The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Among the most interesting works published of late months in Germany,
is FLEISCHMANN'S _Erwerbszweige der Vereinigten Staaten
Nord-America's_, (or Branches of Industry in the United States.) The
reader who anticipates from this title a mere mass of statistics
relative to the industrial condition of our own country will find
himself agreeably disappointed. Statistics are indeed there--lists of
figures and relative annual arrays of products, sufficient to satisfy
any one that Mr. Fleischmann has turned the several years during which
he was connected with the Patent Office at Washington to good account.
But in addition to this there is a mass of information and
observation, which, though nearly connected with the subject, was yet
hardly to be expected. It is doubtful whether the social and domestic
peculiarities of others or of ourselves be most attractive, but to
those who prefer the latter, and who have lived as many do under the
impression that our own habits and ways of life present little that is
marked or distinctive, this work will be found not only interesting,
but even amusing. For among those practising branches of industry, he
not only includes blacksmiths, coopers, architects, planters, and
pin-makers, but also clergymen, actors, circus-riders, model-artists,
midwives, and boarding-house keepers! The main object of the work
being to inform his countrymen who propose emigration, of the true
state of the most available branches of industry in this country, and
prevent on their part undue anticipation or disappointment, even these
items cannot be deemed out of place. Cherishing an enthusiastic
admiration of our country, and better informed in all probability in
the branches of which he treats than any foreigner who has before
ventured upon the subject, it is not astonishing that he should have
produced a work which not only fully answers the object intended, but
in a faithful translation would doubtless be extensively read by our
own countrymen.
The reader will find in this book many _little_ traits of our domestic
life, which, commonplace though they be, are not unattractive when
thus reflected back on us, mirror-like, from another land. Take for
example the following account of confectioners:
"All men are more or less fond of sweet food and dainties,
and the wealthier a people may be, and consequently in more
fit condition to add such luxuries to the necessaries of
life, the greater will be its consumption of sugar. If we
compare the sugar consumption of England with that of
Germany, we find the first consumes a far greater quantity
per head than the latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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