range their families as that each member may, at some hour, have some place where he may enter in, and shut his door, and feel himself alone. If possible, the sleeping places are so ordered. In America, where space is of far less consequence, where the houses are large, where the factory girls can build churches, and buy libraries, and educate brothers for learned professions, these same girls have no private apartments, and sometimes sleep six or eight in a room, and even three in a bed. This is very bad. It shows a want of inclination for solitude; an absence of that need of it which every healthy mind must feel, in a greater or less degree.

Now are the days when these gregarious habits should be broken through. New houses are being daily built more parents are bringing their children to the factories. If the practice be now adopted, by the corporations, or by the parents who preside over separate establishments, of partitioning off the large sleeping apartments into small ones which shall hold each one occupant, the' expense of partitions and windows and trouble will not be worth a moment's consideration in comparison with the improvement in intelligence, morals, and manners, which will be found to result from such an arrangement. If the change be not soon made, the American factory population, with all its advantages of education and of pecuniary sufficiency, will be found, as its numbers increase, to have been irreparably injured by its subjection to a grievance which is considered the very heaviest to which poverty exposes artisans in old countries. Man's own silent thoughts are his best safeguard and highest privilege. Of the full advantage of this safeguard, of the full enjoyment of this privilege, the innocent and industrious youth of a new country ought, by no mismanagement, to be deprived.

SECTION III.

MORALS OF COMMERCE.

It is said in the United States that Commerce and the Navy are patronised by the federal party; as agriculture is, and the army would be, if there was one, by the democratic party. This is true enough. The greater necessity for co-operation, and therefore for the partial sacrifice of independence, imposed by commercial pursuits, is more agreeable to the aristocratic portion of society than to its opposite. Yet, while commerce has been spreading and improving, federalism has dwindled away; and most remarkably where commerce is carried on in its utmost activity in Massachusetts. The democracy are probably finding out that more is gained by the concentration of the popular will than is lost in the way of individual independence, by men being brought together for objects which require concession and mutual subordination. However this may be, the spirit of commerce in the United States is, on the whole, honourable to the people.

I shall have to speak hereafter of the regard to wealth, as the most important object in life, which extensively corrupts Americans as it does all other society. Here, I have to speak only of the spirit in which one method of procuring wealth is prosecuted.

The activity of the commercial spirit in America is represented abroad, and too often at home, as indicative of nothing but sordid love of gain: a making haste to be rich, a directly selfish desire of aggrandisement. This view of the case seems to

me narrow and injurious. I believe that many desires, various energies, some nobler and some meaner, find in commerce a centre for their activity. I have studied with some care the minds and manners of a variety of merchants, and other persons engaged in commerce, and have certainly found a regard to money a more superficial and intermitting influence than various others.

The spirit of enterprise is very remarkable in the American merchants. Beginning life, as all Americans do, with the world all open before them, and only a head and a pair of hands wherewith to gain it, a passionate desire to overcome difficulties arises in them. Being, (as I have before declared my opinion,) the most imaginative people in the world, the whole world rises fair before them, and they, not believing in impossibilities, long to conquer it.

Then, there is the meaner love of distinction; meaner than the love of enterprise, but higher than the desire of gain. The distinction sought is not always that which attends on superior wealth only; but on world-wide intercourses, on extensive affairs, on hospitality to a large variety of foreigners.

Again; there is the love of Art. Weak, immature, ignorant, perhaps, as this taste at present is, it exists and indications of it which merit all respect, are to be found in many abodes. There are other, though not perhaps such lofty ways of pursuing art, than by embodying conceptions in pictures, statues, operas, and buildings. The love of Beauty and of the ways of Humanity may indicate and gratify itself by other and simpler methods than those which the high artists of the old world have sanctified. If any one can witness the meeting of one kind of American merchant with his supercargo, after a long, distant voyage, hear the questioning and answering, and witness the

delight with which new curiosities are examined, and new theories of beauty and civilisation are put forth upon the impulse of the moment, and still doubt the existence of a love of art, still suppose the desire of gain the moving spring of that man's mind,-may Heaven preserve the community from being pronounced upon by such an observer! The critic with the stop-watch is magnanimous in comparison.

Again; there is the human eagerness after an object once adopted. In this case, it may be money, as in other cases it may be Queen Anne's farthings, the knockers of doors, ancient books, (for their editions and not their contents,) pet animals, autographs, or any other merely outward object whose charm lies in the pursuit. Several men of business, whose activity has made them very wealthy, have told me that, though they would not openly declare what would look like a boast, and would not be believed, the truth was that they should not care if they lost every dollar they had. They knew themselves well enough to perceive that the pleasure was in the pursuit, and not in the dollars and I thought I knew some of them well enough to perceive that it would be rather a relief to have their money swept away, that they might again be as busy as ever in a mode which had become pleasant to them by habit and suc

cess.

:

Of course, I am not speaking of such as of a very high and happy order; as to be for a moment compared with the few whose pursuits are of an unfailing but perpetually satisfying kind; with those whose recompense is incessant, but never fulfilled. I am only declaring that the eager pursuit of wealth does not necessarily indicate a love of wealth for its own sake.

What are the facts? What are the manifestations of the character of the American merchants?

After their eager money-getting, how do they spend it? How much do they prize it?

Their benevolence is known throughout the world: not only that benevolence which founds and endows charities, and repairs to sufferers the mischief of accidents; but that which establishes schools of a higher order than common, and brings forward in life the most meritorious of those who are educated there; the benevolence which watches over the condition of seamen on the ocean, and their safety at home; the benevolence which busies itself, with much expense of dollars and trouble, to provide for the improved civilisation of the whole of society. If the most liberal institutions in the northern States were examined into, it would be found how active the merchant class has been, beyond all others, in their establishment.

Again: their eager money-getting is not for purposes of accumulation. Some-many, are deplorably ostentatious; but it seemed to me that the ostentation was an after-thought; though it might lead to renewed money-getting. Money was first gained. What was to be done with it? One might as well outshine one's neighbours, especially as this would be a fresh stimulus to get more still. This is bad; but it is not sordidness. Instances of accumulation are extremely rare. The miser is with them an antique, classical kind of personage, pictured forth as having on a high cap, a long gown, and sitting in a vaulted chamber, amidst money-chests. It would, I believe, be difficult there to find a pair of eyes that have looked upon a real living and breathing miser. My account of the doings of a miser whom I used wondering to watch in the days of my childhood never failed to excite amazement, very like incredulity, in those I was conversing with. The best proof that the money-getting of the eminently successful merchants of America is not for