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LIFE av THE MISSISSIPPI.

his friends shot old TDarnell through and through—filled him full of
bullets, and ended him.'

The country gentleman who told me these things had been reared
In ease and comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred.
His loose grammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance.
This habit among educated men in the "West is not universal, but it
is prevalent—prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities ;
and to a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marvelling at.
I heard a Westerner who would be accounted a highly educated man
in any country, say * never mind, it don't make no difference, any-
way.* A life-long resident who was present heard it, but it made

ISULND NUMBER TEN.

no impression upon her. She was able to recall the fact afterward,
when reminded of it; but she confessed that the words had not
grated upon her ear at the time—a confession which suggests that if
educated people can hear such blasphemous grammar, from such a
source, and be unconscious of the deed, the crime must be tolerably
common—so common that the general ear has become dulled by
familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longer sensitive to such
affronts.
No one in the world speaks blemishless grammar j no one has
ever written it—no one, either in the world or out of it (taking the
Scriptures for evidence on the latter point) ; therefore it would not
be fair to exact grammatical perfection from the peoples of the