a starving condition."

"How can you think of giving concerts to people who are in want of
bread?" was the remark of my friends, on being apprised of my resolution
to return to the United States; and, in all humility, I must acknowledge
that the same question suggested itself not unfrequently to my mind,
when I discussed within me the expediency of my voyage. I have still in
my possession a newspaper in which a correspondent states the
depreciation of our currency to be such that he actually saw a baker
refuse to take a dollar from a famished laborer in exchange for a loaf
of bread.

The number of these trustworhy correspondents has increased in the
direct ratio of our prosperity, the development of our resources, and
the umbrage these blessings give to the enemies of democratic
principles. There are very few governments that would not deem it a
matter of duty to exult over the ruin of our republican edifice. Fear
actuates the less enlightened; jealousy is the motive of the more
liberal. A celebrated statesman once said to me, "A republic is
theoretically a very fine thing, but it is a Utopia." Like the man in
antiquity, who, on hearing motion denied, refuted the assertion simply
by rising and walking, we had hitherto put the "Utopia" into practice;
and the _thing did_ march on, and proved a reality. The argument was
peremptory. A principle can be discussed; a fact is undeniable. Although
refracted by the organs of the foreign press, the light of truth still
flashed at times upon the people in Europe, and taught it to reflect.
When our troubles broke out, I was in Martinique. In all the
Antilles,--Spanish, French, Danish, English, Swedish, Dutch,--it was but
one unanimous cry, "Did not we say so?" and the truthful and independent
correspondents immediately embraced this opportunity to redouble their
zeal, and forthwith began to multiply like mosquitoes in a tropical
swamp after a summer shower.

But it is not my province to pronounce upon lofty political and moral
questions. I would merely say that New York, for a deserted city, is
singularly animated; that Broadway yesterday was thronged with pretty
women, who, famished as they are, present, nevertheless, the delusive
appearance of health, and brave with heroic indifference the bloody
tumults of which our streets are daily the theatre; that Art is not so
utterly dead among us but that Maretzek gives "Un Ballo in Maschera" to
crowded houses, and Church sees his stu