The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1882-12-15

American Good Nature.

One great aim of American life is
labor saving. Wherever the mechan-
ism by which a mans wants are to be
supplied consists in part of human be-
ings, the trouble of getting it TO work,
and Insequently the advantage OF do
ing without, is enormously greater than
in England. In such cases, therefore,
submission becomes prudence, and sub
mission generates patience or good ma
ture. You cannot command so much
human machinery; and the consequent
mpliance with the resulting neon
veniences is sometimes interpreted by
hasty persons as a result OF wicked
jealousy. Take, for example, those
large hotels which were formerly pecul-
lar to America. You are forced said IN
dignant travellers fresh from European
comforts, to be mere number instead OF
being the object of personal attention;
and this illustrates the tyranny OF ma
iority and its hatred for individual pc
culiarities. No such sentiment need be
inferred. Where everybody eats Ike
his neighbors, eats at the same time,
and submits to uniform regulations
there Is an en- rm us economy OF labor
Two or three walters can serve all the
guests at table d hOte where, II each
man wishes for n separate waiter 10 at
tend to all his wants just as the wants
are felt. a dozen would be lnsulhclent'
The same principle is equally visible n
all the other arrangements which are
most obvious to a traveller Inc In
gilsh traveller, accustomed 10 any
number of porters and q ards and sI-
perintendents, is disgusted when he
finds NJ such array of dependent
officials, and when he is expected to
facilitate arrangements by submitting
to do what everybody else is doing, and
finds that neither tips nor obiurgatons
are dreaded or expected. The readi-
ness with WI - &renchmen form
oxu~sc ocensions has often
been nS5ns6hs a proof OF the ma
tional intelligence and courtesy. In
America the traveller is always forming
11leales: he finds himself constantly
oblired 10 fall in with some such spon-
taneous ARRANGEMENT, the final cause of
which is the saving OF all the elaborate
nersonaI machinery so easily provides
where labor is cheap. He frets and
fumes at the inferior qua ity of the ac-
coInmodation provided, and is half
edited and balf-scandalized by the good
nature of the habituated. The good
nature means, in fact, the habit of sub
,nittino to inconven fences caused by the
independence of your interiors; it is the
QUALITY developed in bachelor in cham
hers who is bullied by a slatternly laun-
dress and despised for his tameness by
tbe comfortable monarch of domestic
establishment. We do not presume to
saw how far this habit of remuneration
enters into the Indifference with. which
Americans too often accept political
scandals and grievances. or the too easy
FORGIVENESS which they extend to vari-
ons evil-doers. Neither do we ask how
far it is compensated by advantages to
the classes whose services are in de-
mand. We simply observe that the
hastv traveller often assigns some occult
working of democratic principles as the
cause Of what is simply due to the scare
itv of labor. In country where the
raw material of social machinery is SO
dear and so apt to disperse into its con-
stituent atoms, one learns to accept the
alternative of doing without. and taking
denrivation as easily as one can, be-
cause no amount of scolding viii leaf to
satisfactory results.-Pait-lHaH Gazette.
Alexander Dumas is writing a book
oh,