Yesterday week, the new American Minister to this country, Mr.
Reverdy Johnson, received from the Sheffield magnates, by whom he had been entertained, as we recorded last week, on the previous day, two complimentary addresses,—for, in England, we always manage to make our little political fusses over dis- tinguished visitors last at least two days. Mr. Johnson took advantage of this ceremonial tail-piece to the ovation of which Mr. Roebuck had made so remarkable a use, to prepare a written reply, in which he mildly rebuked Mr. Roebuck and vindicated the character of the European immigrants into the United States. Those immigrants, he said, far from being,
in Mr. Roebuck's words, " a feculent torrent of all the mischief, turbulence, an:1 vice of Europe," were, on the whole, very good people, a little in need of teaching, which the United States promptly supplied. There were, of course, bad men and bad women to be found everywhere ; "I suppose," said the reply, " that the honourable gentleman would admit that such specimens of degraded humanity are to be found in London, and possibly in this borough, but these do not affect injuriously the general char- acter of the people of either locality." We are not quite so sure of that. We suspect that Mr. Roebuck's snarling and bullying tone, his hearty sympathy with the worst and most arrogant poli- ticians of both Europe and America in recent years, have had a very injurious effect on the general political character of Sheffield. At all events, we shall feel compelled to think so, if they do not reject him at the next election.
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