to their duties, as journeymen, farm-labourers, day-labourers,
seamen, soldiers, or anything else, domestic servants excepted, which is
just the duties they have been accustomed to see discharged by blacks
and slaves. This prejudice is fast weakening, whites taking service more
readily than formerly, and it is found that, with proper training, they
make capital domestics, and are very faithful. In time the prejudice
will disappear, and men will come to see it is more creditable to be
trusted about the person and house, than to be turned into the fields.

It is just as difficult to give a minute account of the governments of
the different cantons of Switzerland, as it is to give an account of the
di