But in the fine arts, it appears, we are sunk so far beneath contempt that we really wonder that the doctor should have found it, in this particular, worth while to abuse us. "There are but two monuments in all America worthy of mention, and both are in Baltimore. Philadelphia and New-York have nothing of the kind to show, though each city possesses two public squares or parks planted with trees, which are well adapted to receive such works of art, and where the eye sadly misses them." "Public and private collections of statues and pictures are altogether wanting, and the walls of the rich are generally devoid of paintings and copper-plate engravings. What they have generally consists of family portraits, or those of Washington and other presidents. But to dazzle the eye, we find in the possession of the wealthy, the most worthless pictures in expensive gold frames. Of late years a public gallery has been established in New-York for the sale of such productions. As far however as the works of native artists are concerned, we find among them none inspired by high art; on the contrary, they are generally, to the last degree, mediocre affairs, or mere daubs (_wahre Klecksereien_) not worth hanging up; the better however are exaggerated and unnatural both in subject and color. This is also the case with most of the copper-plate engravings exposed for sale in the French shop-windows, and which appear almost as if manufactured in Paris expressly for the American taste. The inferior appreciation of art in the Americans and their delight in extravagance is particularly shown in the political caricatures, which are entirely deficient in all refined wit, consisting either of stupid allusions to eminent men or party leaders, or direct and clumsy exaggerations." By way of amends for all this abuse, our author admits that we excel in all practical arts and labor-saving inventions. "But in proportion to the backward state of the fine arts, is the advance which the Americans have made in all pertaining to mechanics, and technical art. Particular attention is paid to the supplanting of hand labor by machinery. Even the most trifling apparatus or tool is constructed with regard to practical use, and it only needs a more careful observation of this to convince us that in all such matters they have the advantage of Germany. "It is often truly startling to see how simply and usefully those articles used in business are constructed--for example, the one-horse cars (_drays or trucks?_) and hand-carts, employed in conveying merchandise to and from stores. As a proof how far the Americans have advanced in mechanic arts, we may mention that high houses, of wood or brick, several stories high and entire, are transported on rollers to places several feet distant. Occasionally, to add a story, the house is raised by screws into the air and the building substructed. In either case the family remains quietly dwelling therein."