hoped he would send his own children to the Catholic school, he refused point-blank. "They must go," he said, "to the public schools, for I can't have them learn to speak the brogue." This feeling is a universal one and the natural desire of Irishmen that their children should become genuine Americans, operates strongly against the efforts of the Catholic priesthood to keep them apart from Protestant influences. The Germans, no doubt, keep their individuality much longer, especially in the outlying districts of the West. Still, they are an orderly, law-loving people naturally; and they have shown so little talent for organization at home, that it is not likely they will develop it in America. Moreover, the extreme disproportion, as yet, between the area and the population of the United States, has scattered the settlers so widely, that any combined action on their part is almost impossible. No doubt in New York and Philadelphia, where the lowest class of emigrants always take up their abode at first, the influence of the German and Irish population is very powerful, and in some respects alarmingly so. But as long as the State system endures, neither New York, nor Pennsylvania, nor any individual State or town, can rule the country; and the influence of a mob in any one of these cities does not extend, at the farthest, beyond its own State. The probability too is, that the present troubles will greatly check the tide of emigration, and thus give time for the existing foreign population to be thoroughly absorbed in the native one. I do not believe, therefore, that the only two forces which could effect a revolution in the Governmentthe power of the army, or the influence of the foreign element—are likely to be called into action. Supposing the Union to be restored, the Government must be changed somehow; but the change would, I think, be an orderly and a gradual one. The difficulties of restoring the status quo in the insurgent States will convince the popular mind of the necessity of a more united and centralized Government. To secure this end, the States would have to surrender many of their individual rights. The one clearest result of this war has been to bring the people of the States togetherto give them common recollections, common interests, and common dangers. This, in itself, must lead to a more real Union. Again, for years to come, the country must be subject to a heavy taxation. The inevitable necessity of keeping up a large standing army will cause a much heavier expenditure than has been the case hitherto. This taxation will create a far keener interest in the management of the Central Government throughout all the States: and probably the conviction will become general, that a system of thirty-four separate Sovereign Governments is a very expensive and cumbrous one. The tone of politics will be wider and more national; and with a higher tone, a higher class of men (morally, I mean, rather than socially) will be entrusted with the direction of State affairs. Such, at least, were the hopes of those Americans who seemed to me to judge most philosophically of the political future, and the results that the war would produce upon it. : AMERICAN SOCIETY. I MAY say without vanity, that during my sojourn in the States I had considerable advantages in entering society. I was amply provided with letters of introduction I came at a time when foreign travellers were rare; and also, from an impression that my sympathies were more Northern than those of the bulk of my fellowcountrymen, I was received with, perhaps, undeserved kindness. Still, my great passport to society consisted in the fact that I was an Englishman. That this should have been so, is a fact which throws a good deal of light on American Society. An American once said to me: "I always envy you to "whom England is a home; but, then, I think you ought "to envy us for our feelings when we visit England. "To you, after all, it is only a country, more or less in"teresting, where you make and spend your money: "to us it is a sort of enchanted land, where everything "that is old to you is new to us. You look upon Eng"land as a husband looks on his wife; we see her as a "lover sees his mistress." The words were spoken half-jestingly, but there was still a good deal of truth in them. The average of educated Americans know as much about English literature, and more, perhaps, about English history, than the average of educated Englishmen. Their language, their history, their literature are those of England. There are few who cannot remember relatives that have come from the Old Country-who do not know of some town or village in the United Kingdom in which they have something of a personal interest. A visit to Europe and, above all, to England, is the great dream of all Americans who have not crossed the Atlantic-the holiday-time, as it were, of life to those who have performed the journey. I always found there was no subject on which Americans talked so willingly as about the recollections of their foreign travels. No doubt this sentimental feeling about England grows weaker with each succeeding generation, and, like all sentimental feelings, it gives place to the action of interests and passions. I often fancied that those Americans who entertained the feeling most strongly, were the most hostile to England. Indeed, my chief fear of a war with America arises from the fact, that Americans care too much, not too little, about England. The existence, however, of this national feeling is strong enough to create a very kindly sentiment towards individual Englishmen and probably there is no country in the world where an English traveller : |
