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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

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    YANKEE SENSATIONS.

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    DICTIONARY OF THE IUBL1C*

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    Untitled Article

    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 hat . 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 redeemed from the

    undertakes to patronise must at once be 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 nothing 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 sentiment , feeling as we do that American soft sawder and Russian diplomacy have done more to conciliate these Eastern barbarians than all our English persuasions is

    in the shape of costly powder and shot . Well , as this ^ visit a source of national pride to Jonathan it is only righfejthat he should make a national matter of it . The highest honours have been lavished upon the dusky Easterns ; the Union has throbbed to its remotest limits with a sensation of joy ; the great cities have contended with each other for the honour of ; a visit from the interesting strangers , and each one has striven to outdo the other in the laudable endeavour tcr astonish the ~ weak Japanese mind . That they have thoroughly succeeded , we can readily believe . 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 carriages and omnibuses , its foot-passengers hurrying to and fro , wm ~ a ^ Tfm ~ Ba 1 > - elp ^ States were there . That was a sight for the Japanese to see ! for

    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 York and Philadelphia are very proud of Tommy and his co-ambassadors . Their visit is regarded as ah 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 . But alas ! there is always some churlish person ready to bespatter the finest maliceand uncharitableness

    picture with the mud of envy , , 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 pur 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 ,., and 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 east eyes ^ pon so wondrous a monument

    of British skill and enterprise" After a visit to that leviathan vessel it might have occurred to those barbarian mi nds- 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 leftbehind . SoToMMYand all the rest have gone back to Japani firmly convinced that the American cities ,. American ships , American gardens , and American female loveliness and virtue have no equals on the face of the globe . Weiare gratified for bur own sake to think that American ' enthusiasm is not yet exhausted , and that the strong interest which centred for so many days in the Japanese embassy has been transferred in undiminished warmth to our great steam-ship . We

    sincerely hope that the stock will last long enough to ensure a fatting welcome to the Prince of Wales , though we can scarcely hope that his English predilection for eschewing " green seal , " and livingcleanly like a gentleman , will entitle him to the very high consideration which has been bestowed upon Prince Tommy of Japan .

    if there were " Plug uglies " at Baltimore , and rowdies at Pmladelphia , there were gentlemen in New York who knew how to respect themselves . And the New Yorkers showed themselves gentlemen , every inch of them . They fairly turned tfieir 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 Niblo ' s gardens was the culminating point of their munificent hospitality 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 , 4

    the " band striking up the touching tune of Kathleen Mavourneen , '" 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 ! " and every eye was strained , and every one present stood on tiptoe to see the members of the unique corpH 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 ears in love with him at first sight , and Tommy appears to have extenki ' vaW rfif . inrnfiatcd the sentiment . American female reputasivelreciprocated the sentiment . American temaie

    reputay tion is said to have suffered on account of Tommy . He was young and handsome , as black as n coal , had oval eyes , " whose restlessness . indicated . aJbriwantJURge ^ M ^ ^ undertook , " and wore his straight black hair gathered into a black stick of sealing-wax arrangement on the tppof his shaved , head . With such personal attractions what Amorican female could withstand the gay and dashing Tommy ? They couldn't do it . The damage to female hearts inflicted by Tommy at Washington was positively alarming : the ruins of female reputation whioh he left behind , frightful to contemplate . . Still the butterflies would flutter into Tommy ' s arms to have their pretty wings smutted . Tommy himself , however , seems to have come out of the flame of love unscathed . It is true he became deeply enamoured of a little girl in blue ,

    Untitled Article

    IF the theological literature that has deluged' Kuropo during these late eonturi . es had been of a quality by any means proportioned to its quantity thcic would hiivo boon little need lor works such as the one now before us . The vast amount of scholarship and patient labour that has boon expended would , if rightly bestowed , have given to the world one seieuee at loust with its avenues unencumbered , and its inner precincts , if not entirely explored , still so circumscribed ; and mapped out as to leave little arduous labour for Hiioceedjng . student * . Wo should have had the history of one people and the . geography of one land fully explored . Things have , however , not been so ; tho bitter spirit of religious controversy has diverted men ' s minds far away from the text of tho sacred books ; they havo been annotated upou ,

    it is true , by writers of all degrees of capacity and obtusoness ; but , for tho most part , what men havo seen in them has not been tho simple teachings of tho Christian faith , tho poetic literature of tho most idoal of . tho Eastern races , or tho oldest chronicles of human history ; all this'has boon passed Over , and they have been looked upon morely as quarries , from which missiles might bo extracted for uso in controversy misnamed religious . What has resulted : frora such o ~ systemrail-who are interested in Hemetio : literature are painfully uware : while everything that uould bu brought to aid in sootarian bitterness has bcon sought after with the utmost oaro , the historical and literary merits of the Holy Scriptures , tho history of the tinios to whioh tlmy relate-, and tlio men by whom they were produced , is , oxcopt among a very lew scholars , almost unknown . Wo suy this advisedly ; not that wo ,

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    '" A DteUomtHHfthtMbl * comprising It * Anti ^ ' ^ / iiavrapt ^ ^™ Q * ™* Natural IlMoru . Hatted by William Hmitii , J < l «« . V ° ' > l > A l 0 J < ""««»»• Julm Murray , ltttiO .

    Untitled Article

    July 21 I 860 . } The Sccturday Analyst and Leader . 671 ,

    Yankee Sensations.

    YANKEE SENSATIONS .

    Dictionary Of The Iubl1c*

    DICTIONARY OF THE IUBL 1 C *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 21, 1860, page 671, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2357/page/7/