doctrines directly at war
with all stable government, seem to be the basis on which our
institutions rest. But only seem to be; for, in truth, our laws and
government are either old Anglo-Saxon prescriptive arrangements, or else
the gradual accretions of time, circumstance and necessity. Throw our
paper platforms, preambles and resolutions, guaranties and
constitutions, into the fire, and we should be none the worse off,
provided we retained our institutions--and the necessities that begat,
and have, so far, continued them.

All government proceeds ab extra. Neither individuals nor societies can
govern themselves, any more than the mouse can live in the exhausted
receiver, or the clown lift himself by the lappel of his pantaloons. The
South is governed by the necessity of keeping its <DW64>s in order,
which preserves a healthy conservative public opinion. Had the <DW64>s
votes, the necessityof the community to
which his details extend, belong principally to the hereditary and
professional class of beggars.

The writer of this family thus proceeds with his descriptive details:

    'In order fully to explain each individual character, I shall
    begin with those vagrants who generally obtain the most, and are
    considered of the _first class_, and are by some termed 'Silver
    Beggars,' but by travelers LURKERS.

    'LURKERS are persons who go about with briefs, containing false
    statements of losses by fire, shipwrecks, accidents, &c. The seals
    and signatures of two or more magistrates are affixed to those
    briefs, and they are so well written, that thousands of