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they come out as fat as sheep from Coleseed , and afford profit to 4 the grazier . Oiii * btillocks , which were bought at 16 and 17 dollars last year , are now selling at Albion Market from 28 to 31 dollars each , paying nearly
cent per cent for nine months' keeping ; thus we are this year principally graziers , having 200 acres enclosed ana more enclosing . George will have a fine farm opened , an excellent garden and young treea , and vegetables of the most luxuriant growth . It ought not , however ,- to be concealed , that we are much in t of labourers
wan farming ; we eannot get a jugular ploughman , aiid a ptoughboy is sFtill a scarcer commodity ^ ai * d till we can get our prairies once Woken , and go with two hordes without a driver , ploughing will be difficult to get performed . Our people put on the independent airs of Americans , without either their natural
or noble independence , which disdains any thing like servitude , but , as if delighting to tease us gave them great pleasure , " they quit their work suddenly and without reason ; but we greatly counteract this by keeping them out
of employ and our money in our pockets ^ and pay gangs of Americans , who come out and are always migrating for a job of work , and then return to their farms . We are also , in many instances , destitute of women servants , but then we have plenty of helps , or charwomen , who will come and work
by the day or half day , and then return to their families . My wife has managed this business admirably well : observing their disposition , she hires them by the hour , sees well to them for the time being , and generally gets a \ vhole day ' s work done in a few
hours . This occasional assistance , in addition to the services of Mrs . Carter and a woman servant , makes us comfortably served . On our reti ^ n of Christmas-day , we invited our party as at Marden $ we assembled thirty-two in number . A more intelligent , sensible collection , I never had under my roof in England . A plentiful supply of plum pudding , roast beef and minee pies were at table , and turkeys in plenty , having purchased four &r ft dollar the preceding week . We found among the party good musicians , good singers , and the young people danced , nine couple , and the whole party Wfcte
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innocently happy and cheerful during the evening ; The company were pleased to say I had transferred old England and its comforts to the Illinois . Thus , my dear Sir , we are not in the least in want of society ; aind I would not
change my situation for any in America , nor for disturbed and tumultuous England . My efforts to assemble the people to public worship have been successful : our place is well attended , often from
40 to 50 people through winter , and amongst our congregation we often number a part pf Birkbeek ' s children and servants . Our singing is excellent ; our prayers , the reformed Unitarian service . Tbfe sermons which have
been read are fro ^ n author I never met with in England , a Mr . Butcher ; they are , without exception , the best practical Sermons I have ever seen .
Our Library-Room is well attended in the afternoon ; the people , improving in cleanliness and sobriety , recover their intellectual faculties , and interest themselves in moral and Christian
converse . When I arrived at Albion , a more disorganized , demoralized state of society never existed ; the experiment has been made—the abandonment of Christian institutes and Christian
sabbaths , and living without God in the world has been fedtly tried . If those theologians in England who despise the sabbath and laugh at congregational worship , had been sent to the English settlement in the Illinois at the time I arrived , they would , or they ought to have hid their faces for
shame . B * s family played at cricket , the backwoodsmen shot at marks , their favourite sport , and the Sunday revels ended in riot and savage fighting ; this was too much for Infidel nerves . All this also took place at Albion ; but when a few , a very few , better men met and read the Scriptures , and offered prayteir , at It poor
cbntemptibte log-house , these tevellers were awed into silence , and the sabbath at Albion became decently quiet . One of its inhabitants , of an Infidel cast , said to me , Sir 1 this is very extraordinaryi that what . the law could not effectsa little an assembly meeting
, for worship should have eflfected . " " Sir , * ' said I , " I am gtttrjmsed that you da not peitfeivfc ) &m . you are offering a stronger ar ^ meiit in favour of this tlhrfetian institute thai * any I can
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4 d 4 Extracts of Letters from Mr . Hichard Flower .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1820, page 454, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2491/page/10/
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