There is probably no minor point of manners which does more to create unfavorable impressions of Europeans among the best class of Americans--morally the best, we mean--than the importance attached by the former to their eating and drinking; while there is nothing which does more to spread in Europe impressions unfavorable to American civilization than the indifference of Americans, and, we may add, as regards the progressive portion of American society--cultivated indifference--to the quality of their meals and the time of eating them. In no European country is moderate enjoyment of the pleasures of the table considered incompatible with high moral aims, or even a sincerely religious character; but a man to whom his dinner was of serious importance would find his position in an assembly of American reformers very precarious. The German or Frenchman or Englishman, indeed, treats a man's views of food, and his disposition or indisposition to eat it in company with his fellows as an indication of his place in civilization. Savages love to eat alone, and it has been observed in partially civilized communities relapsing into barbarism, that one of the first indications of their decline was the abandonment of regular meals on tables, and a tendency on the part of the individuals to retire to secret places with their victuals. This is probably a remnant of the old aboriginal instinct which we still see in domesticated dogs, and was, doubtless, implanted for the protection of the species in times when everybody looked on his neighbor's bone with a hungry eye, and the man with the strong hand was apt to have the fullest stomach. Accordingly, there is in Europe, and indeed everywhere, a tendency to regard the growth of a delicacy in eating, and close attention to the time and manner of serving meals and their cookery, and the use of them as promoters of social intercourse, as an indication of moral as well as material progress. To a large number of people here, on the other hand, the bolting of food--ten-minute dinners, for instance--and general unconsciousness of "what is on the table," is a sign of preoccupation with serious things. It may be; but the German love of food is not necessarily a sign of grossness, and that "overfed" appearance, of which the _Union_ spoke, is not necessarily a sign of inefficiency, any more than leanness or cadaverousness is a sign of efficiency. There is certainly some power of hard work in King William's army, and, indeed, we could hardly point to a better illustration of the truth, that all the affairs of men, whether political, social, or religious, depend for their condition largely on the state of the digestion.