ommercial life may not offer scope for any
intellectual activity and may even have a necessary tendency to stunt
the mentality of any one engaged in it, business in the United States
offers exercise to a much larger gamut of abilities and, by its mere
range and variety, instead of dwarfing has a tendency to keep those
abilities trained and alert. A business in England has not approximately
the same large theatre of operation or the same variety of incident as a
business of the same turn over in America. It is almost the difference
between the man who furnishes his larder by going out to his farmyard
and wringing the necks of tame ducks therein, and him who must snatch
the same supply with his gun from the wild flocks in the wilderness.

But, indeed, no argument should be needed on the subject; for one solid
fact with which almost every Englishman is familiar is that in any
American (let us use the word) shopkeeper whom he may meet travelling in
Europe there is a certain mental alertness, freshness, and vigour,
however objectionably they may at times display themselves--which are at
least not characteristic of the English shopkeeping class.

Just, then, as we have seen that, if we knew nothing about the peoples
of the two countries, beyond the broad outlines of their respective
social structures, we should be compelled, other things being equal, to
look for a higher code of commercial morality in America than in
England, so, when we see one further fact, namely that of the difference
in the conditions under which business is conducted, we must naturally,
other things being equal, look for a livelier intellect and a higher
grade of mentality in the American than in the English business man.

* * * * *

Unfortunately other things never are equal. First, there is the taint of
the political corruption in America which must, as has been said, in
some measure contaminate the community. Then, England is an old
country, with all the machinery of society running in long-accustomed
grooves; above all it is a wealthy country and the first among creditor
nations, to whose interest it has been, and is, to see that every bond
and every engagement be literally and exactly carried out. The United
States in the nineteenth century was young and undisciplined, with all
the ardour of youth going out to conquer the world, seeing all things in
rose-colour, but, for the present,--poor. It was, like any other yo