It might be expected that among a people so deeply absorbed in material pursuits, misers would abound; but it is not so. There is never any niggardliness in a Southerner; it is sometimes found in the Yankee, but nowhere do you see specimens of that sordid avarice, of which examples are so common among us. The American has too high a notion of the dignity of human nature, to be willing to deprive himself and his children of those comforts which soften the asperities of life; he respects his own person too much not to surround it with a certain degree of decency. Harpagon is never to be met with in the United States, and yet Harpagon is not by a great deal the most wretchedly degraded miser, that European society exhibits. The American is devoured with a passion for money, not because he finds a pleasure in hoarding it up, but because wealth is power, because it is the lever by which he governs nature. I ought also to do the Americans justice on another point. I have said that with them every thing was an affair of money, and yet there is one thing, which among us, a people of lively affections, prone to love, and generous by nature, takes the mercantile character very decidedly, and which among them has nothing of this character; I mean marriage. We buy woman with our fortune, or we sell ourselves to her for her dower. The American chooses her, or rather offers himself to her, for her beauty, her intelligence, or her amiable qualities, and asks no other portion. Thus, whilst we make a traffic of what is most sacred, these shop-keepers exhibit a delicacy and loftiness of feeling, which would have done honor to the most perfect models of chivalry. It is to industry that they are indebted for this superiority. Our idle cits, not being able to increase their patrimony, are obliged in taking a wife to calculate her portion, in order to decide if their joint income will be enough to support a family. The American, having the taste and the habits of industry, is sure of being able to provide amply for his household, and is therefore, free from the necessity of making this melancholy calculation. Is it possible to doubt, that a race of men, which thus combines in a high degree the most contradictory qualities, is reserved for lofty destinies?
FOOTNOTES:
[CP] This man was finally condemned in light damages, and this was his only punishment. The object of assault survived the attempted assassination.
[CQ] Pay of Officers of the French and American Navies.
| French Navy. | American Navy. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vice Admiral, | $7,525 | |||
| Rear Admiral, | 6,000 | |||
| Senior Captain, | $4,500 | |||
| Capt. Com. a Squadron, | 4,000 | |||
| Captain of Ship of the Line, | ||||
| 1st class, | 2,750 | Captain, | 3,500 | |
| 2d class, | 2,700 | |||
| of Frigate, | 2,170 | Commander, | 3,500 | |
| of Corvette, | 1,650 | |||
| Lieut. Command. | 1,150 | Lieut. Command. | 1,800 | |
| Lieut. | 600 | Lieut. | 1,500 | |
| Lieut. of Frigate, | 500 | Passed Midship. | 750 | |
| Midshipman, | 1st class, | 220 | Midshipman, | 400 |
| 2d class, | 160 | |||
| The gunners, boatswain, sail-makers, and carpenters receive, | ||||
| In a ship of the line, | 750 | dollars, | ||
| For a Frigate, | 600 | " | ||
| On other duty, | 500 | " | ||
In the French navy the pay of corresponding officers is from 400 to 200 dollars.
[CR] They are the governors of most of the States, and the heads of the executive departments at Washington. These last receive only 6,000 dollars, and they are obliged to keep up a certain style of living. It is singular that some subaltern officers are permitted to receive enormous fees. Thus the inspector of flour in New York received in 1835, 10,000 dollars, the inspector of potash 20,000, and the inspector of tobacco 34,500.
[CS] If the rich in the large towns of the North spend eight or ten times as much as the clerk, it is not that they keep up much style, or even that they have an equipage. When would the husband, always immersed in business, or the wife, occupied with her household cares, be able to use the coach? Suppose they had time to use it, and the public opinion would not be offended by it, what could one do with an equipage in the streets of Philadelphia? The principal difference in the expenditure of the two classes, is that the rich man now and then gives a ball, and piques himself on his parade, which the indulgent democracy pardons for one day; this sort of luxury is much more expensive here than with us, and it does not require a very brilliant rout, in small houses, in which the company is received in two rooms 20 feet by 25, to cost 700 or 800 dollars.