drinking and sleeping in the same common place way that we do,and when we enter their houses and hold conversation with these old people, to whom Mr. MERIVALE introduces us, we clear away, in a most interesting and instructive manner, those cloudy mists which partially hid the centuries of long ago, and the whole picture stands out in bold relief from the canvass of the past. In walking about through the streets of Rome, we stumble over several characters with whom our school boy days have made us familiar. The AUGUSTAN age was eminently the palmy day of Roman literature. Then flourished LIVY, VIRGIL, HORACE and OVID, and many others whose names may be less familiar, and in reading of them, and of the times in which they flourished, we are strongly reminded of the days, when with dictionary and grammar, we sadly murdered the beauties of the Aenied, and stumbled through the poetry of the Odes, the Satires and Epistles. Appleton's Railway and Steam Navigation Guide. Price 25 cents. Published semi-monthly. D. APPLETON & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway. ONE after another new features have been added to this semi-monthly publication, making "Appleton's Railway Guide" more and more valuable. The object of the publisher has been to thoroughly adapt it to the wants of the traveller, and it is really surprising to see how well they have succeeded in crowding so much information into so small a compass. Certainly great ingenuity and excellent judgement has been displayed in the arrangement. The general railway map, accompanying each number, is a very useful addition, especially at the present time, when all are so interested in each successive movement and change of our armies. One can see at a glance every railway leading to every important position, which may be assumed by either force. The travelling public will therefore, at the present time, find in this feature new reason for prizing this ever useful book. Seventy-five other maps, of different railroads, are also given, with the names of all the principal stations on the roads. Biography of Successful Philadelphia Merchants. By STEPHEN N. WINSLOW. Philadelphia. Published by JAMES K. SWAN, 33 South Sixth Street; 1864. We are glad to see that Mr. WINSLOW has now given us, in book form, the extemely interesting series of sketches of successful Philadelphia merchants, which he first published in the Commercial List of that city. Our idea of the value, to the rising generation, of biographies of this kind, is too well known to our readers to need asgerting here. But, besides this, they are invaluable as a record of the acts of the men themselves; for the lives of those, in cur midst, eminent in commercial and financial circles, make up, in great part, our country's history. How much, for instance, of Philadelphia's prosperity and greatness is due to the efforts of those sketched in this book? The work itself is well gotten up, and embelished with two or three engravings, the first of which is a fine likeness of JoOHN GRIGG, the founder of the celebrated house of J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., and one of Philadelphia's most successful self made men. THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. CONTENTS OF No. II., VOL. LI. 106 112 IL CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY FRANCE. NUMBER II. BY T. M. J... ..... The Common Carrier..... 119 120 The Obligation of the Common Carrier to Receive and Carry Goods or Passengers. 128 V. COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW... 199 144 THE FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR LOAN BILL.. CALIFORNIA IN 1863.-RECEIPTS AND SHIPMENTS OF GOLD, SILVER, &c......... 149 PRODUCT.-MONTHLY RECEIPTS, EXPORTS, AND PRICES, AT THE CITY OF NEW YORK...... RAILWAY, CANAL, AND TELEGRAPH STATISTICS. The Railways of Portugal... Canals of New York State.. 152 154 155 THE INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL CONGRESS AND THE UNITED STATES..... 157 COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS... 168 Circular to Collector of Customs Relative to Consular Returns of Fees.. 1 THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. SEPTEMBER, 1864. A VOICE FROM THE WRECK. THE collapse of the inflated paper issues of Mr. CHASE has only added to the experience of the past a new illustration of the weakness and wickedness of such a system. The Treasury has been run ashore and abandoned by its director amid the breakers of public opinion. But now a solitary voice, through the Times, hailing from "the beach," rises in shrill and discordant tones above the sounding waves of public indignation, in denunciation of this Magazine, for non-approval of the disasterous end of this unskilful pilotage. A similar defence, years since, was made in favor of the Barnegat Pirates, who, by false lights, decoyed the noble merchant ships ashore on that beach for plunder; and our assailant, not inappropriately, dates his tirade "the beaches" where the Federal Treasury is foundering, the prey of the exulting parasites that have lured it to destruction. This critic takes great umbrage that we should have presumed to doubt the indefeasible right of persons, who have read a few law books, and who base a claim thereon to be lawyers, to govern the country, to the exclusion of all other classes. It is the first time certainly that we have ever seen the pretension so audaciously put forward. We know that the country swarms with people who have a smattering of law, but who are destitute of any useful species of learning, and whose abilities encompass only the chicanery and knavery of the lower walks of the profession, enabling them to prey upon society and keep out of the grasp of the law themselves. We know, also, that this pestilent class is the curse of all elective countries; their ill employed and ill paid time enabling them to beset primary meetings, and worm themselves into most of the nominations: and hence they are elected to most of the offices; not because they are selected by the people, but in despite of them. We know that this country and its glorious institutions was brought into being by such men as WASHINGTON and FRANKLIN, the one a printer and the other a surveyor; and we know that the glorious heritage of our government has been well-nigh destroyed, step by step, as it has fallen more and more completely into the hands of intriguing, unscrupulous and selfish men, whose legal knowledge has been acquired mostly in the squabbles of village pot-houses. So long as great and learned lawyers, jurists, statesmen and patriots had influence in the councils of the nation, its interests were safe, but when CLAY, WEBSTER, CALHOUN, MCDUFFEE, MANGUM, CASS, BENTON, &c., &c., gave place to the mountebanks who occupy the hours of the Senate with their drunken antics, the fear of approaching national dissolution seized upon every patriot. We do not of course mean to intimate that our present Treasurer is of this latter class. Very far from it. As we said in our former article, so we think now that "if the country is fated to be ruled by lawyers in all its departments, perhaps Mr. FESSENDEN is as good a choice as may be made." Our objection to him was, however, that he was merely a lawyer -that he was not a practical financier. What immense interests are now dependant upon the right management of the Treasury department! We are at this moment raising and spending more money than any other government on the face of the earth. Does it not stand to reason, then, that a man who has made the science of finance and trade his life work, would be better fitted for that position than a mere lawyer? We have no objection to his being learned in the law, or to his having had large experience as a physician, or being well skilled in navigation; but we do most decidedly object when we are sick to have a mere lawyer called to prescribe; or, when we have a vessel to navigate, to have a judge appointed captain; or the finances of a country to manage, yes, to save from ruin, to have the trust conferred upon one whose life has been spent hunting up and applying legal precedents. There are hundreds of merchants and bankers in this city to-day better qualified, by education and life-long experience, for managing the finances of the country at the present time, than the best mere lawyer in the land: and we think that the appointment of such a man would do very much towards restoring confidence. Our Government, now in particular, requires, if it is to be well conducted, that each department should be presided over by a person fitted, by education and experience, for the peculiar duties he is called upon to perform. To illustrate this idea further, take the war department as an instance. Is it not self-evident, that while a terrible war is being carried on, making necessary the employment of a million of men, that to properly manage that department requires some knowledge of war as a science, and some familiarity with the organization of men and the mathematical sciences? If we look back at the French revolution, who was the chief that carried the Republic through the fearful dangers of its early efforts? Happily the knot of half educated and knavish lawyers who thrust themselves into the Assembly-the contemplation of whose characters caused EDMUND BURKE to despair of France,-had the wit not to interfere with the able men at the heads of the departments. CARNOT, the profound engineer and accomplished mathematician, saved France by his powers of organization. "CARNOT," said NAPOLEON, "organized victory." His herculean labors, at the moment when the old system fell into ruins, and the population rose en masse to defend France, organized one million of men into fourteen armies, and made head against a host of foes that engirdled France. ROBESPIERE more than once regretted that his own inability to supply the place compelled the retention of CARNOT in the Committee of public safety; but those mad men had the cunning to recognize the necessity. Had they picked up some pettifogging lawyer, or even one learned in the law, to supplant CARNOT, in the Military Committee, the French Republic would never have existed. Nevertheless, it was ruined in spite of CARNOT, by the CHASE system of Finance, which our assailant in the Times now seeks to defend. He has, however, a very dim notion of what we did say, and quite as dim a notion of what he wants to say himself; and is altogether at fault as to what constitutes the property of a nation. As inaccurate ideas seem to possess many people upon that point, we avail ourselves of this attack by Mr. CHASE'S employée for a few words in explanation. The wrecker remarks: "What is the patrimony of a country! Its actual prosperity and credit derived from ancestors. Pray what has Mr. CHASE done to waste the property and credit of this nation? All his acts are acts done under the laws passed by Congress, and approved by the President. But the Magazine probably means that he had it in his power to pursue a different policy, and the policy he did pursue was erroneous. Well, let us examine that, in the light of notorious facts. 1. The property of the nation is exactly where it was. It consists of lands, forts, docks, buildings, mines, forests, &c., &c. The wild lands alone are estimated at the minimum value of a thousand millions of dollars. The right of the Government in the mines, if put up at sale, is worth hundreds of millions more, and the various prices of property held by the Government in the best part of the cities and towns of the country is unquestionably worth an immense sum. Probably the Government holds at least two thous and millions of dollars in property. This is its actual patrimony. Has Mr. CHASE wasted one dollar of that patrimony directly or indirectly? No intelligent man will pretend any such thing. The Magazine probably means that he has wasted the credit of the country, for property and credit are the only things which compose a patrimony. It is rather a far-fetched meaning, but, since EDMUND BURKE called the knowledge of a nation a part of its patrimony, we may consider credit so also. What, then, has Mr. CHASE done to waste or injure the credit of the nation?" The first point here is the effort to relieve Mr. CHASE from responsibility, by putting it upon the laws of Congress. This will not do, however. Every act of Congress was dictated by Mr. CHASE. Not only were bills drawn up in the Treasury Department, and sent to Congress directly, but bills were also sent to the Ways and Means Committee for them to report for immediate passage, as if they had been previously before the House. A notable and late example of this complete subserviency of Congress to the late Treasurer may be seen in the action on the gold bill, which Mr. CHASE had caused to be passed almost unanimously, and which, three weeks after, was repealed by as large a vote, and by the same members, they stating in excuse that they had voted for it at the request of Mr. CHASE, without knowing anything about it. Indeed, Mr. CHASE himself, in his speeches in Ohio last year, claimed the whole credit of the policy. The burden of his song was what “I did.” The other point in the paragraph is the confounding of the "patrimony of the government" with the "patrimony of the nation." We simply stated in our article, which he criticises, that the late Treasurer had squandered the latter. This apologist of Mr. CHASE, however, has so dim a notion of what constitutes national means, that he talks alternately, and as if they were synonymous terms, of the property the Government holds, and of the property of the nation. The former consists of wild |