Emigrants. 25 



pline, if not of some less pardonable sins. The salt water 

 flowing between Europe and America was, however, supposed 

 to wash off all European impurities. Nobody cared how one 

 had sinned in the old country as long as he behaved in a man- 

 ner which was thought proper in America. 



New York and other large cities were teeming with characters 

 of that kind, and their position before the war had been a very 

 precarious one. Their military knowledge was not of the slight- 

 est use to them in America ; and the social prejudices, preten- 

 sions, and views which they brought with them were the 

 principal impediments to their success. Many perished mis- 

 erably because they could not renounce them ; others only 

 commenced to get on when the direst necessity had compelled 

 them to work. Those acted most wisely who at once resolved 

 to earn their living, in whatever honest manner, not consider- 

 ing whether their occupation was in accordance with the posi- 

 tion they had held in Europe. ''>\'ork does not dislionour in 

 America, but a life of idleness does. 



The revolutions of 1848 and 1849 brought numbers of refu- 

 gees from Oermany to America, and they were found not only 

 in the cities of the East, but almost everywhere in the United 

 States ; and it cannot be denied that this emigration had a 

 great and, I think, salutary influence on the German element 

 in America, for amongst these refugees were many distiuguished 

 men, though also a great number of blackguards, who are 

 always to be found in the wake of revolutions. New York 

 especially was crowded with this latter class of people. 



The outbreak of the war was a godsend to most of the ship- 

 wrecked Germans, especially to tiiose from Prussia, as all of 

 them had been soldiers, and even the most iuiperfect know- 

 ledge of military things was then of the highest value to the 

 Americans, who understood notr.ing at all of them. ' In the 

 land of the blind the one-eyed is king.' Prussian corporals 

 became high offlcers, and those who understood how to strike 

 the iron whilst it was red-hot could rise to the highest military 

 honours. - 



The military chiefs of the German revolution, whose impor- 

 tance and military talents were greatly exaggerated and mostly 

 overrated by their countrymen, rose at once to high places, as 

 the American Government acknowledged the military rank 

 they had held in the revolution, as had been done also in 



