Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/39

 : for who would be a libertine in a land where a divorce is as easily obtainable as a dog license, who would risk the shame, the moral degradation, the expense of keeping a mistress when all the worldly advantages of such a course can be obtained by going through a holy and harmless ceremony? You understand now the moral altitude of every American; you comprehend the height from which the citizen of New York and of San Francisco looks down on the deplorable corruption of our effete aristocracy. The fellow-countrymen of Tweed and Oakey Hall carry their own moral atmosphere with them; they would perish else when they condescend to visit the gilded infection of our House of Lords.

Yes! America is Democracy triumphant; the goal to which we are pressing here, the ideal towards which all noble hearts are striving. But—how long can we proclaim the glad tidings of liberty if the offensive and doubtless exaggerated details to which I have alluded are made public in the press? You and I are