The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I. Lynde Francis
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idleness, they ought to get less money; and lastly, I take the Abolitionists – bother it for a long word! – on their own ground, and are they prepared to say that if you impose a duty on slave sugar, the Cubans and the rest of them won't only take more out of the niggers to meet "the exigency of the market," as the newspapers call it? If they do so, they 'll only be imitating our own farmers since the repeal of the corn law. "You must bestir yourselves," says Lord Stanley; "competition with the foreigner will demand all your activity. It won't do to go on as you used. You must buy guano, take to drainage, study Smith of Deanstown, and mind the rotation of your crops." Don't you think that some enlightened Cuban will hit upon the same train of argument, and make a fresh investment in whipcord? Ah, Tom! these are only party squabbles, after all; and so I told Vickars. I don't know why, but it always seemed to me that the blacks absorb a very unfair amount of our loose sympathies; whether it's the color of them, or that they 're so far away, or because they 're naked, I never knew; but certain it is, we pity them far more than our own people, and I back myself to get up a ladies' committee for a nigger question, before you collect three people to hear you discuss a home grievance.
I have just been interrupted to receive Monsieur Jellicot, my defender in action No. 3, a suit preferred by my late courier, "François Tehetuer, born in the canton of Zug, aged thirty-seven years, single, and a Protestant, against Monsieur Kenyidod, natif d'Irlande, près de Dublin, dans le Royaume de la Grande Bretagne," &c., &c.; the demand being for a year's wages, bed, board, and travelling expenses to his native country. He, the aforesaid François, having been sent away for a disgraceful riot in my house, in which he beat Pat, the other servant, and smashed about five-and-twenty pounds' worth of glass and china. A very pretty claim, Tom, – the preliminary resistance to which has already cost me about one hundred and fifty francs to remove the litigation into an upper court, where the bribery is higher, and consequently deemed more within the reach of my finances than those of honest Francis!
To tell you all that I think of the rascality of the administration of justice here, would lead me into a diffusiveness something like that of the pleasant "Mémoire" which my advocate has just left me to read, and in which, as a measure of defence against an iniquitous demand, I 'm obliged to give a short history of my life, with some account of my father and grandfather. I made it as brief as I could, and said nothing about the mortgages nor Hackett's bond; but even with all my conciseness, the thing is very voluminous. The greatest difficulty of all is the examination of Paddy Byrne, who, imagining that a law process cannot have any other object than either to hang or transport him, has already made two efforts at escape, and each time been brought back by the police. His repugnance to the course of justice has already damaged my case with my own defender, who, naturally enough, thinks if my own witnesses are so little to my credit, what will be the opposite evidence? »
Another of my "causes célèbres," as Cary calls them, – she is the only one of us has a laugh left in her, – is for the assault and battery of a certain Mr. Cherry, a little rascal that came one day to tell me that Mrs. D. 's appearance struck him as being more fascinating than respectable! I kicked him downstairs into the street, and in return he has dragged me into the Court of the Correctional Police, where I 'm told they 'll maul me far worse than I did him; besides this, I have a small interlude suit for a breach of contract, in not taking a lodging next an Anatomy School; and lastly, James's duel! I have compromised fully double the number, and have received vague threats from different quarters, that may either mean being waylaid or prosecuted, as the case may be.
So far, therefore, as economy goes, this Continentalizing has not succeeded up to this. Instead of living rent free at Dodsborough, with our own mutton and turnips, the ducks and peas, that cost us, I may say, nothing, here we are, keeping up the price of foreign markets, and feeding the foreigners at the expense of our own poor people. If, instead of excluding British manufactures from the Continent, Bony had only struck out the notion of seducing over here John Bull himself and his family, let me assure you, Tom, that he'd have done us far more lasting and irreparable mischief. We can do without their markets. What between their Zollvereins, their hostile tariffs, and troublesome trade restrictions, they have themselves taught us to do without them; and, indeed, except when we get up a row at Barcelona, and smuggle five or six hundred thousand pounds' worth of goods into Spain, we care little for the old Continent; but I 'll tell you what we cannot do without, – we cannot do without their truffled turkeys, their tenors, their men-cooks, and their dancing-women. French novels and Italian knavery have got a fast hold of us; and I doubt much if the polite world of England would n't rather see this country cut off from all the commerce of America than be themselves excluded from the wicked old cities of Europe!
When I think of myself holding these opinions, and still living abroad, I almost fancy I was meant for a Parliamentary life; for assuredly my convictions and my actions are about as contradictory as any honorable or right honorable gentleman on either side of the House. But so it is, Tom. Whatever 's the reason of it I can't tell, but I believe in my heart that every Irishman is always doing something or other that he doesn't approve of; and that this is the real secret of that want of conduct, deficient steadiness, uncertainty of purpose, and all the other faults that our polite neighbors ascribe to us, and what the "Times" has a word of its own for, and sets shortly down as "Celtic barbarism." And between ourselves, the "Times" is too fond of blackguarding us. What's the use of it? What good does it ever do? I may throw mud at a man every day till the end of the world, but I 'll never make his face the cleaner for it!
The same system we used to follow once with America; and at last, what with sneering and jibing, we got up a worse feeling between the two countries than ever existed in the heat of the war. No matter how stupid the writer, how little he saw, or how ill he told it, let a fellow come back from the United States with a good string of stories about whittling, spitting, and chewing, interlard the narrative with a full share of slang, show up Jonathan as a vulgar, obtrusive, self-important animal, boastful and ignorant, and I 'll back the book to run through its two or three editions with a devouring and delighted public. But what would you think of a man that went down to Leeds or Manchester, to look at some of our great factories at full work; who saw the evidences of our enterprise and industry, that are felt at the uttermost ends of the earth; who knew that every bang of that big piston had its responsive answer in some far-away land over the sea, where British skill and energy were diffusing comfort and civilization, – what, I say, would you think of him if, instead of standing amazed at the future before such a people, he sat down to chronicle how many fustian jackets had holes in them, how many shaved but twice a week, whether the overseer made a polite bow, or the timekeeper talked with a strong Yorkshire accent?
I tell you, Tom, our travellers in the States did little other than this. I don't mean to say that it wouldn't be pleasanter and prettier to look at, if all the factory-folk were dressed like Young England, with white waistcoats and cravats, and all the young ladies wore silk petticoats and white satin shoes; but I'm afraid that, considering the work to do, that's scarcely practicable; and so with regard to America, considering the work to do, – ay, Tom, and the way they are doing it, – I 'm not over-disposed to be critical about certain asperities that are sure to rub off in time, particularly if we don't sharpen them into spikes by our own awkward attempts to polish them.
If I was able, I'd like to write a book about America. I'd like to inquire, first, if, seeing the problem that the Yankees are trying to solve, the way they have set about it is the best and the shortest? I'd like, too, to study what secret machinery combines a weak government and a strong people, – the very reverse of what we see in the Old World, where the governments are strong and the people weak? I'd like to find out, if I could, why people that, for the most part, have formed the least subordinate populations of the Old World, behave so remarkably well in the New?
In running off into these topics, Tom, I suppose I'm like every one else, who, in proportion as his own affairs become embarrassed, takes a wonderful interest in those of his neighbors. Half the patriotism in the world comes out of the bankruptcy courts.
And, here's Monsieur Gabriel Dulong "for my instructions in re Cherry," as if to recall me from foreign affairs, and once more bring back my wandering thoughts to the Home Office.
Write to me, Tom, and send me money. You have no idea how it goes here; and as for the bankers, I never met the like of them!