The London Telegraph on America.
SPEAKING of the hyperbolical style indulged in by American orators when praising their native land, the London Telegraph bears the following testimony to the resources and power of our country:— “And if bigness justifies big words, we should like to know who is to blame these inventive and flowery patriots? Has any other nation 40,000,000 square acres of fat corn ground for a back yard, which will grow six quarters to the acre, as long as you like to plow the old crop in? Has any other nation a mountain of solid iron to make the plows of, like Pilot Knob, in Missouri, or seas of oil under the ground, and shores of solid copper along the lakes? Does any other nation double its population every twenty years, and suck in the emigration of Europe without counting it; or carry cargoes 2000 miles along one river; or venture on the impudence of a Monroe doctrine, or fight a war with 1,000,000 soldiers, and have them all home again, like boys after school, within a year? Or what other people collects a revenue of £118,000,000 sterling, and, with £20,000,000 in gold at a time in its exchequer, laughs at a debt of £500,000,000, and engages to wipe it out in ten years? Mr. Artemus Ward says he never knew a Yankee who didn’t talk about the Rocky Mountains, except one, and he was deaf and dumb; but even he wrote a book about them. Who is stupid enough to laugh at that? It is in the nature of the people; the young giants must have gigantic topics, words, policies, schemes, and sayings; and if we laugh, let it be with hearty good nature, and as the old folks do at the brag and buncombe of the young ones, whose strength and health are so beautiful and full of the promise of noble days and works.”