Litchfield enquirer., 1863-04-16
The Yankee. BY HENRY WARD BEEcHER.

l IaN The Yankee
 ] s BY HENRY WARD BEEcHEB. ~ 1 There lies, between the St. Lawrence all. the Atlantic Ocean. little gore of land, few hundred miles wide and long, which seems tt nave been made up of the fragments and leav ilings, after the rest of the continent was made Its rlDs stick out beyond all covering it has sand enough to SCOUT all creation there are no large rivers, but there are many nimble lit | tie ones, that seem to have been busy since the flood, in taking exercise over r.tts and rocks It's indigenous productions are ice. Indian. and trees Its wild fruits are whorteberries and chasnuts. About the first tmo that this lpart of the continent was first explor.d, $ great plague had swept of large portion o its Indians. Trading and commercial adven turers had endeavored to effect settlement in vain. The place seemed too hard for Indians and rowing traders. This tongue ot land wal set apart, apparently, for Q wilderness, and il had peculiar aptitudes for keeping men away from 1t. It's Summers were short its winters long, its rocks innumerabie, its soil thin Bound ed to the north by htpe erborean cold, to the east by endless forests, to the south by the ocean only to the west was there an opening through which the people could make their way out, should there ever be population. To settle this cold, sterile, aEd sombre corner of the creation, a race of men was raised up called the Puritans. Naturalists tell us that every plant has its insect, and every animal its para site; so there must be some sort of anina adapted to live on these shores, and that ani. nal was the Puritan. The Puritan was not described by Cuvier, or by any naturalist. None of the modern ethnographers have given attention to this class of beings. They have been described in popular literature and in newspapers; and if we may not believe them, what shall we believe? ,asv Taking our idea from political speeches and newspapers, the Puritan was hard, tough, gaunt creature, utterly devoid of taste aud of the finer affections, but excessively endowed with holy combativeness. He was always to be seen with his eyes carth-bound, and sane. timonious face; whenever they were lifted, it was to find fault or money, as the case might be. He is supposed to regard all men as wrong but himself his vocation is to put all things right. Therefore he is the moral tinker of the universe, and is for mending rips in morals, and putting patches up,n conduct generally, making up the deficiencies he detects in providence and creation. Like the seabird, he Is ever on the wing, and never better pleas. ed than in storm. This cha racter infests the
 
 disputes, controversies and settlements than all the rest of the population put together No other parsonage could have lived in New England, and notning else could live there if he did. He was tougher than the stone, drisr than the sand, more obstinate than the seasons, and, indeed, some naturalsts tell us that since the Puritans settled in New England, its eli. mate has grown much milder; even New Eng land winters could not stand the eternal fault finding of the Puritans.
 As long as this controversy between nature and the Puritan was confined to New England, men were patient. But within hundred years we have seen great mischefs introduced upon the rest of the continent. There is the Hessian fly that has robbed millions on mill ions of dollars from the wheat crop; there are weavils, and blights, and the curculio on trees and then we have the Canada thistle, the very Yankee of botany-sharp, hungry, and prolf- lc, with a million of seeds, and every seed sure to sprout, growing ten times as fast when you cut 1t up by the roots as when you let it alone. Among all tRese none have been so much de- plored as the spread of the Yankee He is the plague of the continent; goes everywhere en- gages in everything is always and everywhere the same disputing, meddling, reforming char acter he was in England, and is in New England. and seems likely to be until the end of the world. Agitator in politics, dispu- tant in theology, fault finder in morals. prying up peaceful houses to see if the underpinning is safe-the vender of gimcracks to every housekeeper, he has always some new way of grinding. or screwing, or twisting, or rolling, or churning or knitting or sewing, or blowing to show. His ploughs and washing.nachines would build the Chinese wall. The Puritan Yankee has at last exhausted the saints of the plantations, and they have determined to hunt him home to his den," and to shut him up there all by himself. Ne would suggest, there fore, that all the Yankee inventions be collect cd, and . wall be built of the carts, ploughs raapers, churns, sewing-mac hines, clocks, stoves and all the contrirances which the indefatiga ble Yankee has invented, and all that Yankee books, spelling books, reading-books. histories. geographies tlieolo ,ical books. be piled ui,on the top Of these. and that'it be lawful to shoot any Yankee who attempts to scale the wal; ; and then it may be hoped that. left to feed upon these, they may become refined be yond the body, and peradvsnture the whole stock may rise souae windy day in blessed translation, and leave the world in peace. to shadder at nothing any more, exec pt the re ine,nbranee of the horrid Yankees
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