[DF] The legal condition of all classes of females in the United States
is the same as that of the women of the middle classes in England. The
same is the case with their moral condition, except that they have even
more liberty before marriage, and are more dependent after.
[DG] In England a woman is never seen, as with us, bearing a hamper of
dung on her back, or labouring at the forge.
[DH] An Irishman, who had recently arrived, showed his master a letter
which he had just written to his family: "But, Patrick," said his
master, "why do you say that you have meat three times a week, when you
have it three times a day?" "Why is it?" replied Pat; "it is because
they wouldn't believe me, if I told them so."
[DI] In 1811, out of 88 local banks, there were 55, or two thirds, in
New England and New York, although those States contained but little
more than one third of the population. In 1834, the States north of the
Potomac had 414 banks, with a capital of 106 millions; the Southern
and Western States had only 88 with a capital of 60 millions, about
one half of which were in a few commercial towns. The population of
the former was then 6,500,000, of the latter 7,500,000; the ratio of
the banks, therefore, was as 4 to 3, while that of the population
was as 6 to 7. Massachusetts and Connecticut alone, in which the
character of the mother-country is most strongly preserved, had 174
banks or one third of the whole number of local banks, with a capital
of 40 millions, or one-fourth of the whole banking capital of the
country, although their population was only one thirteenth of the whole
population. The extension of the culture of cotton, and of the trade
which it creates, has since, however, tended to turn the balance in
favour of the south, and several large banks have been established in
the southern capitals with branches in the interior.
[DJ] Several bank charters in Louisiana contain a provision obliging
the bank to lend a large proportion of the capital to the planters. The
Citizen's Bank is bound to advance one half its capital to landholders,
beside which they have the advantage of being share-holders without
having paid up anything. The bank borrowed its effective capital of
European capitalists; its nominal capital is double that sum. It gives
in return mortgages on the estates of the share-holders to that amount,
with the guarantee of the mortgage by the State. Each share-holder is
entitled to credit to the amount of half his stock at the rate of six
per cent. The other half of the capital is devoted to the commercial
operations of the bank. The share-holders then, have their share in the
profits. It will be seen that this system depends on the legislation in
regard to mortgages.
[DK] The Neapolitans are said to have made the following objection to
a company, which proposed to run a steamboat between their city and
Sicily: "Your boat takes us over in one day, and yet you demand the
same fare, as a sail vessel which is three days. That is absurd; how
can you expect that we will pay as much for being found one day as for
three?" This is the reasoning of a people, who have no idea of setting
an economical value on time.