The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-30 00:00:00

and politicians. Many of them may be very sorry
idols, it is true, but this is due simply to defects of

mental culture and not of moral tone.

The idols

owe the worship they receive to the popular respect
for talent or genius; and it is a worship on which

she " social position" of the idol exercises no iu-

fluence whatever.

One other cause of the prevelance of systematic
swindling in England—we are not now talking
of the small frauds of the shopkeepers—is the
want of what is called " knowledge of business" on
the part of the great mass of the population. There
is in England, as in every aristocratic country in
which there is at the same time a large mass of ac-
cumulated capital, a very large body of persons be-
longing to what may be called the " gentle class,"
but to which there is here nothing to correspond—
daughters and younger sons of good families, half-
pay officers, professional men with small fortunes,
independent of their professional incomes ; people
such as those whom Hawthorne deseribes as
forming so large a proportion of the inhabi-
tants of Leamington. They all have money to
invest, and are entirely dependent on their in-
vestments for their means of livelihood, but they
are brought up in an ignorance of " business," pro-
perly so called, of its processes, conditions, and of
everything relating to accounts, not only rare in
America, but of which few Americans can form any
idea, and it is an ignorance which, instead of feeling
ashamed of, they hug and glory in, as the mark of
a certain social position. In this class there are,
moreover, thousands of women not only ignorant of
business themselves, but having no male relative who
is allich- if any, less ignorant. Their incomes are
apt to 'be small; but they rarely attempt to in-
) ,egeltse, themt and when they do, as in seasons of
iNeulatiOn like the last three or four
p** ,'are pretty sure to fall among thieves.
Tlitll'•it&estinents. of this class in railroads and
companies of various kinds particu-
Tarly, banks--are r&normous, and they furnish a prey
'to ff:Andulent directors and operators such as no
rogues probably ever lighted on before, and such as
rogues in this country never meet with. It is only
in their simplicity and helplessness that we can find
the explanation of the fact that the directors of large
numbers of the English railroads have been able to
go on, year after year, submitting " cooked" state-
ments and accounts, which the public and the
stockholders felt satisfied were cooked, without
knowing how to bring the knaves to justice.
The Economist mentioned recently the case of one
road the directors of which mean to be honest,
but who, knowing well that the public will not
believe a word they say, have been forced to
solicit a determined enemy, Lord Cranborne,
to become their chairman. We need hardly say
that no directors could play a prolonged game of
fraud here. lVhen one of our great industrial
Bedouins wants to perpetrate railroad or other
joint-stock jobs, he has to begin by buying up the
stock himself; after that he can, of course, play what
tricks he pleases. If he left it in the hands of the
community, he would find himself, as soon as his
combinations began to work, followed up by a thou-
sand eyes as keen as his own. half the widows
even, amongst his intended victims, would know
enough to expose him, and not one but would have
a son or brother or friend whom no balance sheet or
report could deceive.
The moral value of the wide diffusion of " busi-
ness knowledge," of familiarity with its conditions,
requisites, and tests, and of the habits of mind
which successful business men possess, cannot, we
think, be overrated. The rarity of them in English
society we look upon as one great cause of the appa-
rent rottenness of the English mercantile world.
The very great diffusion of them here we look on
as one of the greatest safeguards of American so-
ciety, as the great cause of what we beliewvoeritdo bine
a fact, that there is no country in the
which the amount of
f fraudbears
trust.
Rogues
so smal l
a proportion to the amount
of
abound only where dupes abound, and igno-
rance is the soil out of which dupes grow.
The weak point of American society is the indis-
position to visit knaves with heavy social penalties
—but of this we have no space to speak now.

THE PRESIDENT v. CONGRESS.

A cock plucked of its feathers is a very sorry
spectacle, and a President of the United States
stripped of his power is not unlike it. Of all dig-
nitaries he is that one who can least bear the loss of
power. If a President of the United States has no
control over public affairs, he becomes a man placed
on a platform as a target for mud-throwers, and
quickly assumes the appearance of the white-washed
and dirt-covered monument in Leicester-square,
with awood en leg and a crossing-sweeper's broom. The
United States has refused to surround its Executive
Chief with the paraphernalia of rank and dignity,
feeling assured that, however simple and unassum-
ing in appearance, the world would respect the man
and bow low before the representative of the
mightiest nation on earth. Power made up for all
that in old European countries gives prestige. It
mattered not how humble was the origin of a Pre-
sident. Without title, without wealth, without
fame, or a single deed associated with his name, a
plain ANDREW JOHNSON. during his tenure of office,
became the equal of a NAPOLEON or a NICHOLAS.
But all this is undergoing a rapid change. A Presi-
dent of the United States will soon be a mere pup-
pet, holding an office which no gentleman would
condescend to accept. Last Tuesday the House of
Representatives passed a bill by 123 against 45
votes, declaring that there are no valid civil govern-
ments in the late rebellious States, and transferring
all powers of appointment and removal under
the Reconstruction Act from President JOIIN-
SON to General GRANT, as Commander-in-
Chief of the Army. ANDREW JOHNSON once
took credit for not giving way to the temptation of
proclaiming himself a CAESAR. Perhaps he now re-
grets his moderation, but at any rate he is not likely
again to have the chance. He once undertook to be
a MOSES, and to act for the children of lIAm the
part performed by that great leader for the children
of Israel. That chance, too, is gone. But it may
be hoped that in the next great historical character
ANDREW JOIINSON selects he will be more success-
ful. Attaining to the Presidency of the United
States, is a marvellous performance, considering the
circumstances, but he owed his elevation to the
bullet of the aF•sassin. If Congress can pass and
enforce any Act it likes, Mr. JOHNSON'S course in
provoking a quarrel, and maintaining it ti a point
of such desperation, is little short of madness. It
will not be easy to check Congress now that it is fairly
on the road of usurpation, and the history of the
world has established the fact that such au assembly,
unless effectully controlled, has invariably succeeded
in centring all power in itself. Republics have
always been wrecked on this rock, for such bodies
will be found as ambitious, more unscrupulous,nityact and
s
more corrupt than individuals. They
promptly, but they act more surely, for they are
unmoved by sickness, and little changed by death.
The' history of the English House of Commons is a