explaining the power of the States had to be gone over, and
the affair was disposed of by agreeing that written querries should be
sent to Paris. I had a similar application from a French functionary not
long since. A digest of the facts, as they are connected with the State
of New York, was accordingly prepared, and handed to the Minister of
Public Instruction. This gentleman rose in debate with the document in
his hand, and got on well enough until he came to the number of children
in the schools (near half a million), which appeared to him to be so
much out of proportion to whole numbers (a little exceeding two
millions) that, without hesitation, he reduced them on his own
responsibility one half! As a proof that no more was meant than to keep
within reasonable bounds, he immediately added, "or all there are." Now
this is a fair specimen of the manner in which America is judged, her
system explained, and her facts curtailed. In Europe everything must be
reduced to a European standard, to be even received. Had we been
Calmucks or Kurds, any marvel might go down; but being deemed merely
deteriorated Europeans, tanned to ebony, our facts are kept closely
within the current notions. Such a disproportion between adults and
minors being unknown in this hemisphere, it was at once set down as an
American exaggeration, to pretend to have them in the other. What were
our official returns to a European prejudice!

[Footnote 20: A few months before this, a friend, not a Frenchman,
called on the writer at Paris. He began to make inquiries on the subject
of American Parliamentary Law, that were entirely out of the track of
his usual conversations, and finally submitted a series of written
questions to be answered. When the subject was disposed of, the writer
asked his friend the object of these unusual investigations, and was
told that they were for the use of a leading Deputy, who was thoroughly
_juste milieu_. Surprised at the name, the writer expressed his wonder
that the application had not been made to a certain agent of the
American government, whose name had already figured before the public,
as authority for statistical and political facts against him. The answer
was, in substance, that those facts were intended for _effect_!]

Not long since an artist of reputation came to me, in Paris, with a
view to get a few hints for a map of the Hudson, that had been ordered
as an illustration of one of our books. He was shown all th