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Leader (1850-1860), 21st July 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 7

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      July 21, I860.] The Saturday'analyst And...

      July 21 , I 860 . ] The Saturday ' Analyst and Leader . 671

      Yankee Sensations. Brother Jonathan Has ...

      YANKEE SENSATIONS . BROTHER JONATHAN has a great talent for , showing the world how to do things in style . He has by nature a proclivity towards chawing up the entire universe , and knocking all creation into a cocked Ibat . He never does things by halves . Everything must be on a grand scale , to match Niagara Falls , the Mississippi , and the New York boarding hotels . The United States of America is the greatest country on the face of the earth , and the inhabitants are the greatest people on the face of the earth , and it is only right that the country and the people should comport themselves accordingly . So great a nation cannot afford to do little things . Whatever it touches it must adorn ; whatever it undertakes to patronise must at once be redeemed from the category of common-places . The steam of enthusiasm is always well up in the breast of Brother Jonathan , and all he wants is an

      occasion to turn it on and set things in motion . In fact , there is nothing he loves more than a " sensation , " and he is not at all particular what it is about . An opera singer will do if there is notliing better to hand ; a fourth-rate actor from the Great National So-so Theatre of the mother country has been found to answer every purpose ; while occasionally a herd of half-starved calves , puffed into the proportions of wild buffalos , or the head and shoulders of a monkey sewn on to the tail of a defunct cod fish has served to stir up the enthusiasm of Yankee-land throughout its length and breadth . During the last few weeks Jonathan has been more fortunate in his " objects of interest" than he has ever been at any former period of his brief history . He has had in his

      time plenty of lions " stuffed with straw , " but what he wanted was the real live animal , something that could roar * wag its tail , and measure a good deal more from its snout to the tip of its tail , than from the tip of its tail to its snout . In this year of grace One thousand eight hundred and sixty , and in the Presidency of Mr . Buchanan he has found the very article he requires in an embassy of real live Japanese . It has been , he informs us , a source of national pride that the Japanese have deigned to visit his great country . We can appreciate that seijtiment , feeling as we do that American soft sawder and Russian diplomacy have done more to conciliate these Eastern barbarians than all pur English persuasions in the shape of costly powder and shot . Well , as this visit is a

      source of national pride to Jonathan it is only right tbafche should make a national matter of it . The highest honours have been lavished upon the "tlusky . Easterns ; the Union has throbbed to its remotest Emits with a sensation of joy ; the great cities have contended with each other for the honour of a visit from the interesting-strangers , andreach one has striven " to outdo the other in the laudable endeavour to astonish the weak Japanese mind . That they have thoroughly succeeded , we can readily beHeve . At New York the embassy was received in royal state . The streets through which they passed were lined with military , while at every turn the carriages forming the procession passed under triumphal arches , and the united flags of the States and Japan . We have it on the authority of a living New York

      reporter that " all the flower and chivalry of the city— -nay of their States—was there to set off the scene , and make it brave and beautiful . " Broadway , always busy with its endless streams of 'C"arri a ^ e ^ a ^ d' * tyrmi ^^ was a perfect Babel , and it seemed as if all the population of the States were there . That was a sight for the Japanese to see ! for if there were " Plug uglies " at Baltimore , and rowdies at Philadelphia , there were gentlemen inNew York who knewhowto respect themselves . And the New Yorkers showed themselves gentlemen , every inch of them . They fairly turned their city inside out to entertain the Orientals . They treated them to fetes and feasts and balls , and almost killed them with kindness . The last grand ball at tneir munmcent

      Niblo ' s gardens was the culminating point o % nospitality . A native of Constantinople , suddenly transferred into the labyrinthine intricacies of Niblo ' s , in the full blaze of an illumination , ' bursting from fountains of gas and oil , would have believed himself still tarrying in some gorgeous palace on the banks of the Bosphorus . The fabled beauty of Aladdin ' s palace was as nothing to it . Thus the Yankee reports . And now entered the Japanese , the " band striking up the touching tune of * Kathleen Mavourneen , '" as being particularly appropriate to the occasion . The interest at this moment , we are assured , was intense . The guests rose spontaneously , and cried out , " The Japanese 1 " and every eye was strained , and evory one present stood on tiptoe to see tho members of the unique corps diplomatique . The interest , it appears , was chiefly centred in a dusky young prince , who rejoices in the name of " Tommy . " Tommy seems to have been altogether a terrible young Turk — quite a Japanese Don Juan in his way . The ladies were all over head and cars in lovo

      with him at first sight , and Tommy appears to have extensively reciprocated the sentiment . American female reputation is said to havo suffered on account of Tommy . Ho was young , and . handfiomLy aaJblaclLas ^^ 'iwhoso restlessness indicated a brilliant uncertainty about everything ho undertook , " and wore his straight black hair gathered into a black stick of sealing-wax arrangement on the topof his shaved head . With suoh personal attractions what American female could withstand tho gay and dashing Tommy ? They couldn't do it . The dauiagp to female hearts inflicted by Tommy at Washington was positively alarming ; ' the ruins of female reputation which he left behind , frightful to contemplate . Still the butterflies would flutter into Tommy ' s arms to have their pretty wings smutted . Tommy himsolf , however , seems to have come out of the flaino of love _ unscathed . It ; is true ho beoaino deeply enamoured of a little girl in blue ,

      with very red cheeks and very brown hair , and wore her portrait next his heart after he left her behind him at Washington ; but it is a matter of record that he has since taken three meals a day , and enjoyed an excellent appetite , besides indulging in any quantity of " green real . " Altogether New Yorkand Philar delphia are very proud of Tommy and his co-ambassadors . Their visit is regarded as an event of national importance . The ruin of American female reputation is looked upon as an agreeable offering to guests so handsome , so amiable , and so distinguished , and henceforth the name of the gallant Tommy is to be synonymous with the great undertaking which may yet result in opening to the world the long-locked empire of Japan . lUvfc alas ! there is always some churlish person ready to bespatter the finest

      picture with the mud of envy , malice , and uncharitableness . Such a person we find in the editor of our American godson , the New York Leader . Whether he regards the visit of the Japanese as a national honour or not he does not say ; but , with regard to the personal attractions of Prince Tommy and his brethren , he holds quite a different opinion from that expressed by his contemporaries . Let the Leader speak for itself : — " A meaner set of barbarians our eyes had never the misfortune to rest upon . Stunted , ill-shaped , narrow-headed , yellow-skinned , high-smelling , ferret-eyed , flat-footed , greedy , and cunning , it makes our blood tingle through every vein when we reflect that the virtue of American womanhood has been slandered and called

      in question on account of such half-human abominations . Not a man in the embassy knew the meaning of personal cleanliness . The princes ( God save the mark !) had but two suits of silk clothes each , which they wore without change of under-clothing from the day they left Nyphon until to-day . " Well , there is no accounting for tastes . Tommy might have been a very fine fellow ; his high flavour and one shirt notwithstanding ; or it may be that ablution and change of linen are matters of small moment over the water . At any rate , with the one base exception we have mentioned , the great American people have united in paying the Japanese the highest honours , and in showing them everything in their great country worth seeing , except our big ship , the Great Eastern . It was not thought prudent to show them that sight , arid it would appear the Orientals were hurried away the moment the vessel arrived . It

      might have been dangerous to their impressions of _ Yankee preeminence if they had cast eyes upon so wondrous a monument of British skill and enterprise . After a visit to that leviathan vessel it might have Occurred ts those barbarian minds that there was a greater nation on : the face of the earth than -the . American . So Tommy and his friends were prudently smuggled away before they had an opportunity of being disabused of their impressions of Philadelphia girls and Niblo ' s gardens . A cute Yankee in escorting one of the embassy past the big ship , adroitly pulled out a picture of the Adriatic , and occupied his attention until the dangerous spectacle was left behind . So Tommy and all the rest have gone back to Japan firmly convinced that the American cities , American ships , American gardens , and American female loveliness and virtue have no equals on the faceof the globe . We are gratified for our own sake to think that American enthu-. ' jiiasmJs TVntt . ' ypb exhausted , and that the strong interest which

      centred for so many days in the Japanese embassy lias been transferred in undiminished warmth to Our great steam-ship . We sincerely hope that the stock will last long enough to ensure a fitting welcome to the Prince of Wales , though we can scarcely hope that his English predilection for eschewing <' green seal , " and living cleanly like a gentleman , will entitle him to the very high consideration which has been bestowed upon Prince Tommy of Japan .

      Dictionary Op The Bible, * If Tho Thoolo...

      DICTIONARY OP THE BIBLE , * IF tho thoological literature that has deluged Europe during theso late centuries had been of a quality by any means proportioned to its quantity there would havo boon littlo need for works such as the one now before us . The vast amount , of scholarship and patient labour that has boon expended would , if rightly bebtowect , have given to tho world one science at least with its avenues unencumbered , and its-inner preoirmts , if not eiltiroly explored , still so circumscribed and mapped out aw to leavo littlo arduous labour for succeeding- students . We should have had the history of one people and the geography of one land fully explored . Things have , however , not been so ; the bitter spirit of religious controversy has diverted mon ' s minds fur away from tho text of tho snored books ; thoy havo boon annotated upon , it is truty by writers of all degrees of capacity and obtusen ess ;

      but , for tho most part , what mon havo soon in thorn , lias not been tho simplo teachings of tho Christian faith , tho poetics literatim * of tho most ideal of tho Eastern races , or tho oldest ohronioleH of human history ; all this has boon passed over , and they have been looked upon merely as quarries , from which missilcn might be oxtraotbdrfofuso'in controversy ^ mi Rntlmcd-Tcligious . ; What lva » rosulted . from such a system all who uro interested in » St'iueti < s literature are painfully awaro : while everything tliut eould ho brought to aid in sectarian bitternoss has been nought after with tho utmost earo , tho historical and literary merits el" tlm Holy Soripturos , the history of tho times to Svhieh they relate , and tlio men by whom thoy wore produced , is , except among a very low ; scholars , almost unknown ; Wo say this advisedly ; Hot that we

      Natural Jlmory. Bdltod By William Hmitii...

      Natural JlMory . Bdltod by William Hmitii , M-. JJ . \ w . *•» A t 0 *• * ' ™ ° » ; John Murray , lbOO .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 21, 1860, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21071860/page/7/