THE complaint is so often heard, and seems so well founded, that there is a growing inclination, not only among men of social position, but also among our best and cleverest citizens, to stand aloof from public life, and this reluctance on their part is so unfortunate, that one feels impelled to seek out the causes where they must lie, beneath the surface.At a first glance they are not apparent.Why should not the honor of representing one's town or locality be as eagerly sought after with us as it is by English or French men of position? That such is not the case, however, is evident.
Speaking of this the other evening, over my after-dinner coffee, with a high-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who not long ago represented our country at a European court, he advanced two theories which struck me as being well worth repeating, and which seemed to account to a certain extent for this curious abstinence.
As a first and most important cause, he placed the fact that neither our national nor (here in New York) our state capital coincides with our metropolis.In this we differ from England and all the continental countries.The result is not difficult to perceive.In London, a man of the world, a business man, or a great lawyer, who represents a locality in Parliament, can fulfil his mandate and at the same time lead his usual life among his own set.The lawyer or the business man can follow during the day his profession, or those affairs on which he depends to support his family and his position in the world.Then, after dinner (owing to the peculiar hours adopted for the sittings of Parliament), he can take his place as a law-maker.If he be a London-born man, he in no way changes his way of life or that of his family.If, on the contrary, he be a county magnate, the change he makes is all for the better, as it takes him and his wife and daughters up to London, the haven of their longings, and the centre of all sorts of social dissipations and advancement.