The American Senator

The American Senator

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Title: The American Senator
Author: Anthony Trollope
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THE AMERICAN SENATOR
By Anthony Trollope

VOLUME I


CHAPTER I
Dillsborough
I never could understand why anybody should ever have begun to live
at Dillsborough, or why the population there should have been at any
time recruited by new comers. That a man with a family should cling to
a house in which he has once established himself is intelligible. The
butcher who supplied Dillsborough, or the baker, or the ironmonger,
though he might not drive what is called a roaring trade, nevertheless
found himself probably able to live, and might well hesitate before he
would encounter the dangers of a more energetic locality. But how it
came to pass that he first got himself to Dillsborough, or his father, or
his grandfather before him, has always been a mystery to me. The town
has no attractions, and never had any. It does not stand on a bed of coal
and has no connection with iron. It has no water peculiarly adapted for
beer, or for dyeing, or for the cure of maladies. It is not surrounded by
beauty of scenery strong enough to bring tourists and holiday travellers.

There is no cathedral there to form, with its bishops, prebendaries, and
minor canons, the nucleus of a clerical circle. It manufactures nothing
specially. It has no great horse fair, or cattle fair, or even pig market of
special notoriety. Every Saturday farmers and graziers and buyers of
corn and sheep do congregate in a sleepy fashion about the streets, but
Dillsborough has no character of its own, even as a market town. Its
chief glory is its parish church, which is ancient and inconvenient,
having not as yet received any of those modern improvements which
have of late become common throughout England; but its parish church,
though remarkable, is hardly celebrated. The town consists chiefly of
one street which is over a mile long, with a square or market-place in
the middle, round which a few lanes with queer old names are
congregated, and a second small open space among these lanes, in
which the church stands. As you pass along the street north-west, away
from the railway station and from London, there is a steep hill,
beginning to rise just beyond the market-place. Up to that point it is the
High Street, thence it is called Bullock's Hill. Beyond that you come to
Norrington Road,--Norrington being the next town, distant from
Dillsborough about twelve miles. Dillsborough, however, stands in the
county of Rufford, whereas at the top of Bullock's Hill you enter the
county of Ufford, of which Norrington is the assize town. The
Dillsborough people are therefore divided, some two thousand five
hundred of them belonging to Rufford, and the remaining five hundred
to the neighbouring county. This accident has given rise to not a few
feuds, Ufford being a large county, with pottery, and ribbons, and
watches going on in the farther confines; whereas Rufford is small and
thoroughly agricultural. The men at the top of Bullock's Hill are
therefore disposed to think themselves better than their
fellow-townsfolks, though they are small in number and not specially
thriving in their circumstances.
At every interval of ten years, when the census is taken, the population
of Dillsborough is always found to have fallen off in some slight degree.
For a few months after the publication of the figures a slight tinge of
melancholy comes upon the town. The landlord of the Bush Inn, who