five shillings in the pound. Or, look at the number of fraudulent bankrupts, who are let off with only a couple of years' imprisonment fellows who might have paid thirty shillings in the pound. Or, look at the numerous cases of executors, who have used in their own business the capital of their wards, though specially left to their guardianship under the wills of deceased friends. Does the criminal law deal so severely with them?" This glib sophistry runs too fast. To prove that a man is not morally bad because his conduct may bear colorable precedent in the vitiated mercantile morality of the age is utterly beside the purpose. It is too true that the morality of the commercial world is becoming very low, and that is a reason why the criminal law, for the sake of society, should be called into active operation. If men cannot be restrained from evil deeds by considerations of honor, then severe statutes must be tried. Hence the Bankers' Act was passed by the Legislature.

law can touch the acts of bankers; and it lucky for the commercial credit of the coun try that it can be made to do so.

A great part of the indignation felt against these convicts arises from the connection of the house with the religious world. "Tar tuffe's bank has broke," is a cry which stirs many feelings. As to what degree the " Tgrtuffeism" was carried to, people must judge for themselves. We have all heard of "Sir John's Private Chapel, "White Cravats," "Exeter-hall," &c. It is no wonder that such things should exceedingly stimulate the indignation, and people recollecting them are not in any mood to appreciate any dexterous fallacies used on behalf of a company which considered "tuum" to the extent of £130,000 as its "meum." These, and many other reasons, may be enough to teach the whispering tribe of Gammon and Quirk that acts of fraud are worse in proportion to their gigantic extent; and we cannot help saying that the most dangerous of all mental habits is that which sports with the casuistry of crime, after the fashion of some apologists for things done at " 217, Strand."

But, then, how can the case of the bankers be morally discriminated from those of other bankrupts, or from the executors who escape the criminal law? It can, we answer, be plainly distinguished. Bankers advertise From The Economist, 10 Nov. themselves to the whole world as men whose MISCHIEF-MAKERS BETWEEN NATIONS. special business is to take care of the money of other people. They are trustees, and are We do not believe that there is any class paid for being so. They can realize a large of men in England who entertain any hosincome by their lucrative agency to their customers. They are admitted into the secrets of important families. Rank from the West-end, Capital from the "City," throng their offices and solicit their intervention. They exist for the most confidential service; their banking-houses are, as it were, the confessionals of commerce, and to violate the engagements so secretly contracted is the worst kind of breach of trust. The Legislature has thought so advisedly. The Bankers' Act was passed in 1828, when a galaxy of firetrate juridical talent was in Parliament. Lord Lyndhurst was then Chancellor, and Lords Eldon and Tenterden were in the Upper House, while Brougham, Sugden, Scarlett, and Wetherall were in the Commons. The Act taking statutory cognizance of such dark deeds as Strahan, Paul, and Bates committed was passed after full consideration, and we trust that it will continue to be upheld by the Legislature of the country.

The Old-Bailey logic which would try to exculpate the convicts by classifying their acts with those of consignees cheating their foreign correspondents, and knavish executors, proves too much. If the criminal law could effectually be made to reach the dishonest consignees and executors, it ought to do so; but there are difficulties in the way obvious to every jurist. But fortunately the

tile feeling towards the United States, or who have the least desire to create bad blood between the two peoples. Of course there are many who dislike what is peculiar în American characters and manners; many who are irritated by the language of the American Press; many who condemn the tone and proceedings of the American Government; many who feel just and becoming indignation at the projects and behavior of a portion of the American democracy. But the all but universal sentiment in this country is an earnest desire to remain on good terms with the Americans, to draw closer and closer the bonds of amity, to sympathize with what is estimable, to endure what is offensive or antipathic. Our merchants de sire this cordial feeling as an affair of interest; our statesmen desire it from motives of political prudence and as conducive to the progress and well-being of the great commonwealth of nations; and the British people as a whole desire it from simple, uncalculating kindness of heart towards close relatives and worthy neighbors.

But unfortunately in the United States the case is different. There we believe that the sentiments of sympathy and affection we have just described as prevailing here are, indeed, reciprocated by the great body of native Americans; that the enlightened,

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the cultivated, and the respectable classes the political mal-contents of their native throughout that great community are as land; who had long sighed for a liberty friendly towards us as we are towards them; which they could not attain; who had been and that just in proportion to the eminence worsted in their endeavors to overthrow or to of the respective States in the Union for reform their oppressive Governments at home; knowledge, intelligence, political science, who in fact constituted the Republicans, Soand general civilization, is the cordiality of cialists, and revolutionary party generally, in the regard for the "old country " felt by their the various States of Central Europe. Most of citizens. But America reckons among her these had imbibed before they crossed the Atpopulation vast numbers who are Americans lantic-why or wherefore it is difficult to say neither by birth, descent, or feeling, — who -a thorough distrust, suspicion, and dislike are in her but not of her, who disregard her of England. She had disappointed their exinterests, abuse her hospitality, and bring dis- pectations. They had looked to her, as the credit on her character. In virtue of the one great free State of Europe, for aid or at unbounded liberality of her customs, the least for sympathy in their various revolusettled freedom of her institutions, and the tionary movements; they had flattered themrich rewards which she offers to industry selves that they were certain of obtaining it; and enterprise, she has for nearly two gener- they had deceived themselves, or at least ations been the refuge of adventurers from suffered their leaders to deceive them, into a every portion of the old world. The active belief that it had been first promised and and the striving saw in her a field where then withheld; and they resented the disaptheir energies would be secure of wealth and pointment of their unwarrantable hopes as greatness; the depressed and despairing if a positive engagement had been broken and flocked in thousands to a land where success a positive injury inflicted. We need not was possible and hope was reasonable; the loving fled to her as a country where marriage was feasible and where children would be a help and not a burden; the discontented sought her as a land of promise,the tossed and persecuted, as a place of rest: - adventurers of every variety of character and every sort of antecedents,those who had made Europe too hot to hold them, - those who had quitted it because it was too sober for their wild dreams and too strong for their attempted or meditated crimes, fugitives from tyranny, fugitives from justice, all these crowded to the great Republic of the New World, and found there a ready welcome, or at least a hospitable shelter, and an uninquiring and unsuspicious home.

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Now, among this miscellaneous mass of immigrants, two classes are especially noticeable both as more numerous and more influential than the rest, the emigrants from Central and Northern Europe and the emigrants from Ireland. At present and for some time back the emigrants of each of these classes have numbered on the average upwards of 100,000 annually. Each of them, with their immediate descendants, is calculated to reach about 2,000,000. Thus out of a total white population of twenty millions, four consist of aliens,men who are not naturalized at heart into their adopted country, who are still Irish or Germans, not United States men, who have carried with them and still retain all the passions and prejudices they brought with them from the land of their extraction—and who in truth are as anti-American as they are anti-English. A great proportion of the Germans belonged to

tell Englishmen, or any one who knows the strong clinging of the English Government to the established and the legitimate, how entirely baseless were these self-deceiving hopes. But nevertheless they were firmly entertained by thousands of insurgents throughout Earope, - who first settled in their own minds what Great Britain ought to do, then persuaded themselves that she would do it, and finally hated her because she had not done it. There can be no question that England is and has long been in dreadful disrepute with the popular party on the Continent; and that those of them who have crossed the Atlantic in consequence of the ruin of their hopes, have carried their animosity against us along with them, and preached it as a creed in their new country.

Of the sentiments towards England which the Irish emigrants have carried with them into the United States, it is needless to speak. The names of Meagher and Mitchell are sufficient. The Hibernian detestation of the British Government dates far back in history. It partook of all the elements of discord which could fan a sentiment into a passion-animosity of race, animosity of politics, animosity of religion. The perverse and apparently innate lawlessness of the Irish no doubt made it a matter of enormous difficulty to govern them at once mildly and effectively. Unluckily, too, for generations we did neither. Our Government was undeniably oppressive and unjust. Our laws, as far as regarded Catholics, were intolerent and iniquitous in the extreme. There was ample warrant for Irish hatred of the British Government. But unhappily the feeling survived long after its causes and its

race.

pens, and the other half is a disreputable and dishonest pandering to the exigencies of Irish passion. It must be set down either to a populace whom Irish lies have perverted or to politicians to whom Irish votes are necessary.

justification had been removed. The fairest selfish and niggard dishonesty of German government, the kindest treatment, the most settlers, who objected to any taxation for so equal laws, the most unbounded and gen- plain a purpose. It is equally notorious erous aid in time of calamity, have done that of all the outrageous and virulent abuse nothing to appease a hatred which at last of England which so disfigures the American became at once criminal and insane. Politi- Press, nearly one-half proceeds from Irish cians, who had neither patriotism to inspire them, nor wisdom to guide them, nor Christianity to restrain them, found gratification for their passions and hope for their ambition in exasperating to the utmost the blind fury of the poor and ignorant, and giving to the hatred between Celt and Saxon the deadly and incurable character of an hostility of Hundreds of thousands of Irish perished in the famine brought on partly by their own improvidence, partly by social and political mismanagement, partly by the unmistakable visitation of God. They perished in spite of the most gigantic and generous efforts of English humanity to relieve them. Hundreds of thousands more flocked to America and flock there yearly still, disturbing their adopted country with their incorrigible turbulence, inflaming it by their wild passions, misleading it by their insane delusions, and spreading through the length and breadth of the land mental and moral poison of the most venomous, subtle, and degrading kind.

All this is well understood and deeply regretted by the respectable and sound-hearted of the Americans themselves. They are deeply concerned and bitterly indignant at seeing their country's name thus taken in vain, their country's policy distorted and misdirected, their country's energies wasted and turned astray, and their country's reputation lowered and stained, by a set of foreigners whose designs they see through and whose character they loathe and despise as heartily as ourselves. But, unhappily, in a democratic land, the most violent are always the most active, and the most active are generally the most powerful. Still the evil has grown to so great a height that a widespread and energetic movement has been made towards neutralizing and curing it. In some cases greater length of residence has been required as a preliminary to full citizenship. And the basis of the great "Know-Nothing" party is a conviction of the necessity of shaking off this low and ignominious foreign yoke, if the name of America is to be respected among nations, and if American citizenship is henceforth to be a title of honor and a word of trust.

And, unfortunately, the institutions and customs of America give great facilities to both these classes of aliens to influence the conduct and excite the feelings of their new country. Naturalization is easily obtained, sometimes after short residence, sometimes with scarcely any residence at all. In a land where suffrage nearly universal everywhere prevails, immigrants soon become voters, and as such are sought for, flattered, and deferred to by politicians of every party; their supFrom The Examiner, 10 Nov. port is bid for; their prejudices are humored AUSTRIA AND AMERICA. or adopted; and the ambitious and unscrupulous candidates for place or power or sen- THE recent appointment of Sir Hamilton atorial honors are soon made aware that the Seymour affords a pledge that the war will profession of the most rabid hostility to be prosecuted with vigor, no less decided Great Britain is the surest mode of securing than that since given by the promotion of Irish or German votes. Furious Hibernian Sir William Codrington. We are glad to orators, too, rave at public meetings and in welcome such indications; for that a nerthe columns of the more worthless and dis-vous dread of offending Austria must have reputable organs of the Press. Already both the policy and character of America has suffered grievously at the hands of men who have no pretension whatever to be called American; who care no more for America than they do for England; but who perceive the power which circumstances have given them, and use it as their passions dictate. It is notorious that the refusal of several States to provide money for paying the interest of their debts-which brought upon the United States the imputation of being repudiators". was mainly owing to the

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possessed some members of the Cabinet, not merely since it has been purged of Lord Aberdeen, but even since it has been delivered from Mr. Gladstone and the other members of the little-war party, began to be strongly suspected.

To what, for example, but our dread of alienating a power whose fleet we could sweep from the sea in a fortnight, and which by its own confession cannot keep an army in the field unless assisted by enormous subsidies from this country, are we to attribute our having run the risk of involving ourselves

AUSTRIA AND AMERICA.

in a war with the only nation in the world | instructions from the Foreign Office they had
which (excepting France) we have the slight- contravened the law; and we have been
with America.
brought to the very verge of open quarrel

est reason to fear?

Admitting the necessity of a Foreign Enlistment Bill at all, it is perfectly notorious that in Wallachia we could have obtained they were not aware of the existence of a The excuse made for our ministers is, that last year as many recruits as we desired, considerable party in the States looking upwithout offering any bounty, and without on Russia with no unfriendly eyes. But even incurring the expense of conveying why were they not aware of it? For what them to the seat of war. have raised men animated with a deadly ha- ministers but that they should possess such We should thus do we carefully select, and highly pay, our tred against our enemies, the blessings of necessary knowledge? We thought it had whose "protection" they had so recently been notorious that for years Russia has tasted; and sprung from a race which, if it been seeking to conciliate American travelhas not in late times distinguished itself in lers (usually persons of influence in their war, has at least in very difficult circumstan- own country) by treating them with marked ces managed always to maintain a quasi-in-attention. We believe the suspicion to have dependence. No one acquainted with the been very general, with all who have watched country can doubt that the inhabitants of the tone of certain portions of the American the mountainous region called Little Wal-press, that Russian diplomacy has also for lachia would at once have been found, even some years been exerting itself not less in without previous training, very useful auxil- that direction, and as successfully as in Geriaries, and that the other parts of Wallachia many itself. Every one certainly has known and Moldavia might have furnished at least that the Irish emigrants of '48 and '49 had fifty thousand men convertible during the not abandoned their animosity against Engwinter into excellent troops. Of the advan- land, and had been able to inoculate with it tage of acting with such Rouman auxiliaries to some extent even sections of their nonin Bessarabia-which the protecting power Celtic fellow citizens. Yet now we are told annexed to her Empire only in 1812, when that all this falls like a clap of thunder on she partitioned Moldaviaspeak. The invading army would have been lieving as complacently in the amiable and -we need hardly Downing Street, where they have been bereceived as liberators. Ismail might have inalienable dispositions of America, as a litbeen invested, a free outlet might have been tle while ago they believed in the friendly obtained for that superabundance of wheat eagerness of Austria. existing in the Principalities which is now kindly prevented by Austria from reaching pointment to Vienna: let us close by asking the English market, and Odessa might have whether a change is less necessary at StockWe began by approving of the new apbeen threatened from the land as well as holm. We have no hesitation in saying that from the sea. But supposing we still doubted the prow-present one of the most important in Europe. this mission is rendered by circumstances at ess of the Roumans, we might surely have Yet it is held by a gentleman who, while emaccepted the offer of the Poles. There was only one condition attached to the proposal that they should not be confounded with troops of other nations; yet it is understood that this condition led to a rejection of their offer. The reasoning in both cases of course has been that, whether we took into our pay a Wallachian or a Polish legion, Austria would certainly feel offended.

ployed a few years ago at Vienna, neither very diplomatically nor very sagaciously expressed his regrets at the triumph of the constitutionalists in Hungary: the embassy to which he belonged having previously reported that the insurrection was quelled, at the very time when it was assuming the most gigantic proportions. What are the But when did excess of timidity fail to two hence that our Foreign Office was not chances that we shall not be told a year or bring increase of danger along with it? Just aware of the strong feeling which pervaded see into what peril our fears have been the people in Sweden, and was shared even plunging us. We have not merely incurred by the Royal family, until too late to take enormous expense in bribing Germans to en-advantage of it? There exists at Stockholm list by means of a high bounty, in construct- a section of the nobility despised in their ing barracks in Heligoland, and in conveying own country and looking for advancement to the seat of war these dear-bought and and honors to Russia alone. What security half-unwilling heroes. We have had to suf- is there that the English minister will not be fer the indignity of seeing, without protest, misled by these persons as to the intentions our Consuls arrested and tried by the tribu- and feeling of the Swedish government and nals of the countries in which they exercise people, just as he was duped in '49 by the their functions, because in pursuance of their Austrian camarilla with regard to the tru