which, it is confidently asserted, render the future success of the Peat
Charcoal manufacture a matter of demonstrable certainty. A company has
just been organized in London, under commanding auspices, which proposes
to embark L500,000 directly and L1,000,000 ultimately in Peat-Works,
having secured the exclusive right of using the newly patented
processes of Messrs. J. S. Gwynne and J. J. Hays, which are pronounced
exceedingly important and valuable. By a combination of these patented
processes, it is calculated that the company will be able to manufacture
from the inexhaustible Bogs of Ireland, 1. Peat Coal, or solidified
Peat, of intense calorific power, exceedingly cheap, almost as dense as
Bituminous Coal, while absolutely free from Gases injurious to metals as
well as from "clinker," and therefore especially valuable for
Locomotives and for innumerable applications in the arts; 2. Peat
Charcoal, thoroughly carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free
from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for
fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply
as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible
into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of
Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of
abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have
six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its
ability to manufacture for 14s. per tun, Peat Charcoal readily selling
in London for 45s., while they expect to realize 5s. worth of Tar,
Ammonia, &c., with every tun of Charcoal, while on Solidified Peat they
anticipate still larger profits. These may be very greatly reduced by
practical experience without affecting the vital point, that sagacious
and scrutinizing capitalists have been found willing to invest their
money in an enterprise which, if it succeeds at all, must secure
illimitable employment to Labor in Ireland and strongly tend to increase
its average reward.
BEET SUGAR.
A similar Company, with a like capital, has also been formed to
prosecute extensively in Ireland the manufacture of Beet Sugar, and
this can hardly be deemed an experiment. That the Sugar Beet grows
luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether
there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the
Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is
attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is
profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France,
Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the
exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to
be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained,
and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar.
They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent.
after paying an excise of L10 per tun to the Government, working their
mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they
cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist
to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured
in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000
tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied
thereon--that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns
per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany--that each
acre of Beets will yield 4 1/2 tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s.
6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the
cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over L5 per acre--that there
is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the
Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the
existence of foreign substances in one or both--that Irish roots
generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably _more_ Sugar
than those grown on the Continent--and that Beet Sugar may be made in
Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which
the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As
the soil and climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor
decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the
Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two
thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five
thousand tuns--every pound of it imported--I can perceive no reasonable
basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will
speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give employment
and better wages at all seasons to many thousands of her sons.
Such are some of the grounds of my hope that the deepest wretchedness of
this unhappy country has been endured--that her depopulation will
speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her
long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and
Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages
of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to
eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and
Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are
beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said
less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's
calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical
though slow remedies than invoke fruitless indignation against the
wrongs which have rendered them necessary. Peace and Concord are the
great primary needs of Ireland--Peace between her warring
Churches--Concord between her rulers and landlords on one side and her
destitute and desperate Millions on the other. I wish the latter had
sufficient courage and self-trust to demand and enforce emancipation
from the Political and Social vassalage in which they are held; to
demand not merely Tenant-Right but a restitution of the broad lands
wrested from their ancestors by fire and sword--not merely equal rights
with Englishmen in Church and State, but equal right also to judge
whether the existing Union of the two islands is advantageous to
themselves, and if not, to insist that it be made so or cease
altogether. But Ireland has suffered too long and too deeply for this;
her emancipation is now possible only through the education and social
elevation of her People. This is a slow process, but earnest hearts and
united minds will render it a sure one. If the Irish but will and work
for it, the close of this century will find them a Nation of Ten
Millions, with their Industry as diversified, their Labor, as efficient,
its Recompense as liberal, and their general condition as thrifty and
comfortable as those of any other Nation. Thus circumstanced, they could
no longer be treated as the appendage of an Empire, the heritage of a
Crown, the conquest of a selfish and domineering Race, but must be
accounted equals with the inhabitants of the Sister Isle in Civil and
Religious Rights or break the connection without internal discord and
almost without a struggle. There shall yet be an Ireland to which her
sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with
sadness; but alas! who can say how soon!
XLIV.
THE ENGLISH.
LIVERPOOL, Wednesday, August 6, 1851.
I do not wholly like these cold and stately English, yet I think I am
not blind to their many sterling qualities. The greatness of England, it
is quite confidently asserted, is based upon her conquests and
plunderings--on her immense Commerce and unlimited Foreign Possessions.
I think otherwise. The English have qualities which would have rendered
them wealthy and powerful though they had been located in the center of
Asia instead of on the western coast of Europe. I do not say that these
qualities could have been developed in Central Asia, but if they _had_
been, they would have insured to their possessors a commanding position.
Personally, the English do not attract nor shine; but collectively they
are a race to make their mark on the destinies of mankind.
In the first place, they are eminently _industrious_. I have seen no
country in which the proportion of idlers is smaller. I think American
labor is more efficient, day to day or hour to hour, than British; but
we have the larger proportion of non-producers--petty clerks in the
small towns, men who live by their wits, loungers about barrooms, &c.
There is here a small class of wealthy idlers (not embracing nearly
_all_ the wealthy, nor of the Aristocracy, by any means), and a more
numerous class of idle paupers or criminals; but Work is the general
rule, and the idlers constitute but a small proportion of the whole
population. Great Britain is full of wealth, not entirely but mainly
because her people are constantly producing. All that she has plundered
in a century does not equal the new wealth produced by her people every
year.
The English are eminently devotees of _Method_ and _Economy_. I never
saw the rule, "A place for everything, and everything in its place," so
well observed as here. The reckless and the prodigal are found here as
every where else, but they are marked exceptions. Nine-tenths of those
who have a competence know what income they have, and are careful not to
spend more. A Duchess will say to a mere acquaintance, "I cannot afford"
a proposed outlay--an avowal rarely and reluctantly made by an American,
even in moderate circumstances. She means simply that other demands upon
her income are such as to forbid the contemplated expenditure, though
she could of course afford this if she did not deem those of prior
consequence. No Englishman is ashamed to be economical, nor to have it
known that he is so. Whether his annual expenditure be fifty pounds or
fifty thousand, he tries to get his money's worth. I have been
admonished and instructed by the systematic economy which is practiced
even in great houses. You never see a lighted candle set down carelessly
and left to burn an hour or two to no purpose, as is so common with us;
if you leave one burning, some one speedily comes and quietly
extinguishes the flame. Said a friend: "You never see any paper in the
streets here as you do in New-York [swept out of the stores, &c.] the
English throw nothing away." We speak of the vast parks and lawns of the
Aristocracy as so much land taken out of use and devoted to mere
ostentation; but all that land is growing timber or furnishing
pasturage--often both. The owner gratifies his taste or his pride by
reserving it from cultivation, but he does not forget the main chance.
So of his Fisheries and even Game-Preserves. Of course, there _are_
noblemen who would scorn to sell their Venison or Partridges; but Game
is abundant in the hotels and refectories--too much so for half of it to
have been obtained by poaching. Few whose estates might yield them ten
thousand a year are content with nine thousand.
The English are eminently a _practical_ people. They have a living faith
in the potency of the Horse-Guards, and in the maxim that "Safe bind is
sure find." They have a sincere affection for roast beef. They are quite
sure "the mob" will do no harm if it is vigilantly watched and
thoroughly overawed. Their obstreperous loyalty might seem inconsistent
with this unideal character, but it is only seeming. When the portly and
well-to-do Briton vociferates "God save the Queen!" with intense
enthusiasm, he means "God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my
consols, my expectations." The fervor of an Englishman's loyalty is
usually in a direct ratio with the extent of his material possessions.
The poor like the Queen personally, and like to gaze at royal pageantry;
but they are not fanatically loyal. One who has seen Gen. Jackson or
Harry Clay publicly enter New-York or any other city finds it hard to
realize that the acclamations accorded on like occasions to Queen
Victoria can really be deemed enthusiastic.
_Gravity_ is a prominent feature of the English character. A hundred
Englishmen of any class, forgathered for any purpose of conference or
recreation, will have less merriment in the course of their sitting than
a score of Frenchmen or Americans would have in a similar time. Hence it
is generally remarked that the English of almost any class show to least
advantage when attempting to enjoy themselves. They are as awkward at a
frolic as a bear at a dance. Their manner of expressing themselves is
literal and prosaic; the American tendency to hyperbole and exaggeration
grates harshly on their ears. They can only account for it by a
presumption of ill breeding on the part of the utterer. Forward lads
and "fast" people are scarce and uncurrent here. A Western "screamer,"
eager to fight or drink, to run horses or shoot for a wager, and
boasting that he had "the prettiest sister, the likeliest wife and the
ugliest dog in all Kentuck," would be no where else so out of place and
incomprehensible as in this country, no matter in what circle of
society.
The _Women_ of England, of whatever rank, studiously avoid peculiarities
of dress or manner and repress idiosyncrasies of character. No where
else that I have ever been could so keen an observer as Pope have
written:
"Nothing so true as what you once let fall;
Most women have no character at all."
Each essays to think, appear and speak as nearly according to the
orthodox standard of Womanhood as possible. Hardly one who has any
reputation to save could tolerate the idea of attending a Woman's Rights
Convention or appearing in a Bloomer any more than that of standing on
her head in the Haymarket or walking a tight-rope across the pit of
Drury Lane. So far as I can judge, the ideas which underlie the Woman's
Rights movement are not merely repugnant but utterly inconceivable to
the great mass of English women, the last Westminster Review to the
contrary notwithstanding.
I do not judge whether they are better or worse for this. Their
conversation is certainly tamer and less piquant than that of the
American or the French ladies. I think it evinces a less profound and
varied culture than that of their German sisters; but none will deny
them the possession of sterling and amiable qualities. Their physical
development is unsurpassed, and for good reasons--their climate is mild
and they take more exercise than our women do. Their fullness of bust is
a topic of general admiration among the foreigners now so plentiful in
England, and their complexions are marvelously fair and delicate.
Except by a very few in Ireland, I have not seen them equaled. And, on
the whole, I do not know that there are better mothers than the English,
especially of the middle classes.
I did not find the Aristocracy so remarkable for physical perfection and
beauty as I had been taught to expect. Some of them are large, well
formed and vigorous; but I think the caste is not noticeably so. Among
the ladies of "gentle blood," however, there is more of the asserted
aristocratic symmetry and beauty than among the men.
The general stiffness of English manners has often been noted. Not that
a gentleman is aught but a gentleman anywhere, but courtesy is certainly
not the Englishman's best point. No where else will a perplexed stranger
inquiring his way receive more surly answers or oftener be refused any
answer at all than in London. Even the policeman who is paid to direct
you, replies to your inquiry with the shortest and gruffest monosyllable
that will do.
Awkwardness of manner pervades all classes; the most thoroughly natural,
modest and easy mannered man I met was a Duke, whose ancestors had been
dukes for many generations; but some of the most elaborately ill bred
men I met also inherited titles of nobility. And, while I have been
thrown into the company of Englishmen of all ranks who were cordial,
kind, and every way models of good breeding, I have also met here more
constitutionally arrogant and, unbearable persons than had crossed my
path in all my previous experience. These, too, are found in all ranks;
I think the Military service exhibits some of the worst specimens. But
Bull in authority anywhere is apt to exhibit his horns to those whom he
suspects of being nobodies. Elevation is unpropitious to the display of
his more amiable qualities.
I have elsewhere spoken of the indifferent figure made by most
Englishmen at public speaking. Many of them say good things; hardly one
delivers them aptly or gracefully. Any Frenchman having Lord Granville's
brains would make a great deal more out of them in a speech. I attribute
this National defect to two causes; first, the habitually prosaic level
of British thought and conversation; next, the intense pride which is
also a National characteristic. John is called out at a festive
gathering, and springs to his feet really intending to be clever. But
the next moment the thought strikes him--"This is beneath my dignity,
after all. Why should I subject myself to miscellaneous criticism? Why
put myself on the verdict of this crowd? Does it become a gentleman of
my standing to fish for their plaudits? What will success amount to, if
attained?" Or else he criticises his own thoughts and meditated forms of
expression, pronounces them tame, trite or feeble, and recoils from
their enunciation as unworthy of his abilities, position and reputation.
The result is the same in either case--he hesitates, blunders, chokes,
and finally stammers out a few sentences and subsides into his seat,
sweating at every pore, red-faced with chagrin, vexed with himself and
every body else on account of his failure, which might not have
occurred, and certainly would not have been so palpable, had his
self-consciousness been less diseased and extravagant.
I have said that the British are not in manner a winning people. Their
self-conceit is the principal reason. They have solid and excellent
qualities, but their self-complacency is exorbitant and unparalleled.
The majority are not content with esteeming Marlborough and Wellington
the greatest Generals and Nelson the first Admiral the world ever saw,
but claim alike supremacy for their countrymen in every field of human
effort. They deem Machinery and Manufactures, Railroads and Steamboats,
essentially British products. They regard Morality and Philanthropy as
in effect peculiar to "the fast anchored isle," and Liberty as an idea
uncomprehended, certainly unrealized, any where else. They are
horror-stricken at the toleration of Slavery in the United States, in
seeming ignorance that our Congress has no power to abolish it and that
their Parliament, which _had_ ample power, refused to exercise it
through generations down to the last quarter of a century. They cannot
even consent to go to Heaven on a road common to other nations, but must
seek admission through a private gate of their own, stoutly maintaining
that their local Church is the very one founded by the Apostles, and
that all others are more or less apostate and schismatic. Other Nations
have their weak points--the French, Glory; the Spaniards, Orthodoxy; the
Yankees, Rapacity; but Bull plunders India and murders Ireland, yet
deems himself the mirror of Beneficence and feeds his self-righteousness
by resolving not to fellowship slaveholders of a different fashion from
himself; he is perpetually fighting and extending his possessions all
over the globe, yet wondering that French and Russian ambition _will_
keep the world always in hot water. Our Yankee self-conceit and
self-laudation are immoderate; but nobody else is so perfect on all
points--himself being the judge--as Bull.
There is one other aspect of the British character which impressed me
unfavorably. Everything is conducted here with a sharp eye to business.
For example, the manufacturing and trafficking classes are just now
enamored of Free Trade--that is, freedom to buy raw staples and sell
their fabrics all over the world--from which they expect all manner of
National and individual benefits. In consequence, these classes seize
every opportunity, however unsuitable, to commend that policy to the
strangers now among them as dictated by wisdom, philanthropy and
beneficence, and to stigmatize its opposite as impelled by narrow-minded
selfishness and only upheld by prejudice and ignorance. The French widow
who appended to the high-wrought eulogium engraved on her husband's
tombstone that "His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No 16 Rue
St. Denis," had not a keener eye to business than these apostles of the
Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded; in
festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where
men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no
reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the
attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to
interlard their harangues with advice to foreigners substantially
thus--"N. B. Protection is a great humbug and great waste. Better
abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're
the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling." I cannot say
how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered
than impolitic.
Yet the better qualities in the English character decidedly
preponderate. Naturally, this people love justice, manly dealing, fair
play; and though I think the shop-keeping attitude is unfavorable to
this tendency, it has not effaced it. The English have too much pride to
be tricky or shabby, even in the essentially corrupting relation of
buyer and seller. And the Englishman who may be repulsive in his
out-of-door intercourse or spirally inclined in his dealings, is
generally tender and truthful in his home. There only is he seen to the
best advantage. When the day's work is over and the welcome shelter of
his domestic roof is attained, he husks off his formality with his
great-coat and appears to his family and his friends in a character
unknown to the outer world. The quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of
an English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. These Britons, like
our own people, are by nature not demonstrative; they do not greet their
wives before strangers with a kiss, on returning from the day's
business, as a Frenchman may do; and if very glad to see you on
meeting, they are not likely to say so in words; but they cherish warm
emotions under a hard crust of reserve and shyness, and lavish all their
wealth of affection on the little band collected within the magic circle
of Home. Said an American who had spent two years as a public lecturer
throughout Great Britain: "Circumstances have introduced me favorably to
the intimacy and regard of many English families, and I can scarcely
recollect one which was not in its own sphere, a model household." My
own opportunities have been very limited, yet so far as they go they
tend to maintain the justice of this remark. There are of course
exceptions, but they would be more abundant elsewhere. And I regard the
almost insuperable obstacles here interposed to the granting of
Divorces, no matter on what grounds, as one cause of the general harmony
and happiness of English homes.