Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/279

Rh for be assured, in no isle of the sea will they bloom fairer.

England has held this pretty gem of the ocean by the cable of king and queenship for centuries, floating and dashing alternately in the vascillating uncertain waves of hope and desperation, casting in oil when the tempest runs highest—pulling the cord gently, and whispering "Sister," when she finds her loosening her holdings to make for a more open sea; and then promises to repair her breaches, and make her to "sing as in the days of her youth." But there she is, rocking and floating still, her wild tresses disheveled, her head uncovered, and her feet still bare. One hundred and thirty years ago, she had one hundred and sixty families that had no chimneys in their hovels; now she has sixty-two in one hundred not fit for man to inhabit in one part, and on an average of something like forty-four or forty-five through the whole island, from which the beaver and woodchuck might blush to be found peeping. Why, in the name of all that is common sense or common decency, if she cannot be remodeled, if she is rooted and grounded in her everlasting filth, her disgusting tatters, and frightful rags, is she not cut loose and left to sink or swim, as best she can manage? If she can be transformed into anything like comeliness, why is she hung out a never-fading, never-dying scarecrow to all the world beside? If the last four years have not turned her inside out, and shown her, in the face of heaven, to the nations of the earth—if any deformity remains which is yet to be served up, 12*