PUBLIC JOURNALS GROWTH AND MEN OF BALTIMORE. 59 



enterprise, and to encourage patriotic associations of capital for large purposes, 

 beyond the reach of private means. They collect as to a focus, and reflect as 

 from a mirror, the suggestions of individual sagacity and experience, for the 

 establishment of useful institutions, and for the common enlightenment and 

 happiness of all. Such is the high and responsible office of the conductors of 

 leading papers iu large cities, demanding the highest order of talents and the 

 purest public spirit. How much more honorable and important, as respects the 

 public welfare, than many political offices of high grade, awarded by the voice 

 of faction, and wielded for factious ends ! 



Be my location, Mr. Editor, where it may, into whatever situation the acci- 

 dents of party or the will of power may poke me, I shall ever have a "warm 

 side" for old Baltimore ; but those who are enjoying the golden fruits of her pros- 

 perity should never forget what they owe to those who planted the tree, and 

 watched and watered it through all the doubtful crises of its growth, and finally 

 handed it over in full bearing to their successors, as the rich inheritance of their 

 cares, their sagacity, their risks, and, in not a few cases, of their sacrifices. Ljet 

 them never forget that if Baltimore struck her strong tap-root in a happy position, 

 she owes her nourishment and stalwart growth no less to the forecast, the labors, 

 the untiring industry and the constant patriotism of the Wilsons, the Smiths, the 

 Gilmers, the Olivers, W. Lorman, the Browns, Thomases, Eilicotts, Eltings, Ster- 

 retls, Thompsons, the Donnells and the McDonnells, &c. of bygone days. But can 

 communities, any more than individuals, plead exemption from frequent want of 

 discrimination, from injustice, from ingratitude ? — or why is it that we so often see 

 men courted in the social circle and exalted in the popular regard in proportion 

 to the length of their purses, the frequency of their dinners, the age of their 

 wines, the glitter of their equipages, the influence of their contiections and the 

 magnificence of their houses, furniture and style of living ; and yet worse, if pos- 

 sible, to their clamorous and hypocritical professions of love for the dear people ! 

 while the quiet man of inquiring mind and various knowledge, and unobtrusive 

 and vigorous capacity to be useful, is overlooked and neglected ! How many igno- 

 rant and hollow-sounding demagogues, without one ray of talent or one spark 

 of generosity — how many cunning interlopers and party changelings from political 

 envy and disappointed ambition, high-school Federalists to-day, and Subterranean 

 Democrats to-morrow ; aflfecling to court, while they are known to despise, the 

 " vox populi,''' have been elevated to the highest offices and places of patronage 

 and authority, within our observation, to the utter exclusion of citizens of exten- 

 sive research, of useful acquirements, ol sound scholarship and business capa- 

 city, but who scorn to " bend the supple hinges of the knee where thrift may 

 follow fawning." I should say here, with the author of Gil Bias, that while my 

 purpose is to represent things as I find them, God forbid that I should under- 

 take to delineate any man in particular ! Let no reader, therefore, assume to 

 himself that which properly belongs to others, lest, as Phsdrus observes, he 

 make an unlucky discovery of his own character — stulte nudavit ani?ni con- 

 scientiam. Without making the application, I will only state a fact. A great 

 work has lately come from the English press, being a consolidated Digest of the 

 Laws which regulate the Navigation and Trade of all Nations, and the Tariff's 

 and Taxes and Restrictions imposed by each State upon International Navigation 

 and Commerce ; and also a Digest of the Commercial Treaties which are in force 

 between the respective States of the World. This last, and chef d''auvre in its 

 department of knowledge, is entitled McGregor's Commercial Statistics. The 

 •following is the second paragraph of his Preface. To many who read it, in the 

 United States, it will probably be the first intimation of the existence of the 

 •' valuable work" referred to, and for which one of the greatest statists of the 

 present day " sent frequently to America without success." 



" The execution of this arduous work," says McGregor, " was intrusted to a 

 very competent publicist, Mr. John Spear Smith, and the first volume of 700 

 pages was published in 1833, and the whole, as far as information could then be 

 collected, in four volumes, in 1836." He says farther, he " sent frequently to 

 America" for this " valuable work, without success, owing to the limited number 

 that were ordered to be printed. Each of the American Legations and Consuls 

 have had copies sent them stamped as the property of the United States ; and for 

 the perusal of these volumes — as to the first two volumes, I was indebted to 



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