American State Capitals

A Canada correspondent of the London Times gives the following unflatterva-i but not ueorrect descriptiou of our legislativo capitals : For twq generations it bas been the practica tbroughout the Utiit ad States. with the excoption of Massachusetts and Virginia, to remove the seats of legislature from gre it cities to suiall towns situated as noarly as possible in the centre of tliu comnionweaith. The reasons ulleged were - ürst, the facility of aocess, supposed to Ho in the equidistance ot the parliainentary ceuter Irom all points of the State; and, secoud, the freedom iro:n raob influence and iotimidation, to be found in the rural districts, and whioh eoul.l n_t be expected among the rowdy and excitable population of large manufacturing and commercial cities. For a systüin of government which rests upon the suffragu of a whole people, in which the mob (to use the word in no oft'ensive sensj) fcirm so large a porlion of the constituenoy, tha plea oí such a necussity is somowhat damaging. No one ever heard that the Parliauient of Great Britain was not as safe in Westmiiister as it would have been in KoniKvorth. - But the people of tho iarge States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio mistrusted the erowd too uiuch, thuugh they alvvays boast of its educated iutelligeuce, to consent that populous and vveal'hy New York, Philadelphia aud Uincinnati should be the seatt? of the Legislatura. The consequenco is that the capitals of these and most otlier States of the Uniou are but ïnoonsidorab!e places, deriviug a fíctitious importauce from the presence ouoo a year of tho local legislature ; but striving in vaiu to expand iuto the size or the dignity of cities. Washington itself, seleoted for tho same reanons as the capital of the Uniou, has little of the ap pearanco and nono oí the ameuities of a veritable metropolis. It is a place oí immense promise and small perfonnauce. Tl design upou the topographical churt is laagniñcant. lts actuul .coudition is petty aud disappointiug - a mixture of imposiug public (idiüces, separated from each other by long intervals of inferior or half built stieets, in which the pigsty, the cabbage-gaideu and the wonden shanty altérnate with the brick house and the martle mansión. LTnpavod aud unfimshed atreets dirty and disreputable, swariiiing will, beer-shops, groggero, guinbiing deus and brothele, Washington can give no other escuse for i ts existen ce tban the met'ting of a Congress, whiuh would have beeu rauch beltcr houaed at New York.