"My eyes," said he, "have not found one resting place that deserves to
be called a wholesome, blooming, pretty woman, since I have been here.
One fourth part of the women look as if they had just recovered from a
fit of the jaundice, another quarter would in England be termed in a
stage of decided consumption, and the remainder are fitly likened to our
fashionable women when haggard and jaded with the dissipation of a
London season."

This was forty-nine years ago. Let us hope that we have improved since
then. I think I could now find some American ladies to whom no part of
this description would apply.

After a prosperous business career of a few years he left its details
more and more to his partners, and devoted himself to public affairs.

Richard Cobden, I repeat, was a public man by nature. He belonged to
what I call the natural nobility of a country; by which I mean the
individuals, whether poor or rich, high or low, learned or unlearned,
who have a true public spirit, and take care of the public weal. As soon
as he was free from the trammels of poverty he fell into the habit of
taking extensive journeys into foreign countries, a thing most
instructive and enlarging to a genuine nobleman. His first public act
was the publication of a pamphlet called, "England, Ireland and
America," in which he maintained that American institutions and the
general policy of the American government were sound, and could safely
be followed; particularly in two respects, in maintaining only a very
small army and navy, and having no entangling alliances with other
countries.

"Civilization," said the young pamphleteer, "is _peace_; war is
barbarism. If the great states should devote to the development of
business and the amelioration of the common lot only a small part of the
treasure expended upon armaments, humanity would not have long to wait
for glorious results."

He combated with great force the ancient notion that England must
interfere in the politics of the continent; and if England was not
embroiled in the horrible war between Russia and Turkey, she owes it in
part to Richard Cobden. He wrote also a pamphlet containing the results
of his observations upon Russia, in which he denied that Russia was as
rich as was generally supposed. He was the first to discover what all
the world now knows, that Russia is a vast but poor country, not to be
feared by neighboring nations, powerful to defend herself, but weak to
attack. In