The courteous reader must have seen by this time, notwithstanding my juvenile indiscretion as a friend of the people, I was not naturally of a political turn: I had, indeed, from my first outset in life, too much to do in my private affairs, to have any leisure for meddling with those of the public. Thus it happened, that I took little interest in the principles of our newspaper, “The Judiville Jupiter;” I scarcely knew to which of the two great parties in the Union it was attached; all, in fact, that I did know, was, that the first editor, Dr. Murdoch, was a British republican, and that when he was sober he wrote clever articles to which I did not very strongly object, though I liked them better for their fond familiarity with old Scottish matters and things, than either for the argument or the language, though the latter was considered very good. When he was in his cups, there could not be a greater Herod for beheading; all who thought not as he thought, he regarded as delinquents that ought not to live; in verity, the paper was seldom in my hands.

It was not so with neighbour Semple; he was much of a politician, and of the democratic order; so were all the men about his mills; and of course he did not highly approve of the sentiments of the newspaper, which were more federal. This led him, now that the town had tripled in population since the establishment of “The Jupiter,” to concert with certain opulent new settlers for the establishment of another paper, which they called “The Chopper; or, The Oracle of the Woods,” and Mr. Dinleloof the schoolmaster, whom I have mentioned as a friend of the Ettrick Shepherd, recommended by Miss Beeny Needles to my patronage, was appointed the ostensible editor; the real editor, the writer of the leading and influential articles, was a Mr. Scholly, a clerk to the Mill Company, and who looked up to Mr. Semple as the friend that was to bring him forward in life.