folks are doing a good business with some Yankee coaches between Sandridge and Melbourne.

There are about one hundred New York buggy wagons in and about the city, mostly owned by Englishmen, who for a long time could not believe that the tiny spokes and slender wheels and springs were sufficiently strong to carry their weight! They are much delighted with the covered buggies, and well they may be, for the sun comes down most scorchingly upon those who sport a 'dog cart!'

Some two or three Americans are engaged in catching fish, some forty miles from town, for this market; another party are cutting firewood at the Heads, on speculation-while Moss is selling American ice at the Criterion at fifty cents a pound.

American timber shuts out the colonial; and American mining tools have already displaced the English.

American liquors stand no chance here, but the American drinks are very popular. And now, having exercised the peculiar privilege of an American in saying what he can of his countrymen, permit me to wish you and your readers as many happy returns of the new year as it may be pleasant for you and them to enjoy."

It seems our countrymen there do not forget to celebrate the 4th of July. On an occasion of this kind the writer of the above quoted letter, in response to a toast to "G. F. Train and Young America," made a characteristic speech, which, considering the place and circumstances, does well to extract in this connection. After tracing the descent of Young America for a thousand years, he says:

"But if the retrospective view has dazzled us, how much more astonishing is the present; when our thirteen little States are rolling on toward forty living Republics, bound together as one nation; when our three millions have grown to thirty, and 'driven by the hand of God,' to quote De Tocqueville, 'are peopling the Western wilderness at the average rate of seventeen miles per annum;' when our Lilliputian commerce has whitened every sea, and our mother tongue has worked its way into every land, and when our influence and our progress, like the ripples in mid-ocean, reach from shore to shore.

* *

Startle not, my friends, at the lightning pace of the pilgrim's steed. He is sure to win the race-naught stops him in his destiny; when danger lurks in his pathway, he turns high his head and snorts a proud defiance at the precipice that would have ruined him, and plunges on to victory. * Young America is only another edition of Old England, in a binding peculiar to the New World. Young John Bull in his shirt sleeves, working with an energy that commands success. England and America are partners, not rivals. The younger nation is the junior, who manages the western. branches of the old concern. Youth gives activity, and hence the young man opens his letters before breakfast, on the steps of the postoffice, while the old gentleman prefers breaking the seal in dressing-gown and slippers after dinner. Young America showed the same feelings of independence in establishing a house of his own, that every young man experiences who leaves the old house to earn an honest livelihood by his own exertions.

In this instance, however, the connection with the old concern is of more

value than that with the balance of the world. The revolution was merely an animated conversation, where shot and cannon were introduced to give emphasis to the debate, and when the disputed 'point' was settled, old England rose with renewed vigor, in Young America. The sources of discord soon began to dry, and now, as the flower turns to the sun, the needle to the magnet, the child to its mother, as the twin brothers of Siam receive each the same emotions, so are we bound by speaking the same language, and worshiping the same God, to remember England, the proud old mother of our race,

And join the Stars, and Stripes, and Cross in one fraternal band,
Till Anglo-Saxon faith and laws illumine every land.'"

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE.

A rather sterile soil and a hard climate, in which winter holds for a large part of the year, are fortunate conditions for the real welfare and advancement of a people; for these require extra exertions to secure a livelihood, and this extra labor so develops and disciplines all the faculties, that it seems as if only under such circumstances that an entire people will ever become greatly prosperous. This is the position of the inhabitants of New England, who, from apparently the most unpropitious circumstances of soil and climate, have opened new avenues of enterprise, and made their land teem with the riches of a most varied industry.

We propose here to speak only of one branch-the ICE trade, a business which, from its recent origin and novelty, has been a subject of unusual comment. Ice being a product of the north, was unknown to the inhabitants of the torrid zone until brought to them through the agency of commerce. An anecdote in point is somewhere told of an English sailor, who, in his wanderings, was brought before an Eastern Pasha, whom he amused with a long series of the most absurd, incredible yarns, in sailor fashion, all of which were listened to and believed with Mussulman-like gravity and honesty, until he unluckily mentioned, that in his country the cold often was so severe that the water actually grew solid so that people could walk upon it, whereupon the Pasha flew into a storm of passion, declared that he now did not believe anything he had said, and finished by ordering him to be bastinadoed on the spot for a consummate liar!

Ice is said to be only the natural condition of water, that is, water without the admixture of the foreign element-heat. The ice harvest, matured and ripened by cold, is watched with as much eagerness by those in the trade, as his golden-hued harvest is watched by the farmer, for both alike are sources of wealth. Ice was used for domestic consumption in this. country previous to this century. Hunt's Merchant's Magazine for August, 1855, has an interesting article giving the history and statistics of this business, from which we extract the following:

"The idea of exporting ice to low latitudes was first developed by Frederic Tudor, Esq., of Boston, in August, 1805. During the following February he shipped the first cargo of ice that was ever exported from this country, and probably from any other, in a brig belonging to himself, from Boston to Martinique.

Although Mr. Tudor went on with the first ice that he dispatched to the

West Indies, the voyage was attended with great losses. These happened in consequence of the want of ice-houses, and the expense of fitting out two agents to the different islands, to announce the project, and to secure some advantages. But a greater loss arose from the dismasting of the brig in the vicinity of Martinique. The embargo and war intervened to suspend the business, but it was renewed on the return of peace. As late as 1823, continued disasters attended the business, which largely affected the finances and health of Mr. Tudor. After an illness of two years, he was enabled to proceed and to extend the business to several of the Southern States, and to other of the West Indies. In 1834, his ships carried the frozen element to the East Indies and to Brazil, an important event in itself, since no other vessel had ever visited those distant parts of the world on a similar errand, and because they have proved good markets from that day to this.

It is now half a century since the founder of this trade commenced it. He is still actively and largely engaged in the business, and notwithstanding early losses, by pursuing the same business, for a long period of years, he has found an ample reward. The great increase of the Boston ice trade has been since 1832. In that year the whole amount shipped was but four thousand three hundred and fifty-two tuns, which was cut at Fresh Pond by Mr. Tudor. In the year 1854, the amount exported from Boston was one hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred and forty tuns. In the preceding year there were but one hundred thousand tuns shipped. In 1845 there were but forty-eight thousand four hundred and twenty-two tuns exported. The railroads receive some ninety thousand dollars for transporting ice, and those who bear it over the sea from four hundred thousand dollars to five hundred thousand.

Boston finds the best market for ice in the ports of southern cities. Of all that was exported last year, about one hundred and ten thousand tuns were sold in those cities. The next best market was the East Indies, where fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty-four tuns were sold. Other moderately good markets were Havana, Rio Janeiro, Callao, Demerara, St. Thomas, and Peru. Of the whole of last year's exports, only eight hundred and ninety-five tuns were sent to Great Britain, and that was landed at Liverpool. Years ago we were accustomed to hear how delighted the Queen of England was with our Newham Lake ice. The mother-land now ships a portion of its ice from Norway, which is believed to be the only nation that exports ice, save the United States.

The leading house in Boston that is engaged in the exporting of ice is that of Gage, Hittenger & Co., which exported last year exactly ninety-one thousand five hundred and forty tuns. The remainder for the year, sixtyfive thousand tuns, was exported by Frederic Tudor, Daniel Draper & Son, Russell, Harrington & Co., and by the New England Ice Company. The number of vessels engaged in these shipments was five hundred and twenty. The exports of ice from Boston furnish the largest amount of tunnage of any other item. The commercial marine of the United States has been materially increased by the operations of the ice trade. A large portion of the vessels formerly engaged in the freighting trade from Boston, sailed in ballast, depending for remuneration on freight of cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, etc., to be obtained in more southern latitudes, often competing with the

ressels of other nations which could earn a freight out and home. Now a small outward freight from Boston can usually be obtained for the transportation of ice to those places where freighting vessels ordinarily obtain

cargoes.

The ice-houses at Fresh Pond in 1847, were capable of containing eightysix thousand seven hundred and thirty-two tuns, or more than half the ice that was gathered in Massachusetts at that time. In that year the accommodation at seven other ponds in the vicinity of Boston was equal to the storage of fifty-four thousand six hundred tuns. These ice-houses have been so increased that in 1854 their storage capacity was three hundred thousand tuns.

From what has been said, it is clear that the ice trade is no mean one. Though it has advanced quietly, and has as yet scarcely made any figure in the literature of commerce, it is destined to be a very large business in this country. Already, from all that we can learn, there is invested in this branch of business, in all parts of the United States, not less than from six to seven millions of dollars. In ten years, judging from the past, it may be twice as great as at the present time. The number of men employed more or less of the winter in the business in Boston and vicinity is estimated at from two thousand to three thousand; and in the whole country there are supposed to be eight thousand to ten thousand employed.

All this is a clear gain to the productive industry of the country. Many men are thus employed at a season of the year when employment is the scarcest, and at fair prices of about $30 a month each, or $1,25 a day. Nor is this all. The value of all real estate has been much enhanced in the neighborhood of all fresh bodies of water where ice is secured, and new business advantages are constantly obtained.

Ice was formerly regarded as a luxury, only to be enjoyed by the wealthy, or by those well-to-do in the world. But within a few years it has been regarded, not merely as a luxury, but as a necessary of life, and desirable to be secured during the warm months by every family. Ice, too, has its medical uses. It is a tonic, and almost the only one, which, in its reaction produces no injury. It is stated that in India the first prescription of the physician to his patient is usually ice, and it is sometimes the only one.

We cannot close better than in the language of Hon. Edward Everett, who, in paying a worthy tribute a few years ago to the gentleman who first engaged in the ice trade on a large scale, has, by his beautiful words, given warmth to a very cold subject:

"The gold expended by this gentleman (Mr. Frederic Tudor) at Nahant whether it is little or much, was originally derived, not from California, but from the ice of our own Fresh Pond. It is all Middlesex gold, every penny of it. The sparkling surface of our beautiful ponds, restored by the kindly hand of nature as often as it is removed, has yielded, and will continue to yield, ages after the wet diggings and the dry diggings of the Sacramento and the Feather Rivers are exhausted, a perpetual reward to the industry bestowed upon them. The sallow genius of the mine creates but once; when rifled by man the glittering prize is gone forever. Not so with our pure crystal lakes.

This is a branch of Middlesex industry that we have a right to be proud

of. I do not think we have yet done justice to it; and I look upon Mr. Tudor, the first person who took up this business on a large scale, as a great puplic benefactor. He has carried comfort, in its most inoffensive and salu-. tary form, not only to the dairies and tables of our own community, but to those of other regions, throughout the tropics, to the farthest East.

When I had the honor to represent the country at London, I was a little struck one day, at the royal drawing-room, to see the President of the Board of Control (the board charged with the supervision of the government of India) approaching me with a stranger at that time much talked of in London-the Babu Dwarkananth Tagore. This person, who is now living, was a Hindoo of great wealth, liberty, and intelligence. He was dressed with Oriental magnificence-he had on his head, by way of turban, a rich Cashmere shawl, held together by a large diamond broach; another Cashmere around his body; his countenance and manners were those of a highly intelligent and remarkable person, as he was. After the ceremony of introduction was over, he said he wished to make his acknowledgments to me, as the American minister, for the benefits which my countrymen had conferred on his countrymen. I did not at first know what he referred to; I thought he might have in view the mission schools, knowing, as I did, that he himself had done a great deal for education. He immediately said that he referred to the cargoes of ice sent from America to India, conducing not only to comfort, but health; adding that numerous lives were saved every year by applying lumps of American ice to the head of the patient in cases of high fever. He asked me if I knew from what part of America it came. It gave me great pleasure to tell him that I lived, when at home, within a short distance of the spot from which it was brought. It was a most agreeable circumstance to hear, in this authentic way, that the sagacity and enterprise of my friend and neighbor had converted the pure waters of our lakes into the means, not only of promoting health, but saving life, at the antipodes. I must say I almost envied Mr. Tudor the honest satisfaction which he could not but feel, in reflecting that he had been able to stretch out an arm of benevolence from the other side of the globe, by which he was every year raising up his fellow-men from the verge of the grave. How few of all the foreigners who have entered India, from the time of Sesostris or Alexander the Great to the present time, can say as much! Others, at best, have gone to govern, too often to plunder and to slay-our countryman has gone there, not to destroy life, but to save it-to benefit them while he reaps a well-earned harvest himself."