Kitabı oku: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878», sayfa 17

Adventures of a Consul Abroad. By Luigi Monti. Boston: Lee & Shepard

This is a didactic or illustrative story, with a moral we find thus laid down on the last page: "Our government sends men abroad who, after hard labor and long experience, learn a complicated, delicate and responsible profession; and no sooner have they learned it, and are able to perform creditably to themselves and the government they represent all its intricate duties, than they are recalled and replaced by inexperienced men, who have to go through the same ordeal, and never stay long enough to be of real service to their country."

The gentleman upon whose shadowy shoulders is placed the heavy task of pointing this dictum is Samuel Sampleton, Esq., teacher of a private seminary on Cape Cod, who gets tired of the young idea and seeks more profitable and expanded fields of labor. He has not, at the outset, the slightest preparation for the duties of the position—that of United States consul at Verdecuerno (a translation of Palermo into "Greenhorn")—or even knowledge of what they are. His utter lack of information in the premises is indeed quite exceptional, especially in a New England teacher. We should have expected an average lad of fourteen in any part of the Union to have suspected that a consul would need some acquaintance with the language of the people among whom he was stationed, if not some slight notion of the general routine and purposes of the office. Mr. Sampleton, however, is not lacking in shrewdness and energy, and sets to work manfully, despite the difficulties of his situation, general and special. After several trying years, the comical tribulations of which are graphically set forth, he is just beginning to feel himself at home when he is summarily placed there in another sense by recall. He comes back as poor as he went, save in experience and the languages, and resumes the ferule with the determination not again to abandon it for the pen of the public employé.

It is chiefly to the social side of consular life that Mr. Monti introduces us, and most of the scenes belong to that aspect. The salary, no longer eked out by fees and other perquisites, is much inferior to the emoluments of other consuls at the same port, and the American representative is consequently entirely outshone by his colleagues of other nationalities. A considerable degree of diplomatic style is expected from the corps, and kept up by all but himself. In dinners, equipages, buttons and gold lace, and display of every kind, not merely France, England and Russia, but Denmark and Turkey, leave him deep in the shade. They have consular residences, large offices and reading-rooms, with secretaries, interpreters and the other paraphernalia of a small embassy, while Jonathan nests, with his wife, on the third or fourth flat of a suburban rookery, and uses his dining-room for an office. The sea-captains grumble at having to seek him in such a burrow, and being accorded nothing when they get there beyond the barest official action. He cannot interchange courtesies with the magnates of the city, and thus places himself and the interests of his country, so far as that often potent means of influence goes, at a great disadvantage. A pompous commodore brings an American squadron into port, and is ineffably disgusted at finding his consul utterly unable to do the honors or in any way assist the cruise.

Our author holds that the compensation of these mercantile and quasi-diplomatic agents ought to be largely increased, it being now inadequate as measured either by their labor and responsibility or by the allowances made by other nations, our commercial rivals. Certainly, additional pay in any reasonable proportion would be but a trifle in comparison with the result should it promote the rise of our marine from its present unprecedented state of depression. If consuls will create, or recreate, shipping, and reintroduce the American flag to the numerous foreign ports to which it is becoming each year more and more a stranger, let us by all means have them everywhere and at liberal salaries, with quant. suff. of clerks, assistants, flunkeys, dress-suits for dinner-parties and court-suits for state receptions, and all the other necessaries of an efficient consulate, the want whereof so vexed the soul of Mr. Sampleton. And then let us make fixtures of these gentlemen, with good behavior for their tenure of office, and in the selection of them endeavor to apply abroad the test it seems next to impossible to adhere to at home—honesty, capacity and fidelity.

Books Received

The Bible for Learners. By Dr. H. Oort and Dr. I. Hooykaas. Volume II. From David to Josiah, from Josiah to the supremacy of the Mosaic Law. Authorized Translation. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

A Vision of the Future: A Series of Papers on Canon Farrar's "Eternal Hope." By Various Divines. (No. 3 of the International Religio-Science Series.) Detroit: Rose-Belford Publishing Co.

The Cincinnati Organ, with a Brief Description of the Cincinnati Music Hall. Edited by George Ward Nichols. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.

Protection and Revenue in 1877. By William G. Sumner. (Economic Monographs, No. 8.) New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Hallock's American Club List and Sportsman Glossary. By Charles Hallock. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co.

Shooting Stars, as observed from the "Sixth Column" of the Times. By W. L. Alden. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Christ, His Nature and Work: A Series of Discourses by Eminent Divines. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Fords, Howard & Hurlbert.

Children of Nature. By the Earl of Desart. Toronto: Rose-Belford Publishing Co.

Francisco: A Poem. By William Watrous. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co.

Aspirations of the World. By L. Maria Child. Boston: Roberts Brothers.