The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-09-25
BALTIMORE.
TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER Is, 1860

aud its contempt for cold Fogies' and ancient
formulas, have rarely been more strikinglv exem-
plifed than in the career of Mr.. GEORGE FRANCIS
TRAIN, whose remarkable ad captdndum speech at
Birkenhead, in England, the papers describe as
'most extraordinary" 1t is the Englishman' 8
pet phrase when he is mystied, and especially
when he is doubtful whether he ought merely to
wonder at, or heartily admire new thing. This
is not the first time, however, that we have heard
of Mr.. TRAIN. Young, hopeful, energetic rest
less, pushing, with good business connections and
q fair mercantile education, he is one of those
who saw in Australia, during the height of the
gold fever, new field for commercial enterprise,
and sailed forthwith to Melbourne to take advan-
tage of the opportunity. In 1853, during the
food-tide of the excitement, he founded COM
mission house there, was favored with large con-
signments, and speedily began, as he has told us
In his book, TO realize the wild and hazardous
speculative spirit which was then raging in the
new Ell Dorado. Soon after he reached Mel
bourne, he counted seven hundred ships in the
bay. Two years and half later there were not
more than twenty in the whole roadstead Forty
ships were advertised time to leave New York
merchandise. One hundred and fifty millions of
dollars worth Of imports were poured into Aus
tralia within two years to meet the demand of a
population not exceeding thirty thousand souls.
All kinds of commodities speedily sold at merely
nominal prices; panic set in, and large numbers
OF shippers met with ruinous losses After being
actively engaged in business at Melbourne for two
years and half Mr.. TRAIN determined on a tour,
purely, as he says, for information, and to get
little practical knowledge of his theoretical
reading He visited Batavia made a trip
into the interior of the Island of Java;
sailed from thence TO Singapore, steamed up the
chinese seas to Hong Kong; looked in at Cam
tonA7roceeded northward to Woosung and Shang-
hal; returned TO Hong-Kong and embarked at
that port for Calcutta and Madras; crossed from
Madras to Alden on the Red Sea; travelled over
land by way of the Ishmus of Suez to Cairo:
made pilgrimage to Jerusalem took a
tour IN the Levant from Constantinople
sailed up the Black Sea to Sevastopol and finally
reached London via Germany and France six
months after embarking at the port of Melbourne
What Mr.. TRAIN saw in his rapid travels he has
told the public through the newspapers and maya
zines, and has also embodied in a book which he
orignaly-and as we think quite appropriately
intended should be entitled 'tYounp America
Abroad" But Mr.. TRAIN is not content with
pusylng himself with the affairs of commerce or
with travelling over half the globe in half year, or
with writing books, or with settling himself down
to any particular spot. During the past five wears
he has fitted before us on various occasions and
IN various places, and each time that he crossed
the field of vision he was making speech. Four
months before he left Melbourne he was the orator
OF The day at Il Fourth of July celebration in the
southern FL Dorado. His theme-how could it
be any other ?--was ''Young America, u whom he
uescrloeo' IN hgures enriousiy mixed up, as a pill
grim steeu moving with the Sriftness of light
ming, plunging on to victory and snorting . proud
defiance at the precipice that would have ruined
him; as another edition of Old England in bind
ing peculiar to the New World: as the vounp
JOHN BULL in his shirt sleeves; as the Junior part
nee who manages the Western branch of the
old concern; as an Independent merchant who
has established a house for himself; and finally.
as linked to Old England as the Siamege twins
are bound to each other, speaking the same
language and influenced by the same emotions
The matter OF his discourse is as various as tho
bits of coloured glass in Kaleidoscope and bv
the turn OF a sentence is made to form combina.
tons equally novel and surprising, but far less
perfect. Such was the speech he made a year or
two ago at Paris. Another of similar kind he
delivered Subsequently at Liverpool; but that
which he made recently at the Birkenhead
BaDuupt wa he r;,t;o of II
full of Yankee acueness and is larded occasionally
with Yankee slang. 1t plays at battledore and
shuttecock with tropes and figures, is sharp,
keen, shrewd, and sometimes sarcastic, and never
fails of making point from over-modesty in the
speaker. In fine, it is Young America recounting
his exploits and clarifying himself over the sue
cess of a profitable speculation. We have already
traced Mr.. TRAIN to London, after travelling
through many lands and Choking in''-as he
expresses it-"at the windows of all the nations"
How he came to abandon what was described to
be- in 1853, ''the prosperous Commission House of
GEORGE F. TRAIN & Co." at Melbourne, we find
nowhere stated, but it is evident, from his own
account, that if he quilted Australia on q plea
sure tour, he was not the less in quest
of profitable speculation The instinct
of trade, not less than the instinct Of travel and
OF writing, and speechmaking, was at no time
dormant within him. If he had an eye for what
ever was curious, wonderful or noteworthy in ma
ture or art, he had also an eye for the main chance
1t was not so much with him whether thing was
beautiful or rare, whether it could be turned to
profit. He would convert the famous Vale of
Cashmere into an onion patch if the speculation
would pay, or would have tunnelled Mont Blanc,
or turned the course of the Rhone, or purified the
Thames, or agreed to lay down a new submarine
cable to this Continent by way of the Azores or
Behring's Straits, or undertaken any other legiti-
mate speculation if he conceived that there was
money to be made by it. While in France he tells
US that he made contracts for supplying the army
in Italy, and when the war was over he returned
to this country "to look after the extensive do
main, near an Atlantic city, of one of the royal
families OF Europe" In Boston, New York,
Baltimore, Cincinnati, st. Louis
md Chicago he met with street railways, and
orthwih determined to obtain permission to con-
truct them in all the principal cities of Europe.
Some bankers joined me- he remarks carelessly,
yet with touch Of holiness, ''hut only for
London, Paris, and st. Petersburg" He went
o Paris and found the Emperor too busy Lon
lon was too conservative; Liverpool was fast |
sleep. Time and money were both slipping |
way, when instinct pointed to Brkenhead He |
Explained his plans to practical men; offered to be
It all the expense, take all the risk, pay all DANA
'es to deposit three thousand pounds as security
or the performance of his agreement, and TO take
Up the rails and repair the streets if the railway,
when completed, should be pronounced nui-
ance. These were hard conditions but he ar
'ep'eu tnem all and went spiritedy to worl, at
once. our readers cannot have forrottan tho
graphic account which he gave at Birkenbo,a -
he trials and tribulations to which he was sinh
ected, and how he resolved to combat the nre;,,
aices of the people, not by preaching against |
them, but by practically demonstrating their m.
'urdity. He finally completed what he had nm.
iertaken to do, and when the success of the en-.
erprise was placed beyond peradventure he cele-
brated the opening of the first European street
Railway by banquet, and seasoned the BANQUET
with that Nmost extraordinary" speech which
we re-published a few days ago. His tri-
umph at Birkenhead has procured for him
a contract for street Railway also, at Bir-
third at Manchester, fourth at the
west end of London, and even Liverpool, which
be previously pronounced to b, fast asleep, is
rakinc ND to take the matter into cons;derat;o,