The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1867-04-04
The Yankees.

A highly imaginative transatlantic
geographer has lately informed the world
that America is, or shortly will be, a
country bounded on the north by the
artic circle, on the south by eternity, on
the east be the rising sun. and on the
west by the day of judgm ent There
are set of bitter and bilious gentlemen,
chiefly of the Tory persuasion, to whom
this kind of patriotic imagery is gall and
wormwood. They are miserable because
America is big, and because she uses
these laughably big expressions. The
real reason why they hate her is because
her Government is SO free, and the sue
cess of it so wonderful ; but since it does
not do to confess these facts, they are
always girding at her faults of manner
and style-a practice which is about as
useful as to rail at the Allegheny noun
tains for being huge and craggy.
For our part we experience no more
surprise or vexation at the hyperbolics
of our descendants beyond the Atlantic
than we should at seeing likely lad
split his trowsers in growing. or a fne
healthy baby reach his plump arms out
for the moon The thing is natural, and
even satisfactory with the young giant
that we have bred; and England, the
pleased and amused at the glorious gas
conades Of her mighty child. Is she to
be an elderly coquette and vex herself
because her'.sons outstride her, and her
daughters shoot up with a beauty and
vigor that remind her how she ages p
She ought, if she were honest and hearty,
to be glad Of youngsters--the like of
whom history never knew-to knit them
to herself in bonds of firm love. and aim
at making out Of them an Anglo Saxon
family of empires which should girdle
the world with the language of Shaks-
peare and the happy influence of the lit
tie matron island! We like to read
these ridiculous sublimities, wherein our
imperial cockerels crow them selves we'll
nigh Off their legs with lustiness round
the old Brittanic hen.
What q bird the American chicken will
be when all the feathers come, it it can
scratch and crow and flourish its spurs
like this in an epoch when it is but 60
ing through the barbarism of q new civ
ilization, and has the best part Of it's
haclxles to shoot And if bigness jpsti-
fies big words. We should like to know
who is to blame these inventive and flow
ery patriots Has any other nation forty
million square acres of fat corn ground
for back yard, which will grow six
quarters to the acre as long as you like
to plow the old crop in? Has any other
nation a mountain OF solid iron 20 make
the plows of, like Pilot Knob, in Mis-
souri,, or seas of oil under the ground,
and shores of solid copper along the
lakes Does any otter nation double
its population every twenty years and
suck in the emigration of Europe with
out counting it; or carry cargoes two
thousand miles along the river; or ven
sure on the impudence of a Monroe doc
trine, or fight war With one million
soldiers and have them all he.ne again.
like boys after school, within year
Or what other people collects a revenue
of ELS, 200, 600 sterling, and with f20,-
00o, 900 in gold at time in its exchcquer,
laughs at debt of f500, 900 900, and
engages to wipe it out in ten years? Mr.
Arscmus Ward says he never knew a
Yankee who didn't talk about the Rocky
mountains except one, and he was deaf
and dumb; but even he wrote book
about them. Who is stupid enough to
laugh at that? 1t is in the nature of the
people; the young giants must have gi-
gantic topics, words, policies. schemes,
and sayings, and If we laugh, let it be
with hearty good nature, and as old
folks do at the bfag and buncombe of
the young ones, whose strength and
health are so beautiful and full Of the
promise OF noble days and works--Lon-
don TeseyrcpA. --z-