“When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they unwashed too, ’tis a foul thing!”
There are men calling themselves “politicians”—save the mark! that would have us pull down the old constitutional machine, (lumbering it may be,) which has served our purpose for generations, and whose working and capabilities we have tested some odd thousand years; to replace it with the newfangled gimcrack model which is continually getting out of gear across the Atlantic; and I have no patience with them. I do not particularly desire to run America and its people down; but, when we are in the habit of criticising the deeds and doings of our continental neighbours, without much reticence as to our likes and dislikes, I do not see why any especial immunity should be placed over Americans to taboo them from honest judgment!
I must say that when I hear and read the fulsome admiration that it has been the fashion of late to express and write concerning our so-called “cousins,” it fairly makes my blood boil. If nobody else will “take the gilt off the gingerbread,” why shouldn’t I try to do so?
The truth of the matter, with regard to America, is that the Columbian eagle makes such a tremendous cackling over every little egg it lays, that we cis-Atlantic folks rate its achievements much higher than they deserve!
We do not kick up a fuss about our general proceedings; consequently, we imagine something very great must have happened to cause the Bird o’ Freedom to burst into such gallinacious paeans of delight.
The “advancement” of the first Republic, you say?—Why, it has taken over a hundred years to grow, and it ought to be arriving at maturity by this time!
The determination of its citizens displayed in crushing out secession?—They took four years to do it in, although they had an army and navy provided to their hand, and were receiving recruits in hundreds from the masses of incoming emigrants, up to the very end of the struggle; while, the Southerners had to improvise everything, and their forces dwindled down day by day.
We put down the Indian mutiny in 1857 with a little handful of troops, that had to confront thousands upon thousands of insurgent Hindoos before a single reinforcement could arrive from England:—we never triumphed so loudly about what we did on that occasion; and yet, our campaign against the Sepoys was fought over a far more extended territory than the war for the “Union.”
Their progress, you remark?
Pooh, my dear sir! One would almost think, to hear you talk, that the old world had stood still in sheer astonishment ever since the “new” was ushered into being!