Bayard Taylor.
HERR FLEISCHMANN
ON THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE AMERICANS.
In the careful watch we keep of French, German, and other foreign literatures, for what will instruct or entertain the readers of the International, we are always sharp-sighted for any thing said of us or our institutions, whether it be in sympathy or in antipathy. So, for a recent number, we translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes a very clever paper on our American Female Poets, and on other occasions have reviewed or done into English a great many compositions which evinced the feeling of continental Europe in regard to our character and movements. We shall continue in this habit, as there is scarcely any thing ever more amusing than "what the world says" of our concerns, even when it is in the least amiable temper.
Among the most interesting works published of late months in Germany, is Fleischmann's Erwerbszweige der Vereinigten Staaten Nord-America's, (or Branches of Industry in the United States.) The reader who anticipates from this title a mere mass of statistics relative to the industrial condition of our own country will find himself agreeably disappointed. Statistics are indeed there—lists of figures and relative annual arrays of products, sufficient to satisfy any one that Mr. Fleischmann has turned the several years during which he was connected with the Patent Office at Washington to good account. But in addition to this there is a mass of information and observation, which, though nearly connected with the subject, was yet hardly to be expected. It is doubtful whether the social and domestic peculiarities of others or of ourselves be most attractive, but to those who prefer the latter, and who have lived as many do under the impression that our own habits and ways of life present little that is marked or distinctive, this work will be found not only interesting, but even amusing. For among those practising branches of industry, he not only includes blacksmiths, coopers, architects, planters, and pin-makers, but also clergymen, actors, circus-riders, model-artists, midwives, and boarding-house keepers! The main object of the work being to inform his countrymen who propose emigration, of the true state of the most available branches of industry in this country, and prevent on their part undue anticipation or disappointment, even these items cannot be deemed out of place. Cherishing an enthusiastic admiration of our country, and better informed in all probability in the branches of which he treats than any foreigner who has before ventured upon the subject, it is not astonishing that he should have produced a work which not only fully answers the object intended, but in a faithful translation would doubtless be extensively read by our own countrymen.
The reader will find in this book many little traits of our domestic life, which, commonplace though they be, are not unattractive when thus reflected back on us, mirror-like, from another land. Take for example the following account of confectioners:
"All men are more or less fond of sweet food and dainties, and the wealthier a people may be, and consequently in more fit condition to add such luxuries to the necessaries of life, the greater will be its consumption of sugar. If we compare the sugar consumption of England with that of Germany, we find the first consumes a far greater quantity per head than the latter.
"And in this respect the Americans are in no wise behind the English, since they not only at least twice a day drink either tea or coffee, which they abundantly sweeten, enjoying therewith vast quantities of preserved fruits, and every variety of cakes, but they have universally a remarkable appetite for sweets, which from childhood up is nourished with all sorts of confectionery. And this appetite is very generally retained even to an advanced age, so that all the cents of the children, and many of the dollars of those more advanced in life, go to the candy-shops and confectioneries. Add to this the numerous balls, marriages, and other festive occasions, particularly the parties in private houses, at which pyramids, temples, and other architectural and artistic works, founded on rocks of candied sugar, and bonsbons, are never wanting, we can readily imagine that in this country the confectioner's trade is a flourishing and brilliant business.
"The Americans are, as is well known, universally a remarkably hospitable people, not only frequently entertaining guests in their homes, but also holding it as an established point of bon ton, to give one or two parties annually, to which all their friends are invited. The evening is then spent with music and dancing, concluded with an extremely elegant (hochst elegant) supper, at which the gentlemen wisely stick to the more substantial viands and champagne, but where abundance of sugar-work for the ladies is never wanting.