"Every one at the South introduces its 'peculiar institution' into conversation.

It is a ridiculous affair, but as it is as much a 'peculiar institution' as is Southern slavery, I stopped and listened, and after we came into the house Miss S. threw out some pence for them.

The truth is, that some time ago an application was made to this Government by Portugal to 'guarantee the new political institutions' of that kingdom.

It is not proposed to build an 'institution' with stern and rigid discipline and enforcement of prim behaviour, but to open a home, filled with the genial atmosphere of cordial comradeship, and self-respecting freedomthe atmosphere so familiar to all who have grown up in the blessed shelter of a happy home, so strange, alas!

Mr. Spencer opens his 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' by the remark that 'the implication [from the reported absence of the ideas of belief in persons born deaf and dumb] is that the religious ideas of civilised men are not innate' (who says they are?), and this implication Mr. Spencer supports by 'proofs that among various savages religious ideas do not exist.'

In his 'Principles of Sociology' and 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' one looks in vain for an adequate notice; in vain for almost any notice, of this part of his topic.

They only supply Mr. Spencer's 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' with a few instances of the ghost-belief.

And the support of the South has been given to the Northern Democratic politicians, upon the distinct understanding that their 'domestic institution' was to be guaranteed to them.