University of Virginia Library

LETTER XIX.
In which Mr Downing gives his opinion about newspapers.

Dear Uncle Joshua — In my last letter to Ephraim,
I said I should write to you pretty soon something
about the Portland Town Meeting. As you've been
sleckman and survare a good many years, I spose you'd
like to hear about sich kind of things. And I spose I
might tell you about a good many other things tu, that
you don't have much chance to know about away up
there; and aunt Sally says I ought tu; for she says I
have a great many advantages living here in Portland,
that folks can't have up in the country, and if I should
write to some of you once or twice a week, she thinks it
would be time well spent. So I shall spend part of my evenings,
after I get my day's work done, in writing letters.
I don't know but I forgot to tell you that I had hired
out here this summer. I get eight dollars a month
and board, and have the evenings to myself. I go to
school three evenings in a week, and aunt Sally says she
can begin to see that I spell better already. The printer
of the Courier and the Family Reader, that sends my
letters for me, is very kind; he does'nt ask any thing for
sending my letters, and he gives me as many newspapers
as I can get time to read. So I spend one evening in a
week reading newspapers, and set up pretty late that
evening tu. And besides I get a chance to read awhile
most every morning before the rest of the folks are up;
for these Portland folks are none of your starters in the
morning. I've known my father many a time, before the
rhumatiz took the poor old gentleman, to mow down an
acre of stout grass in the morning, and get done by that
time one half the Portland folks leave off snoring. Sometimes
I think I better be up in the country tu, mowing

or hoeing potatoes, or something else, instead of reading
newspapers. Its true they are bewitching kind of things,
and I like well enough to read 'em, but jest between you
and me, they are the worst things to bother a feller's
head about, that you ever see. In one of my letters, you
know, I said newspapers were dreadful smoky things, and
any body couldn't read in 'em half an hour without
having their eyes so full of smoke they couldn't tell a
pig-sty from a meeting house.

But I'm thinking after all they are more like rum than
smoke. You know rum will sometimes set quite peaceable
folks together by the ears, and make them quarrel
like mad dogs — so do the newspapers. Rum makes
folks act very silly — so do the newspapers. Rum
makes folks see double — so do the newspapers. Sometimes
rum gets folks so they can't see at all — so do the
newspapers. Rum, if they take tu much of it, makes
folks sick to the stomach — so do the newspapers. Rum
makes folks go rather crooked, reeling from one side of
the road to t'other — and the newspapers make one half
the politicians cross their path as often as any drunkard
you ever see. It was the newspapers, uncle Joshua, that
made you bet about the Speaker last summer, and lose
your bushel of corn. Remember that, uncle, and dont
believe any thing you see in the papers this summer, unless
you see it in the Daily Courier or Family Reader;
and dont you believe them neither if ever you see them
smoke like the rest of the papers.

As I was a saying about my evenings, I spend one
evening a week reading that little book called the constitution,
that kept our legislaters quarrelling all winter.
You know I bought one for four ax-handles; I find I
can read it considerable easy, most all of it without spelling,
and when I get through I shall tell you something
about it.

A queer thought, uncle, has just popt into my head:
I guess I should make a capital member of Congress —

for this letter is just like one of the Congress speeches.
It begun about the town meeting, but not a bit of a word
is there in it from beginning to end about the town meeting,
after you get over the text. But I find by reading
the papers that when a Congress man speaks all day
without touching his subject, he makes a motion to adjourn,
and goes at it again the next day. So I believe I
must say good night to you now, and try it again the
next leisure evening.