ell to observe one or two
curious ways in which it may be said to be controlled in America. If
any gentleman wished to set up a marked livery for his servants, he
could not do so without being the subject of animadversions in the rowdy
Press, styling him a would-be aristocrat. But perhaps the most
extraordinary vagary is the Yankee notion that service is degrading; the
consequence of which is that you very rarely see a Yankee servant; and
if by chance you find one on a farm, he insists on living and eating
with the overseer. So jealous are they of the appearance of service,
that on many of the railways there was considerable difficulty in
getting the guard, or conductor, to wear a riband on his hat designating
his office, and none of the people attached to the railway station will
put on any livery or uniform by which they can be known. I wonder if it
ever occurs to these sons of the Republic, that in thus acting they are
striking at the very root of their vaunted equal rights of man, and
spreading a broader base of aristocracy than even the Old World can
produce. Servants, of course, there must be in every community, and it
is ridiculous to suppose that American gentlemen ever did, or ever will,
live with their housemaids, cooks, and button-boys; and if this be so,
and that Americans consider such service as degrading, is it not
perfectly clear that the sons of the soil set themselves up as nobles,
and look upon the emigrants--on whom the duties of service chiefly
devolve--in the light of serfs?

I may, while discussing service, as well touch upon the subject of
strikes. The Press in America is very ready to pass strictures on the
low rate of wages in this country, such as the three-ha'penny
shirt-makers, and a host of other ill-paid and hard-worked poor. Every
humane man must regret to see the pressure of competition producing such
disgraceful results; but my American friends, if they look carefully
into their own country, will see that they act in precisely the same
way, as far as they are able; in short, that they get labour as cheap as
they can. Fortunately for the poor emigrant, the want of hands is so
great, that they can insure a decent remuneration for their work; but
the proof that the Anglo-Saxon in America is no better than the rest of
the world in this respect, is to be found in the fact that strikes for
higher wages also take place among them. I remember once reading in the
same paper of the strike of thre