Nor need one accept the opinion (in which many eminent Englishmen coincide with the universal American belief) that the United States Supreme Court is the ablest as well as the greatest judicial tribunal in the world. But when one looks at the membership of that Court and at the majority of the members of the Senate (especially those members from the older States which hold to some tradition of fixity of tenure), when one sees the men who constitute the Cabinets of successive Presidents and those who fill the more distinguished diplomatic posts, when, further, one becomes acquainted with the class of men from which, all over the country, the presidents and attorneys of the great railway corporations and banks and similar institutions are drawn (all of which offices, it will be noticed, with the exception of the senatorships, are filled by nomination or appointment and not by popular election)--when one looks at, sees, and becomes acquainted with all these, he will begin to correct his impressions as to the non-existence of an American aristocracy which, though innocent of heraldry, can fairly be matched against the British. * * * * * The average Englishman looks at America and sees a people wherein there is no recognised aristocracy nor any titles. Also he sees that it is, through all its classes, a commercial people, immersed in business. Therefore he concludes that it is similar to what the English people would be if cut off at the top of the classes engaged in business and with all the upper classes wiped out. It will be much nearer the truth if he considers the people as a whole to be class for class just like the English people, subject to the accident that there are no titles, but with the difference that all classes, including the untitled Dukes and Marquises and Earls, take to business as to their natural element. The parallel may not be perfect; but it is incomparably more nearly exact than the alternative and general impression.