On the other side of the Atlantic there is a populous city called Grandville. It is, as its name indicates, a great city,—but it is said that it thinks itself a good deal greater than it really is. I meant to say that Grandville was its original name, and the name by which even at the present day it is called by its own citizens. But there are certain wits, or it may be, vulgar people, who by some process have converted this name into Grindwell.
I may be able, in the course of this sketch, to give a reason why so sounding and aristocratic a name as Grandville has been changed into the plebeian one of Grindwell. I might account for it by adducing similar instances of changes in the names of cities through the bad pronunciation and spelling of foreigners. For instance, the English nickname Livorno Leghorn, the Germans insist on calling Venice Venedig, and the French convert Washington into the Chinese word Voss-Hang-Tong. And so it may be that the name Grindwell has originated among us Americans simply from miscalling or misspelling the foreign name of Grandville.
I incline to think, however, that there is a better reason for the name.
For a good many years Grandville has been famous for a great machine, of a very curious construction, which is said to regulate the movements of the whole city, and almost to convert the men, women, and children into cranks, wheels, and pinions. As a model of this machine does not exist in our Patent Office at Washington, I shall beg the reader's indulgence while I attempt to give some account of it. It may be thought a very curious affair, though I believe there is little about it that is original or new. The idea of it was handed down from remote generations.
In America I know that many persons may consider the Grindwell Governing Machine a humbug,—an obsolete, absurd, and tyrannous institution, wholly unfitted to the nineteenth century. A machine that proposes to think and act for the whole people, and which is rigidly opposed to the people's thinking and acting for themselves, is likely to find little favor among us. With us the doctrine is, that each one should think for himself,—be an individual mind and will, and not the spoke of a wheel. Every American voter or votress is allowed to keep his or her little intellectual wind-mill, coffee-mill, pepper-mill, loom, steam-engine, hand-organ, or whatever moral manufacturing or grinding apparatus he or she likes. Each one may be his own Church or his own State, and yet be none the less a good and useful citizen, and the union of the States be in none the more danger. But it is not so in Grindwell. The rules of the Grindwell machine allow no one to do his own grinding, unless his mill-wheel is turned by the central governing power. He must allow the big State machine to do everything,—he paying for it, of course. A regular programme prescribes what he shall believe and say and do; and any departure from this order is considered a violation of the laws, or at least a reprehensible invasion of the time-honored customs of the city.
The Grindwell Governing Machine (though a patent has been taken out for it in Europe, and it is thought everything of by royal heads and the gilded flies that buzz about them) is really an old machine, nearly worn out, and every now and then patched up and painted and varnished anew. If a committee of our knowing Yankees were sent over to gain information with regard to its actual condition, I am inclined to think they would bring back a curious and not very favorable report. It wouldn't astonish me, if they should pronounce the whole apparatus of the State rotten from top to bottom, and only kept from falling to pieces by all sorts of ingenious contrivances of an external and temporary nature,—here a wheel, or pivot, or spring to be replaced,—there a prop or buttress to be set up,—here a pipe choked up,—there a boiler burst,—and so on, from one end of the works to the other. However, the machine keeps a-going, and many persons think it works beautifully.
Everything is reduced to such perfect system in its operations, that the necessity for individual opinion is almost superseded, and even private consciences are laid upon the shelf,—just as people lay by an antiquated timepiece that no winding-up or shaking can persuade into marking the hours,—for have they not the clock on the Government railroad station opposite, which they can at any time consult by stepping to the window? For instance, individual honesty is set aside and replaced by a system of rewards and punishments. Honesty is an old-fashioned coat. The police, like a great sponge, absorbs the private virtue. It says to conscience, "Stay there,—don't trouble yourself,—I will act for you."
You drop your purse in the street. A rogue picks it up. In his private conscience he says, "Honesty is a very good thing, perhaps, but it is by no means the best policy,—it is simply no policy at all,—it is sheer stupidity. What can be more politic than for me to pocket this windfall and turn the corner quick?"—So preacheth his crooked fag-end of a conscience, that very, very small still voice, in very husky tones; but he knows that a policeman, walking behind him, saw him pick up the purse, which alters the case,—which, in fact, completely sets aside his fag-end of a husky-voiced conscience, and makes virtue his necessity, and necessity his virtue. External morality is hastily drawn on as a decent overcoat to hide the tag-rags of his roguishness, while he magnanimously restores the purse to the owner.
Jones left his umbrella in a cab one night. Discovering that he hadn't it under his arm, he rushed after the cabman; but he was gone. Jones had his number, however, and with it proceeded the next day to the police-office, feeling sure that he would find his umbrella there. And there, in a closet appropriated to articles left in hackney-coaches,—a perfect limbo of canes, parasols, shawls, pocket-books, and what-not,—he found it, ticketed and awaiting its lawful owner. The explanation of which mystery is, that the cabmen in Grindwell are strictly amenable to the police for any departure from the system which provides for the security of private property, and a yearly reward is given to those of the coach-driving fraternity who prove to be the most faithful restorers of articles left in their carriages. Surely, the result of system can no farther go than this,—that Monsieur Vaurien's moral sense, like his opinions, should be absorbed and overruled by the governing powers.
What a capital thing it is to have the great governmental head and heart thinking and feeling for us! Why, even the little boys, on winter afternoons, are restricted by the policemen from sliding on the ice in the streets, for fear the impetuous little fellows should break or dislocate some of their bones, and the hospital might have the expense of setting them; so patriarchal a regard has the machine for its young friends!