The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-15 00:00:00

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THEIR PURSUI7S.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

THE PLIABILITY UP AMERICANS IN

More than two years ago a circular was widely
distributed, urging the advisability of establishing
in Europe a National American Banking House.
It maintained that the exchange between the Con-
tinents was not regulated on any principle; was sub-
ject to violent, arbitrary, and unnecessary changes,
causing loss and annoyance to those who had
to transfer money. Such a bank, it was argued,
would itself regulate the exchange, and in doing so
would confer a benefit especially on America, who
lost most by the present system. It was also con-
sidered necessary that the States should have on
this side such a financial agency, to raise loans,
pay dividends and coupons, and meet the drafts of
the Washington Treasury. It was thought that
an establishment on a grand scale, known to be in
connection with the Government, would not only
supply an American want, but tend to establish
upon a firm basis the credit of the United States in
Europe. A resolution is now before Congress to
appoint such an agency, and the New York Journal of
Commerce says that INIr. M'CuLt.octr, who has ac-
cepted the post, will be located in London, while as a
partner of Messrs JAY COOKE and Co. he will represen t
here that firm. It is a matterof astonishment to Eng-
lishmen to observe the sudden changes which trans-
form an American Cabinet Minister of enormous
power into a resident partner of a banking house
expatriated in a foreign city. Let them glance at
the short sketch* we last week gave of the new
and re-elected Senators, and they will see how
common these changes are. HANNIBAL HAMLIN
was a small farmer; he was then Vice-President,
a second time farmer, and now member of the
United States Senate. General CARL SCHURZ,
after many a hungry day in London, was a writer
for the newspaper press—Minister to Madrid—a
General commanding an Army Corps of the United
States—again newspaper correspondent, the step
being direct from the great power which his ele-
vated military post gave in time of war down to a
correspondent, and from the editorship of a Ger-
man newspaper he has now entered the Senate.
The Republic is full of men whose career has been
even more chequered. A Judge descends from the
bench of the Supreme Court to work as an attor-
ney. A Cabinet Minister from a seat at the Coun-
cil Board takes a place at the desk of a trading firm,
a President becomes a lecturer, and a most cele-
brated General, on whom has hinged the future
of a continent, has sunk into a professor's chair of
an obscure college. These curious changes are in
accordance with the genius of the people, and are
the practical result of their institutions. It is a
common thing to hear an American say that he has
to do one more only, to have tried all the profes-
sions. He has sailed a ship, he has commanded a
regiment, he has argued a case, he has run a news-
paper, he has worked a farm, he has failed as a
merchant, he has " stumped" a State, he has
" spouted" in Congress, he has represented Repub-
lican dignity in the Court of a despot, he has been
manager of an hotel, and he intends to die a
bishop ! In Europe all this is incomprehensible,
genuine facts being ascribed to exaggeration,
and listened to with incredulity. More espe-
cially in England is a man's choice of a profes-
sion like the choice of a wife, an irrevocable
step, to which he is tied like the Siamese twins,
for the place he gets into, however ill adapted to
his form, as he afterwards may find, he becomes com-
pelled thenceforth to occupy ; and the square man
in the round hole has through friction to wear off
the sharp angles, till he gets accommodated to the
position. These professions are like the castes
of India, they are so hedged in that it is almost im-
possible to enter them except by training at an early
age for the career. They possess degrees of dignity
made sacred by time, and an esprit de corps compels
each member in his own person to maintain that dig-
nity. A voluntary descent to something society
considers beneath the former position would be
regarded almost as a crime, certainly as an offence ;
and he who rises frotn the lower into the higher
walks of life does all he can to obliterate every trace
of the former stage, treating an allusion to it in his
presence almost as an insult. An American, on
the contrary, throws up what the Eaglishtnan con-
siders the higher and goes back voluntarily to the
lower, or he makes his original occupation his ar-
morial device. Mr. Jonxsos while at the head of
his mighty nation receives deputations of tailors,
an I diieusses the trade with the gusto of a
tradesman, acknowledging that he was never more
happy than when working in the craft. During
the election the Union was covered with tanner
clubs in honour of GRANT'S old employment. Of
all things most likely to be unsavoury to the
olfactory sense of the Englishman who had been
so employed after he had risen to high dig-
nity would be a tanyard, and all EUGENE RIM-
MEL'S perfumes could not overpower the taint.
Governor SEYMOUR'S occupation would be un-
derstood and condoned in England, as that of
a gentleman engaged in high farming, and he
could therefore even with pride offer his guests
some of the cheese from his own dairy. Many
Americans imagine that English prejudices against
trade and useful occupations generally, are con-
fined to the Upper Ten Thousand ; but this is a
great mistake, for perhaps these prejudices are
there lets felt than in the other grades of society
The traveller who takes a coach and drives through
an English county, on asking his JEIIU to WllOlll
that beautiful demesne belongs, learns that " Lord
COWHIDE is the proprietor, his grandfather was a
butcher ; he is a new man, and thought little of in
the county." " There," he will add, pointing to
some gable-ended country residence with straight
rows of trees, " that is the old manor house of Sir
J EREMY DIDDLER, one of the most ancient ba-
ronets; indeed he came over with the Conqueror."
There can be little doubt that this prejudice is
giving way before the progress of Americanization,
and a handicraft-man does not now seem so much
I inclined to sneer at the family founded by his suc-
cessful fellow-craftsman. That "founding a family"
is what Americans dislike, and Englishmen love.
The very essence of the institutions of the Re-
public is, that every man should have a fair
chance in life and succeed or fail according to
his individual merits. The founding a family
is the reverse of this, the object being to perpetuate
a name, a memory, to which other considerations
have to give way. Hence the law of primogeni-
all the daughters are thrown aside in
ture and entail, by which all the sons,younfgaevreeref h
and
worthy of the family, yet, in defere
first-born son, who may turn out ton
ebee
ttehtehmis,oastll uhnis-
Teehse,
English endeavour to perpetuate betters are made victims to his atgegfarainnidlyi
and grades of society ;
professional distinctions, sde tc.ti
is
taught to honour and obey all those above him,
that
the American to knock them all down. The one
and to be content with state to which he has
been born ; the American is taught to consider him-
self an equal atom of a mighty whole, and his place
i he can reach it, or any
the Presidential Chair, f
resting-place on his road
other seat into which he can drop as a temporary
upwards. Sometimes he
has a rapid fall downwards ; often he wearies, and
voluntarily descends; now his chair is soft as the
woolsack, again as hard as a garden bench ; now
he is on the stool of repentance, now with a dunce's
cap placed in a corner, but always busy and hurrying
along from change to change, up and down in the
ever-restless throng, the übiquitous, pliable, brain-
working Yankee, who tries all things, and to whom
only of all mankind is conceded the power, of doing
them all well.

TEXAS.—Among the Southern States the giant
Texas, in material resources, stands pre-eminent. Her
cot ton crop last year yielded 2-10,000 bales, worth $18,000,000
iu gold. Among her shipments 100,000 head of beeves
and 300,000 hides. There are at least 5,000,000 head of
cattle in the State, and large quantities of wool aro ex-
perted. Corn, potatoes, and every kind of vegetable and
produce is abundant and cheap. With all these elements
of prosperity within her nothing can prevent her onward
course.— Wall-street Journal.

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