Doubtless, the intelligence of the community sometimes exhibits itself in a ’cuteness which I am not prepared to defend.  A clear apprehension of their immediate material interests has produced repudiation of legitimate obligations; but those days are, nationally speaking, I hope, gone by, and many of their merchants stand as high in the estimation of the commercial world as it is possible to desire.  At the same time, it is equally true that the spirit of commercial gambling has risen to a point in the States far above what it ever has in this country,—­except, perhaps, during the Railway epidemic; and the number of failures is lamentably great.

With their intelligence they combine an enterprise that knows no national parallel.  This quality, aided by their law of limited liability, has doubtless tended to urge forward many works and schemes from which the Union is deriving, and has derived, great wealth and advantage; at the same time it has opened the door for the unscrupulous and the shrewd to come in and play high stakes with small capital—­in playing which reckless game, while some become millionaires others become bankrupts.  This latter state is a matter of comparative unimportance in a country like the Republic, where the field is so great, and a livelihood easily attainable until some opening occurs, when they are as ready to rush into it again as if they had been foaled at Niagara, and had sucked in the impetuosity of its cataract.

There is one shape that their enterprise takes which it would indeed be well for us to imitate, and that is early rising.  I quite blush for my country when I think what a “Castle of Indolence” we are in that respect, especially those who have not the slightest excuse for it.  On what principle the classes of society in England who are masters of their own time, turn night into day, waste millions yearly in oil and wax, and sleep away the most fresh and healthy hours of the morning, for no other visible purpose but to enable themselves to pass the night in the most stuffy and unhealthy atmosphere, is beyond my comprehension.  One thing is certain:  it has a tendency to enervate both body and mind, and were it not for the revivifying effects produced by a winter residence in the country, where gentlemen take to field sports, and ladies to razeed dresses, sensible shoes, and constitutional walks, the mortality among our “upper ten thousand” would, I believe, be frightful.  In America, the “boys” get up so early, that it is said they frequently “catch the birds by their tails as they are going to roost;” and it is no doubt owing to this that they are so ’cute.  Talk about “catching a weasel asleep,” let me see any of my metropolitan drone friends who can catch a Yankee boy asleep!