Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-09-24

rlor classes, from whom come to them, as a
sort of Providence, both good and evil
Richard Grant White in October Atlantic.
America and the Americans ss Seen by
an English Radical.
tGeorge Jacob Holyoake in the Nineteenth Century.l
After all had read or heard, ii seemed to
me that there were great features of social
! life there unregarded or misregarded. New
York itself is a miracle which a large book
would not be sufficient to explain. When l
stepped ashore there, l thought l was in a
larger Rotterdam when l found my way TO
! Broadway, it seemed TO me as though was
in Paris, and that Paris had taken 10 business.
There were quaintness, grace and gayety,
| brightness aud grimness all about. The
! broadway thought Longway, for my first
| invitation in it was to No. 1855. My first
days in the city were spent at No. Broad
| way, in the Washington hotel, allured thither
| by its English military and diplomatic associ-
ations, going back to the days when an In
| dian war-whoop was possible in the Broadway.
At that end you are dazed by a forest of long
telegraph poles, and a clatter by night and
day that no pathway of Pandemonium could
| rival Car bells, omnibus bells, dray horse
| bells, railway bells and locomotives in the air,
were resounding night and day. An engineer
turns of his steam at your bedroom window.
When got up to see what was the matter,
| found engine No. 90 almost within reach OF
my arm, and the other ninety eight had been
there that morning before l awoke. When
one day at railway junction 1 heard nine
train-bells being rung by machinery, it sound
ed as though dis-ostablishment had occurred
| and all the parish churches of England were
being imported.
wholesome distinction of America is that
industry alone is universally honorable there,
and has good chances. There are no common
people there, in the English sense. When
speaking i'll the Cooper Institute, New York,
| was reminded that the audience would re-
sent being so addressed. Every man in Am
erica feels as though he owns the country, be-
cause the charms of recognized equality and
the golden chances of ownership have entered
the mind. He is proud of the statues and
public buildings. The great rivers, the track
| less prairies, the regal mountains, all seem
| his. Even the steep curbstones of New York
and Boston, which brought me daily distress,
| | was asked to admire for some reason yet
unknown to me- In England nobody says 10
the visitor or foreigner when he meets him
What do you think of England? The people
| do not feel that they own the country, or have
responsible control over it. The country is
managed by somebody else. Not even the
members of Parliament know when base
treaties are made in the nations name, and
dishonoring wars are entered into which the
lives and earnings of their constituents may
be contscated to sustain. All that our repre-
sentatves can tell is that that is an affair of
the crown. In America there is no crown,
and the people are kings and they know it,
| had not landed on tho American shores an
| hour before l became aware that l was in q
new nation, animated by new life which
| had never SEEN
If young Englishmen could be sent a cou-
pie of years to take part in American business,
they would come back much improved. An
eminent English professor, whom l lately
asked whether it would not do this country
| good if We could get our peers to emigrate,
answered, No doubt, if you could smarten
them up bit first" Everywhere you hear
the injunction, Hold on !" In every vessel
and car there are means provided for doing
| it for unless a man falls upon his feet-if he
does fall-he finds people too busy TO stop and
| pick him up. The nation is in commotion.
Life in America is a battle and march. Free
dom has set the race on fre-freedom with
the prospect of property. Americans are q
nation Of men who have their own way, and
do very well with it, 1t is the only country
where men are men iu this sense, and the un-
usualness of the liberty bewilders many, who
do wrong things in order to be sure they are
| free to do something This error is mostly
made by newcomers, to whom freedom is a
novelty, and it is only by trying eccentricity
| that they can test the unwonted sense of their
power of elf-disposal. But as liberty grows
into q habit, one by one the experimenters
become conscious of the duty of not betray-
ing the precious possession by making it re-
| pulsiye. Perhaps self-assertion seems little
in excess of international requirements. Many
citizens" give a stranger the impression that
they do think themselves equal to their supe-
rors and superior to their equals, yet all of
them are manlier than they would be through
the ambition of each to be equals Of anybody
| else.
The effect of American inspiration ON Eng
lishmen was strikingly evident. met work
men in many cities whom had known in for
mer years in England. They were no longer
the same men. Here their employers seldom
or never spoke TO them, and the workmen
were rather glad, as they feared the commu-
nication would relate to a reduction of wages.
| They thought it hardly prudent to look
foreman or overseer in the face. Masters are
more genial, as a rule, in these days; but in
the days when last 1 visited these workmen in
their homes in Lancashire, it never entered
| into their heads to introduce me to their en-
ployers. But when met them in America,
they instantly proposed to introduce me To
the mayor of the city. This surprised me
very much, for when they were in England
they could not have introduced me to the re-
lieving officer Of their parish, with any ad-
These men were still workmen, and they did
introduce me TO the mayor rs "a friend OF
theirs !" and in an easy, confident manner, as
| one gentleman would speak to another, they
said ''they should be obliged il he would
show me the civic features of the CITY," The
mayor would do so, order his carriage, and,
| with the most pleasant courtesy, take me to
every place of interest To this hour do
not know whom wondered at most--the men
or the mayor. In some places the mayor was
| himself manufacturer, and it was pleasure
to see that the men were as proud Of the
mayor as they were of the city.
However impetuous Americans may be,
they have one great grace of patience-they
listen like gentlemen. An American audience
anywhere gathered together make the most
courteous listeners in the world. If speak
er has only the gift of making fool of him
self, nowhere has he 80 complete an oppor-
tunity of doing it. If he has the good for
tune TO be but moderately interesting, and
obviously tries in some humble way natural
to him to add to their information, they come
TO him afterwArd and congratulate him with
Partisan courtesy. At Washington, where l
spoke at the request of General Mussey and
Major Ford, and in Cornell University at Ith-
aca, where, at the request of the acting pres
dent, Prof W. @. Russell, l addressed the
students on "Moralities of Cooperative Com
merce," there we're gentlemen and ladies
present who knew more of everything than
did of anything yet they conveyed to me
their impression that had in some way add
ed TO their information
81 have left all my fortune to my wife,"
| ..l.sl /,