The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-12-26
Hon. A. s. Hewitt's Travels.


Mr. Hewitt, member of the national house
OF representatives from New York, has made
four months tour abroad He gives some pleas
ant "reminiscences OF what has been to him q
very enjoyable and refreshing vacation. " We
have been as far east as the Black sea. We
visited France, England, Germany, Austria,
Italy, Greece, Turkey, Wallachia, Roumania,
and Bulgaria The trip has been interesting
and instructive. have travelled over the Old
Homeric fields that Ulysses trod. | have re-
vived old memories OF my classic training and
recalled the days when | was a teacher and
forced those associations on unwilling subjects.
| have seen the whole OF the Dalmatian and
Albanian coast, been all through the isles of
Greece, to Ithaca, where Ulysses was finally
restored to his suffering country. We went to
Corfu, and to Corinth, where we climbed the
old citadel of Corinth. We went to Athens,
and saw where St. Paul preached, and walked
under the olive trees where Socrates and Plato
discoursed philosophy We went in Greek
steamer down the Argos. We went to Milo,
where the famous statue OF Venus was found.
We went to Delos where the ruins OF the temple
of Apollo cover many acres. We went through
the streets of Euripus and visited the home OF
the Thessalonians, to whom st. Paul addressed
his epistes. We visited the birthplace OF
Alexander the Great, and went to the foot OF
Mount Olympus. He went to see the monks Of
Athos, who have been established a thousand
years, and within whose precincts no woman
ever set foot We went to the scene of the
Siege of Troy, and saw the ruins of at least two
remote civilizations. We sailed along the
shores of the Black Sea, from which now Great
Britain gets food as well as from us, and from
whence ancient Rome fed ITSELF for it was the
granary of the Romans. During all the trip,
which was made largely in a private steamer,
with leisure to study men and manners |
came to the conclusion that the greatest miracle
of our time and the most valuable treasure
which mankind has ever discovered is the
tha NIT i'm tyli oh
checks and balances are so arranged that
while progress is not only possible, but its
results certain, the prejudices of popular
passion are kept in check, and only those
measures which are best calculated to promote
the general welfare can by any possibility re-
ceive the sanction of legislation and of perma-
nent public judgment. | come back not only
| proud of my country but conscious, more than
| ever of the duty which rests upon every one of
| its citizens to preserve constitutional govern
ment in the form and according to the spirit Of
| its conception and organization. 1t is the
result not merely Of the wisdom of our fathers,
| but of fortunate chain of circumstances
| which never occurred before in the history of
the world, and can by no possibility occur
| again. We are not u democratic mob, like
the ancient democracy OF Athens. We are not
pure democracy, such as the French people
| vainly magine they have established, in which
| the republic was built upon the plebiscite of
! ignorance and passion. But, we have fedora
ton of independent democracies expressing
their will aud maintaining their interests, not
| only in proportion to their numbers as repre-
scented in the lower house of congress, but as
the peers of each other in the senate, and in
the executive department we are regulated
and limited by tribunal whose judgment
must stand the ordeal Of public opinion and
conform TO the recognized principles of justice
and law. No other country has such a govern
ment, but just as they approach to the prnci-
pie of free representative government, which
we have secured do find the people of Other
countries to be prosperous and contented"