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THE United States is a country great in newspapers. How the multitude published can pay at the low rate at which they are sold is a matter of wonder. The "New York Herald" occupies a space somewhat similar to our "giant of the press." It has more rivals, however, who assert claims to equality, than our "Times." I believe the "Times" in America, and I fancy generally in all foreign countries, is looked on as the "vox populi" of England. The reports of speeches and trials are not given here with anything like the fullness and accuracy that they are in England. I was present at a very interesting trial, where the prisoner was defended with great ability and eloquence by one of the leading barristers, at New York; but a bare statement of fact was all that appeared in the public papers; and when at Washington I referred to them to read over the debate I had heard on the previous evening, I found the report extremely meagre and defective, something similar to the summary of parliamentary intelligence in our papers.

The American journals are principally filled with foreign intelligence, and comments thereon. Receiving mails from Europe two or three times every week, with a vast mass of complex politics, and of the ablest criticisms on men, measures, and events, having merely to cull and select the flowers from this rich and fertile field, they are at no loss to fill their columns with both interesting and attractive matter. Extracts from what they always call the "London Times," with its views on the great questions and events of the day, whether as affecting themselves or the continent of Europe, furnish a kind of theme for dissertations and remarks of their own. Besides this, from their geographical position, they are of course abundantly and constantly supplied with news of all that is going on, or looming in the future of the Western hemisphere. In fact, news from New Orleans, or other distant points of the Union, amounts very nearly to the same thing as foreign intelligence. The leading journal, which I mentioned above, seems to take conciliatory views of English policy, and of the intercourse between England and America. In the mind of a sensible or enlightened man, a rupture between the two countries would be not only destructive and ruinous to each as a nation, but would inflict a severe blow on the principles of liberty, constitutional right, and good government. The lower sort of Yankees are a swaggering, conceited set of fellows, and John Bull has a pretty good notion of his own prowess; but happily it is not permitted to these belligerent gentlemen to settle their disputed points in their own savage or school-boy fashion.

VIRGINIAN WAGONS.

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'Staunton is a pretty village, surrounded by hills; and when the railroad connecting it with Richmond is completed, will be a place of importance, as it lies near one extremity of the great agricultural valley of Virginia. At present it is a century behind the Northern States. A traveller in a few hours perceives the vast difference in the progress of civilisation between the two sections of the Union. After travelling through the North with speed, punctuality, and comparative luxury, he finds himself, when only a few miles from the beaten tracks of human intercourse, contending with bad roads, bad inns, dilatoriness, and otium sine dignitate.

'The old-fashioned plan of travelling on horseback is still adhered to, and is common in Virginia. Virginian wagons, having the top covered with white sail-cloth, being drawn by six horses, may be seen creeping along the roads. A nigger rides one of the wheelers, and with only one rein attached to a leader, contrives to guide the whole team. Original, clumsy, and picturesque they look, slowly coming into view at the turn of a country road, with the sun shining brightly on their snowy coverings; and they speak strongly, and with incontrovertible evidence, of the comparatively slow progress of the people who use them. Virginia is, however, awakening from her sleep. Railways are being constructed across her in all directions; the spirit of enterprise is shedding its awakening influence over the dormant energies of her population; and she will soon be, what her size, climate, and natural advantages seem to foretell, one of

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the greatest and most flourishing States of the Union. The white population of Virginia considerably exceeds her black, and her soil being principally cultivated for grain, or producing pasture for sheep and cattle, there are but few regular plantations, where slaves drudge and toil like farm-horses. I saw an advertisement in the inn, at Staunton, offering a reward for a runaway negro boy; but I should think that in this State, though there are more facilities to escape, the inducements to do so are less than those farther south. An intelligent mulatto driver, who pleased and interested me, said he had requested his mistress to allow him to go to Siberia. Hearing I was an Englishman, he asked if they were not against slavery in England, and if Canada were not a free state? I told him that Canada was a British colony, and all British colonies were free. He said he should much like to go there. I asked him if he were married; he answered, "Yes." "Have you got any children?" "No, there is only me and my wife." His mistress, a widow lady, made a profit out of him by letting him out to drive and do jobs. The man was not only intelligent, but courteous and gentle in manner. He had evidently a great deal of white blood (the element of freedom) in his veins. He was a fine-looking fellow, upwards of six feet high. I really felt interested in him, and fell into a painful reverie on the evils of a system which degrades what God has made noble. The day will come when the mulattoes, illegitimate offspring though they be, will prove themselves their fathers' sons. In my opinion, the event must take

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A MULATTO COACHMAN.

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place, in the natural order of things. Here was a man, sensible of his degraded position, keenly desirous of freedom, hearing with delight of those lands where slavery is unknown, intelligent enough to perceive the injustice of the system which oppressed him, and to feel that, if he rebelled, he would not sin, but assert a right, which the God who made all has given to all— here was a man, a type of a numerous and rapidly increasing class in the South, in whose mind was laid a train, which it required only circumstances and opportunity to fire, a man who would fight, as the Greeks of old fought, under the watchwords of liberty and right.

'The coach which was to convey me to Lexington at length got under weigh. I mounted on the box, to enjoy the sunshine, and to see the country. Our first sixteen miles was over a terrible road, and we took about four and a half hours to traverse it. The rest of our journey was over planks, which appeared by contrast like a sudden transportation to Elysium, after the cares, troubles, and contentions of life. I walked over four

miles of the worst part of the road.

My driver was a

good, honest fellow; had driven the stage along that road for twenty-eight years, and had just earned enough to bring up, and educate his children. He made some

sensible and intelligent remarks on the advantages of education, and seemed fully to comprehend the value of the gift bestowed by his exertions on his family. In America, education, if combined with energy, application, and good sense, is wealth to its possessor. Hundreds of