Jonathan and His Continent Part 7

The large towns of America, even New York, are provincial in this sense: everyone is interested in what the others do. It is not Paris, still less London. Thanks to that indefatigable meddler, the American reporter, who thrusts his nose everywhere, the slightest incidents of private life are made public, and commented upon right and left immediately. You need only live a couple of months in one of the large American cities, no matter which, in order to know everyone, and all their doings.

The mind of the Americans is always on the alert. They enter into everything, everything interests them, and there is always some fresh subject for conversation. If it is not a social event, or a literary or political one, it is a little scandal, a new religious sect, a new spiritualistic imposture--faith-healing, mind-cure;[6] conversation never dies for want of subjects. Exclaim that it is eccentricity if you like, and you will not be far wrong; but add that it is life, and you will be right. It is an existence more interesting than French life in the provinces, as the French poet has described it:--

"You waken, rise, and dress, go out to see the town; Come home to dine or sup, and then to sleep lie down."

[6] This new craze was upon every tongue at the beginning of the year. I was a.s.sured that, "being ill, you have only to determine with all your soul that you will get well, and you are forthwith restored to health." Mind is universal: you are part of the universal mind, and nothing can really ail you. So runs the jargon of the sect.

The Americans, and that in every station of life, have almost always three names: one Christian name and two family ones: George Was.h.i.+ngton Smith, Benjamin Franklin Jones, William Tell Brown. I should not have been astonished to make the acquaintance of a Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte Robinson. The celebrities do not escape it any more than the rest: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Richard Watson Gilder, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc. Can one not see in these double names a t.i.tle which the father thinks he confers on his child at the baptismal font?

All new societies have the same weaknesses. On the morrow of the Great Revolution, did we not call our children Epaminondas, Leonidas, Darius, Napoleon, etc.?

Every American, with the least self-respect, is colonel or judge. Few escape it, as Mark Twain once remarked of the decoration of the Legion of Honour. We are quits, Mark. America has a hundred times as many colonels as we have knights of the Legion of Honour.

When you are presented to a gentleman in an American drawing-room, and you have unfortunately not caught his name, there is no need to try and repair the evil; call him "Colonel," nine times out of ten it is safe; if luck should be against you, call him "Judge," and you are pretty sure to be right.

If, however, pursued by the Fates, you should discover that your interlocutor is neither colonel nor judge, you have yet another resource--call him "Professor," and you are out of your difficulty: an American always professes something, an art, a religion, a science, and you are risking nothing.

I met a few American Colonels who had recently been promoted _misters_.

They were so proud of their new t.i.tle that they insisted on being addressed thus.

American hospitality deserves the reputation which it enjoys in Europe.

If it errs, it is perhaps on the side of prodigality. But how criticise hosts so amiable and so cordial?

American hospitality is princely. You are not often invited, even in houses where the daily _menu_ is of the most appetising, to go and share the family dinner. You are not invited to dine--a _fete_ is got up for you. If this cannot be managed, you are seldom invited at all.

You generally find you have been asked to a banquet: oysters, soup, _hors d'oeuvre_, fish, _releves_, _entrees_, sorbets, roasts, stew of terrapin, game (raw canvas-back duck, when in season), salads--five or six vegetables, pastry, sweets, cheese, ices and dessert, the whole washed down with the choicest wines, Chateau-Yquem, Amontillado, iced champagne, Chateau-Lafitte, and such precious beverages.

In good American houses the cooking is excellent; you will not find better in London and Paris.

The most _recherche_ of American dishes is terrapin stew: when in season, it figures at every feast. The flavour is so p.r.o.nounced that one is bound to think it either delicious or detestable.

Am I obliged to tell you which I think it?

An American asked me one day whether I liked terrapin.

I replied: "It is nothing but polite to bow to the customs of a country one visits. Terrapin is eaten in the United States, and I eat it."

Canvas-back duck is a great delicacy. It is hung in front of a fire for a few minutes only. The first time this purple meat is presented to you, it horrifies you; but I advise you to try and surmount your repugnance--the dish is exquisite.

In France, the English have the reputation of liking all kinds of meat very much undercooked. It is only one of the thousand absurd stories told about them. They prefer their meat very much cooked, on the contrary.

One of the many jokes on the subject of canvas-back duck which I heard was this:

One of these birds having been served to an Englishman, he, after a glance at it, called the waiter and said to him:

"Pa.s.s through the kitchen with it once more, please."

CHAPTER X.

_Millionaires.--A List of the Great American Fortunes.--The Stock Exchange.--A Billionaire's House.--Benevolent Acts.--A Democracy Ruled by many Kings._

I am afraid it will make my readers' lips water, but here is a list of some American fortunes, as I have heard them stated:--

Name. Capital. Revenue at 5%.

J. Gould 55,000,000 2,750,000 J. W. Mackay 50,000,000 2,500,000 C. Vanderbilt 25,000,000 1,250,000 J. P. Jones 20,000,000 1,000,000 J. J. Astor 18,000,000 900,000 W. Stewart 8,000,000 400,000 G. Bennett 6,000,000 300,000

These are the princes of the Land of the Dollar. The largest English fortunes fall short of these figures. The Duke of Westminster's is reckoned at only 16,000,000; that of the Duke of Sutherland at 6,000,000; the Duke of Northumberland has 5,000,000; and the Marquis of Bute 4,000,000.

It is in mines and railways especially that the colossal fortunes have been made.

In France, with their fortunes translated into francs, Messrs. Jay Gould and J. W. Mackay would be billionaires; it takes a larger word than millionaire to give an idea of the opulence of these men, and I beg to suggest to the editors of French dictionaries the addition of the word,

"MILLIARDAIRE, or BILLIONAIRE--a person possessing at least a _milliard_. This phenomenon is found in America."

Needless to say that, with his millions on millions, Mr. Jay Gould is a power. I was told in America that this man went to New York with only a few dollars in his pocket, and for some time earned a living by selling mousetraps. He now holds the American Stock Exchange in the hollow of his hand; instead of mice, he goes for _bulls_ and _bears_, and stocks rise and fall at his whim. Other speculators are glad to pick up the crumbs that fall from his fingers. As for contending with him, as well try to break the bank at Monte Carlo with a sixpenny-piece.

I have not seen the town house or the country house of Mr. Gould; but I know that in the grounds of the latter stand conservatories estimated to be worth 50,000. I trust this will give an idea of what the rest may be. In these jottings, taken by the way, I can scarcely do more than put the reader on the track of that which can be seen in America.

I cannot guarantee that Mr. Gould is a happy man. Concerning immense fortunes, a witty American friend, rich in moderation and a great philosopher, said to me one day:

"No man can own more than a million dollars. When his bank account outgrows that, he does not own it; it owns him, and he becomes its slave."

The two kings of American plutocracy are Messrs. Vanderbilt and Astor.

The name of king applies to them less on account of the size of their fortune than the generous use they make of it. They have founded hospitals, museums, and libraries, and are known for the generosity with which they respond to appeals for help in philanthropical causes.

Shortly before my arrival in America, Mr. Vanderbilt had given 500,000 dollars to found a hospital in New York. Mrs. Astor had just given 225,000 dollars towards the funds of the Cancer Hospital.

The Vanderbilt mansion, in Fifth Avenue, New York, is a princely habitation. One might fill a volume in giving a complete description of the treasures that are crowded into it. The luxury on all sides is extreme. In the bath-room, I am told, the walls are all mirrors painted thickly with trails of morning glories, so that the bather seems to be in a bower of flowers. In plate and pictures, several million dollars must have been spent. The pictures hang in two s.p.a.cious, well-lighted rooms. They number one hundred and seventy-four works, from the brushes of great modern masters, including the "Sower" and seven other masterpieces of Jean Francois Millett, three Rosa Bonheurs, seven Meissoniers, Turners, Geromes, the "Bataille de Rezonville" by Detaille, seven pictures by Theodore Rousseau, and beautiful examples of Alma Tadema, Sir F. Leighton, John Linnell, Bouguereau, Corot, Dore, Bonnat, and Munkacsy. In the entrance-hall hangs a portrait of Vanderbilt I., founder of the dynasty.

The Americans, having no king in our sense of the word, make the most of those they have, Republicans though they be. To read the pedigrees, published in full every time a death occurs in one of these rich families, is highly entertaining. A Mrs. Astor died while I was in America, and, after the enumeration of her charms and virtues, which were many, came the list of John Jacobs from whom her husband had sprung. The Astors were all John Jacobs apparently, and were mentioned as John Jacob I., John Jacob II., John Jacob III. The line does not go back very far, John Jacob I. having gone to America as a poor emigrant early in this century, I believe, and laid the foundation of the present grandeur of his House by trading in furs.

It will not do to inquire too closely into the way in which some of America's millionaires have ama.s.sed wealth. Strange stories are told of men so grasping that they stopped at nothing, even to the ruining of their own sons. When I saw Mr. Bronson Howard's clever play, _The Henrietta_, in which he portrays a son so madly engrossed by the excitement of gambling on the Stock Exchange as to try and absorb even his father's millions, I thought the picture was overdrawn. Americans, however, told me that the case was historical, but with the characters reversed--which made it still more odious.

As for the colossal fortunes of railway kings, it is well known how thousands of small ones go to make them; how the rich man's palace is too often built with the stones of hundreds of ruined homes.

There is no other name than king used in speaking of the few rich financiers who hold the bulk of the railway stock in America. But they are not the only ones. There are oil kings, copper kings, silver kings, and I know not what other majesties in America; and when you see the power possessed by these, and the numberless Trusts, Combinations, and Pools--a power pressing often very sorely on the million--you wonder how the Americans, who found one King one too many, should submit so patiently to being governed by scores.

CHAPTER XI.