Gazette Of The United States

From the Western Star.

Mr. Andrews,

The other day I heard one of my neighbours reading a sketch in a Hartford paper as how Congress was going to turn Barbers, and undertake to regulate the wearing of Wigs in America. Well! thinks I, as I jogged along home, it is little enough that I know about politics; but when I gave my vote for a member of Congress, I supposed it was for something else than to sit there four or five months in the year, at six Dollars a day, to throw stumbling blocks in the way of our beloved President, and to argufy and wrangle about papers and periwigs.

I have heard much talk of a Federal Constitution, as being a mighty fine thing, and the grand bulwarks, (as they call it,) of American Liberty. Now I conceived that this Constitution had so chalked out matters, that our President, our Senate, and our House of Representatives, would each know its own ground, and jog on in its own track, and so be employed in something useful and profitable for their money, d'ye see; and not be hunching and elbowing one another by the way— That was what I thought.

If I employ one man, at four shillings and six pence a day, to mow my grass, and another, at three shillings, to follow the plough, I do not expect that the Plough-man will leave his furrow, every now and then, to be dabbling with the scythe; or the Mower quit his swathe to teach the other how to drive his team; much less that either of them should play truant, and run a hunting after Bird's nests; and all this at my cost.

Now my notion is, that if "Gentlemen" must be playing off their Brilliants, and shewing their ingenuity and smartness, about Treaties, Papers and Periwigs, I say, let them put their hands in their pockets, and pay themselves. Should I take it into my noddle to amuse myself, for want of other game, to shoot my neighbour's fowls, methinks I should hardly have a face to demand pay from him for my time, much less for the powder and shot I had expended. If I did, I suppose he would think it a little hard to find game, and pay for catching it.

Yours to serve, HUMPHREY HOBSON.