of the hundreds of thousands into millions, and died,
after covering Europe, Asia, and the Americas with iron rails, one of
the few Christians that can hold up their heads beside the banking
Jew as magnates in the lists of gold. The portrait is clearly no
frontispiece of his qualities. He married an accomplished and charitable
lady, and she did not spoil the stock in refining it. His life passed
quietly; his death shook the country: for though it had been known
that he had been one of our potentates, how mightily he was one had not
entered into the calculations of the public until the will of the
late Ezra Mattock, cited in our prints, received comments from various
newspaper articles. A chuckle of collateral satisfaction ran through the
empire. All England and her dependencies felt the state of cousinship
with the fruits of energy; and it was an agreeable sentiment, coming
opportunely, as it did, at the tail of articles that had been discussing
a curious manifestation of late--to-wit, the awakening energy of the
foreigner--a prodigious apparition on our horizon. Others were energetic
too! We were not, the sermon ran, to imagine we were without rivals
in the field. We were possessed of certain positive advantages; we had
coal, iron, and an industrious population, but we were, it was to be
feared, by no means a thrifty race, and there was reason for doubt
whether in the matter of industry we were quite up to the mark of our
forefathers. No deterioration of the stock was apprehended, still the
nation must be accused of a lack of vigilance. We must look round us,
and accept the facts as they stood. So accustomed had we become to the
predominance of our position that it was difficult at first to realise a
position of rivalry that threatened our manufacturing interests in their
hitherto undisputed lead in the world's markets. The tale of our exports
for the last five years conveys at once its moral and its warning.
Statistics were then cited.

As when the gloomy pedagogue has concluded his exhortation, statistics
birched the land. They were started at our dinner-tables, and scourged
the social converse. Not less than in the articles, they were perhaps
livelier than in the preface; they were distressing nevertheless; they
led invariably to the question of our decadence. Carthage was named; a
great mercantile community absolutely obliterated! Senatorial men were
led to propose in their thoughtfullest tones that we should turn o