ifl o
3 "CvYi
II 1
I 114 I r
V.
THE BtESSDTGS OF GOVERNMENT, UEE THE DEWS OF HEAVES, SHOULD BE DISXEIBHTSD ALIKE UPON THE HIGH AND THE LOW, THE EICH AND THE POCB.
NEW SERIES.
EBENSBURG, JUNE 13, 1855.
VOL. 2. NO. 35.
Mil
hi Hi iii iii
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From Putnam's Magazine.
AMERICA FOR THE AMERICANS.
'An Individual masked under the vulgar
'name of Sam, furnishes just now a good deal
more than halOhe pabulum wherewith certain
legislators and journalists are fed. Whether
he is a mythical or real nersonage a Majrus
or a monkey nobody seems- to know, but we
arc inclined to regard him as real, because of
Ms general acceptance among Dalgetty poli
tician, and because of the irresistible merri
ment his occasional "coming down" on some
thing or other affords the newspapers. We
a paunchy old gentleman the other day,
with a face like the suu, only more red, and
blue and spotty, and a dismally wheezy voice,
who came near being carried off with a pon
derous apoplectic chuckle, when somebody
"casually observed that " Sam was pitching
into the police," and he was only relieved
from the fatal oonsequenees by a series of des
jerate movements, which resembled those of
a seventy-four getting-under-weigh again af
ter the sudden stroke of a typhoon Now, if
53am was not unquestionably a real personage,
and this old gentleman unquestionably a real
disciple of his. ws arc at a loss to accouut for
the reality of the phenomena thus exhibited.
But whether real or mythical, it has been
impossible for us to raise our admiration of
tam to the popular pitch. After due and dil
ligent inquiry, we have arrived at only a mo
derate estimate of his qualities. Ia fact, con
sidering the mystery iu which he shrouds his
ways, we are disposed to believe that he is
more of a Jerry Sneak than a hero The as
sumption of secresy on th part of any one,
naturally starts our suspicions. We cannot
ee why he should resort to it, if he harbors
only jast or generous design.. We associate
Jarkuess and night with things that are foul,
'. aod we admire the saying, that twilight even.'
though a favorite with lovers, is also favorable
to thieves. Schemes which shrink from the
day, which sculks behind corners, and wriggle
themselves into obscure and crooked places,
.aro not the schemes we love at a venture
And all the veiled prophets, we apprehend,
are very much like that one we read of iu the
palaco of Morou, who hid his face, as lie pre
tended to his admirers, because its brightness
would strike them dead, but in reality because
it was of an ugliness so monstrous that no one
could look upon it and live.
There is an utterance, however, imputed to
this impervious and oracular Sam, which we
cordially accept. He ia said to have said that
America belongs to Americans" just as
bis immortal namesake, Sam Patch, said that
"some things could be done as well as oth
ors," 'and wo thank him for the concession.
It is good, very excellent good, as the logi
cal Touchstone would have exclaimed, provi
ded you put a proper meaning to it.
What is America, and who are Americans?
It all depends upon that, and, accordingly as
you answer, will the phrase appear very wise
or very foolish. If you arc determined to
consider America as a thiug more than the
two or tnrco million square miles of dirt, in
cluded between the Granite Hills and the Pa
cific, and Americans as those men exclusively
whose bodies happened to be fashioned from
it, wo fear that you have not penetrated to
the real beauty and significance of the terms, j
The soul of a muck-worm may very naturally
bo contented with identifying itself with the
mould from which it is bre I, and into which :
it will soon be resolved, but the soul of a man, i
unless we are hugely misinformed claims a
loftier origin, and looks forward to a nobler
destiny.
America, in our sense of the word, embra
ces a complex idea. It means, not simply the
soil with its coal, cotton, and corn, but the
nationality ly which that soil ia occupied, and
the political system in which such occupants
are organized. - The soil existed loug before
Vespucci gave it a. same, aslongback.it
may be, as when the morning stars Bang to
gether, but the true America, a mere chick
n still, dates from the last few years of the
eighteenth centnrv Tt
t ttV1"16 ami the cnnon volleys of Bun
c? tY and Save its first PeeP when the old
SfSJ!96 U at Madefphia rang out
- r tLall,.theland" Before that pe
nod theatraggbng and dependent colonies j
Which were here were the mere spawn of the
dder . nations ,-thegg8 and embryos of
America, but not the full-fledged bird It
was not until the political Constitution of '89
Lad been accepted by the people that Ameri
ca attained a complete and distinctive exis
tence, r that she was able continuing the
figure with which we began to spread her
" sheeny vans," and shout a cock-a-doodle to
the 'sun. ' ; -
It , would be needless, at th ia ilav in nfAta
what are ike distiaguishing principles of that
iuucai existence. iney have been pronoaa-
41. 3 -
7 u vuuuHaa times, ana resumed as often
we simple formula which every school-boy
th? government of the whole people
words.
In other
nt mib uumocrauc repuoi
6'"crnment of the people by a despot.
nor by an oligarchy, nor by any class such as
the red-haired part of the inhabitants, or the
blue-eyed part ; nor yet a government for any
other end than the good of the entire nation
but the democratic republic, pure and simple.
This is the political organism which individ
ualises us, or separates us a living unity from
all the rest of the world. - .,
All this, of course, would be too elementary
to be recounted in any mature discussion, if
recent events had not made it necessary to an
adequate answer of our seoond question who,
then, are " Americans ? Who constitute the
people in whoso haods the destinies of Amer
ica are to be deposited ?
The fashionable answer in these times is
" the natives of this Continent to be sure !"
But let us ask again, in that case whether our
old friends Uncas and Chingachgookr and
Kag-ne-ga-bow-wow whether Walk-in-the-water,
and Talking-snake, and Big-yellow-thunder,
are to be considered Americans h or
excellence f Alas ! no : for they, poor fellows !
are all trudging towards the setting sun, and
soon their red and dusky figures will have fa
ded in the darker shadows of the night ! Is
it, then, the second generation of natives
theyvho are driving them away who com
pose exclusively the American family ? You
say yes ; but we say no ! Because, if Amer
ica be as we have shown more than the soil
of America, we do not see bow a mere cloddy
derivation from it entitles one to the name of
American. Clearly, that title cannot enure
to us from the mere argilli cious or eillicious
compounds of our bodies clearly, it descends
from no vegetable ancestry and it must dis
dain to trace itself to that simple relationship
to physical nature which we chance to enjoy,
in common with the skunk, the rattlesnake,
and the catamount.' All these arc only the
natural production of America excellent, no
doubt, iu their several ways but the Ameri
can man is something more than a natural
product, boasting a moral or spiritual genesis ;
and referring his birth right to the immortal
thoughts, which are the soul of his institutions,
and to the divine affections, which lift his pol
itics out of the slime of state-craft, into the air
of great humanitary purposes.
The real American, then, is he no matter
whether his corporal chemistry was first igni
ted in Kamchatka or the moon who, aban
doning every other country and forswearing
every other allegiance, gives his mind and
heart to the impulses and ends in which and
by which it subsists. If we have arrived at
years of discretion if he produces evidence
of a capacity to understand the relations he
nndertes if he has resided in the atmos
phere of freedom long enough to catch its
genuine spirit then is he an American, in
the true and best seuse of the term.
Or, if not an American, pray what is he?
An .Englishman, a German, an Irishman, he
can no longer be ; he has cast the slough of
his old political relations forever: be has as
serted his sacred right of expatriation (which
the United States was the first of nations to
sanction) or been expatriated by his too ardent
love of the cause which the United States rep
resents ; and he can never return to the an
cient fold. It would spurn him more incon
tinently than powder spurns the fire. lie
must become, then, either a wanderer or a
nondescript on the face of the earth or be re
ceived into our generous republican arms. It
is our habit to say that we know of no race or
creed, but the race of man and the creed of
democracy, and if he appeals to us, as a man
and as a Democrat, there is no alternative in
the premises. We must either deny ! .s claims
altogether deny that be is a son of God and
our brother or else we must incorporate him
in duo season into the household. It is not
enough that we offer him shelter from the
rain not enough that we mend his lopped
and windowed' raggedncss not enough that
we replenish his wasted midriff with bacon
and homony, and open to his palsied hands
an opportunity to toil. These arc commend
able charities, but they are such charities as
any one, not himself a brute, would willingly
extend to a horse found astray on the com
mon. Shall we do no more for our fellows?
Have we discharged our whole duty, as men
to men, when we have avouched the sympa
thies we would freely render to a cat t Do
we, in truth, recognize their claims at all,
when we refuse to confess that higher nature
in them, whereby alone they are men, and
not stocks or animals ? More than that : do
we not, by refusing to confess a man's man
hood, in reality heap him with the heaviest
injury it is in our power to inflict, and wound
him with the bitterest insult his spirit can re
ceive. -: : - ; '-' '
We cn easily conceive the justness with
which an alien, escaping to our shore from the
oppression of his own country, or voluntarily
abandoning it for the sake of a better life.
might reply to those who receive him hospita-
my, dui aeny him political association :. ."For
your good will, I thank you for the privilege
oi toning against the grim inclemencies of my
outcast and natural cond ition. which von of
fer, I thank you for the safesuard of vour
noble public laws, I thank you ; but the bles
sed ucki Having made me a man, as well as
you when you refuse me like the semi-bar
barians of Sparta, all civil life when," with
Jewish, exclusiveness, you thrust me out of
the Holy temple, as a mere proselyte to the
Kate your raienaea Kinanesses scum over
with malignity, and the genial wine-cnp you
offer brims with wormwood and call."
We are all aware of the kind of outcry with
which such reasoning is usually met. We
Know in what a variety of. tones from the
vulgar growl of the pot-house pugilist to the
minatory shriek of tL iw;. :,l :.k
fear of the Scarlet Lady it U proclaimed that
all foreign infusions into our life are veno
mous, and ought to be vehemently resisted.
.Nor do we mean to denv the rirU of
coinmunity to protect itself from hurt, even
tuo urviuiu irusion, it necessary, of the
ingredients wmcn tnreaten iU damage. But
uuutaanj inuai oe most distinctly proved
The case must be one bo clear as to leave no
doubt of it. as an absolute case of self-defence.
Now, there is no ' such overruling necessity 4
with us as to compel either the exclusion or
the extrusion of our alien residents. They
are not such a violent interpolation, as when
grains of sand, to use Coleridge's figure, have
got between the Bhell and the flesh of the
snail that they will kill us if we do not put
them out and keep them out. A prodigious
hue and cry against them wakes the echoes of
the vicinage just now, such as is raised when
a pack of hungry foxes stray into the honest
hen roost, but the clamor is quite dispropor
tionate to the occasion. . The foxes are by no
means so numerous or predacious as they are
imagined to be, and there is no danger of
them for the future that we need to be trans
fixed with. fright .qr scamper awax jn a stamp
ede of panic terror. The evils which our
past experience of Naturalization has made
known to ns for there are some are not
unmanageable evils, requiring a sudden and
spasmodic remedy, and menacing a disastrous
overthrow unless they are instantly tackled.
The most of them are like the other evils of
our social condition mere incidents of an in
fantile or transitional 6tate of a life not yet
arrived at full maturity and will be worked
off in tho regular course of things. At any
rate they solicit no head-strong, desperate as
sault ; only a consciousness, of what and where
our real btrength is, and patient-self control.
On the other hand, it is a fixed conviction
of ours, in respect to this whole subject of
aliens, that there is much less danger in ac
cepting them, under almost any circumstances,
than there would . be iu attempting to keep
them out. In the latter case, by separating
them from the common life of community,
making them amenable to laws for which they
are yet not responsible, taxing them for the
support of a government in which they are not
represented, calling upon them for purposes
of defence when they have no real country to
defemf? we should in effect erect them into
a distinct and subordinate class, on which we
had fastened a very positive stigma or degra
dation. How lamentable and inevitable the
consequences of such'a social contrast.
The reader, doubtless, has otten seen a
wretched oak by the way-side, whose trunk is
all gnarled and twisted into knots ; or he may
have passed through the ward. of a hospital,
where beautiful human bodies are eaten with
ulcers and sores ; or he may have readf f the
Pariahs of India, those vile and . verminous
outcasts, who live in novels away from tne cit
ies, and prey on property like rats and wea
sels; or again chance may have led him
through the Jews' quarters, the horrid ghet
tos of the old continental town, where squalor
accompanies ineffable crime : or, finally, his
inquiries 'may . have mado him familiar with
the free blacks of his own country, with their
hopeless degradations and miseries ! Well,
if these experiences have been his, he has
discerned in them the exponments in some,
the svmbols, and in others, the actual enects
of the terrible spirit of exclusion, when it is
worked out in society. For, it is a universal
troth, that whatever thing enjoys but a partial
participation of the life to which it generally
belongs, get, to the extent ot tne aepnvauon,
diseased. It is also a universal truth, that
the spread of that disease will, sooner or later,
affect the more living members. Make any
class of men. for instance, an exception in
society ; set them apart in a way which shall
exclude them from the more vital circulations
of that society ; place them in relations which
shall breed in them a sense of alienation and
degradation at the same time and they must
become either blotches, or parasites, which
corrupt it ; or else a band of conspirators, more
or less active, making war upon its integrity.
Let us suppose that some ruler, a Louis
Napoleon or lr. Francia, should decree that
all the inhabitants of a certain country, oi od-
lique or defective vision, should be rigidly
confine! to one of the lower mechanical occu
pations, would not all the squint eyed and
short-sighted people be immediaUdy degraded
in tho estimation of the rest of the community?
Would not the feeling of that debasement act
as an perpetual irritant to their malice lead
them to bate the rest and to prey upon them -
and so feed an incessant tcud open or sinis
ter, as the injured party might be strong or
weak between strabismic families and those
of a more legitimate ocularity ? In the same
way, but with even more certainty and viru
lence of effect, any legal distinctions among a
people, founded upon differences of birth or
race must generate unpleasant and pernicious
relations, which.' in the end,, could only be
maintained by force. - Say to the quarter mil
lion of foreizners who annually arrive on our
shores, that, like the metoikoi and perioikoiot
the Greeks, they may subsist here, but noth
ing more: that the privileges of the inside of
the city, sunrage, oince, equauiy, amDiuon,
are closed to them ; that they may sport for
our amusement in the arenas, look on at our
courts, do our severer labors for U3, and rev
erently admire Our greatness ; but that tney
shall have no iart nor lot in that political life
which is the central and distinguishing life of
the nation, and so forth; you convert them,
infallibly, into enemies -in to the' worst kind
of enemies, , too because internal enemies,
who have already effected a lodgment in the
midst of your citadel. Coming as an invading
army these thousands wilh avowed un
friendly numoses they might easily be driven
back by our swords ; but coming here to settle
and be transmuted into a casto into political
lepers and vagabonds they would degenerate
into a mortal plague which no human weapon
could turn away. Proscribed from the most
important functions of the society in which
they lived, they would . cherish an interest
separate from the general interest, and, as they
grew stronger, form themselves into an or
ganised and irritable clanship. Their just
resentments, or their increasing arrogance,
would manner or later nrovoke some rival fac
tion into conflict ; and then the deep-seated,
fatal animosities of race and religion, exas
perated by the remembrance of injuries given
and taken, would rage over society lite the
winds of the sea. '
History is full of warnings to us on this
head. No causes were more potent, in sun
dering the social ties of the ancient nations,
than tho fierce civil wars which grew out of
the narrow policy of restricting citizenship to
the indigenous races. No blight has fallen
with more fearful severity on. Hurope than the
blight of class domination, which, for centu
ries,
has wasted the energies and tho
virtues,
the happiness and the hopes of the masses.
Nor is there any danger that threatens our
own country now scarcely except slavery .
more subtile or formidable than the danger
which lurks in those ill suppressed hatreds of
race and religion which some persons; seem
eager to foment into open quarrel. Already
tbe fatwe Is walking jn to-day; J,Jie,. recent
disgraceful exhibitions in this city the arm
ed and hostile bands which are known to be
organized the bitter taunts and encounters
of their leaders the low criminations of the
Senate House the pugilistic melee, ending in
death the instant and universal excitement
the elevation of a bully of the bar-room into
the hero of a cause the imposing funeral
honors, rivaling in pageantry and depth of
emotion the most solemn obsequies that na
lioh sould decree its noblest benefactor all
these are marks of a soreness which needs
only to be irritated to suppurate in social war.
Our statesman at Washington are justly
sensible of the dangers of sectional divisions;
but no sectional divisions which it b possible
to arouse are half so much to be dreaded as
an inflamed and protracted contest between
natives and aliens, or Catholics and Protes
tants. The divisions which spring from terri
torial interests appeal to few of the deeper
passions of the soul, but the divisions of race
and religion touch a cord in the human heart
which vibrates to the intensest malignity ot
hell. Accordingly, the pen of the historian
registers many brutal antagonisms-many last
ing and terrible wars, but the most brutal of
all those antagonisms, the most lasting and
terrible of all those wars, are the antagonisms
of race, and the wars of religion.
It will .be replied to what we have hitherto
urged, that our argument proceeds upon an
assumption that aliens are to be totally exclu
ded from political life, whereas nobody propo
ses such a thing, but only a longer preparato
ry residence.
.. ....
We rejoin, that the persons and parties wno
are now agitating the general question, because
they propose the exclusion of adopted citizens
from office, do, in effect, propose a total po
litical disaualificationof foreigners. " All their
invectives, all their speeches, all tneir secret
assemblages, have this end . and no other.
They agree to ostracise politically every man
who is not born on our sou ; tney conspire not
to nominate to any preferment, . not to vote
for any candidate who i&aborn abroad f and
these agreements and conspiracies are a pres
ent disfranchisement, bo far as they are effec
tive, of every adopted citizen, and a future
anathenm of every alien. Whether the aim
be accomplished by public opinion, by secret
conclave, or by law, the consequences are the
same ; and the general objections we nave ai-
eged to the division of society into castes
apply with equal force.
We rejoin again in respect to the distinc
tion made between a total exclusion ot lor-
. . . . 1 . ! A
eigners, and a cnange m ine naturalization
laws that it is a distinction which really
amounts to nothing ; for, firstly, if the proba
tion be extended to a long period say twenty
one years, as some recommend it would be
equivalent to a total exclusion : and, secondly,
if a shorter period 6ay ten years be adop
ted, the change would be unimportant, oe-
causa no valid objection against the present
term of five years would thereby be obviated.
Let us see for a , moment.
Firstly, as to the term of twenty-one years:
We say that, inasmuch as the majority of foi
eigners who arrive on our shores are twenty
five yean fit age and over when they arrive,
if we impose a quarantine of twenty-one years
more, they will not be admitted as citizens un
til they shall have reached an age when the
r ... . i -. i i . . .t j
tardy boon will be or litue vaiueio me in, anu
thmr faculties ancktheir interests in hu-
man anairs wui nave oeguu wj umuuo.
. -ii 1 l i J K
Whether thev will care to solicit their right at
that period is doubtful, and, if they do, they
can regard it as scarcely more than a mockery.
- ., -i, i- . . ... ..
iiow many oi tnem wui uve ui w uwr iui th
rive or fifty years of age, if we Jeave them in
the interval to loiter in the grog-shops, and
amid scenes of vice, as they are more likely
to do if not absorbed into the mass of citizens?
How many, having passed twenty-ono years
of political ban, and even ignominy lor it
would come to that would Dc tnereDy oetier
prepared for adoption? The younger ranks
of the emigrants might possibly benefit by
the hope of one day becoming . citizens, and
look forward to it with some degree of inter
est, but to all the rest it would be aoto t7ior-
gana, aud the protracted test virtually an in
terdiction. ,
Secondly, as to any shorter novitiate say
ten or twelve . years it would not bo more
effective, in the way of qualifying the pupil,
than the existing term. As -the law now
stands, an alien giving three years notice of
intention, must have been nve years consecu
tively a resident of tho United States, and
one year a resident of the State and county in
whicn be applies must be of good moral
character must be attached to our constitu
tion and laws must abjure all foreign powers,
narticularlv that he was subject to and must
r .. . . 7. . -f
Bwear faithtul allegiance to the government ot
his adopted country before he can ne aaraii
ted a member of the Sute. What more
could we exact of him. at the end of teu
years, or twenty? In short, is there a single
disqualification which zealous nativists are apt
to allege asainst foreisrners such as their ig
norance, their ciannishness. their attachment
to foreirn governments and their subjection
to the Roman Catholic Church which would
be probably alleviated by meana of more pro-
tractcd embargo? . None: on the contrary,
as we have intimated in another place, all
their worse qualities would be aggravated by
the exclusive association among themselves for
so many years longer, in which they would bq.
kept while r they would -lose, as we shall
show more fully, hereafter, the best means of
fitting themselves for good citizenship, in lo
sing the educational iufluences of actual po
litical life. ,
It is true, in re.pect to the present laws of
naturalization, that our courts have shown a
baneful laxity in enforcing their conditions,
and that our leading parties, corrupt everey
where, are nowhere more corrupt than in their
modes of naturalizing foreigners ; but there is
no reason to expect that either courts or par
ties will grow more sincere under more strin
gent laws, They will have the same motives,
nd be just as eager to license fraudulent vo
ters then as they are now ; and the few days
before a great presidential election will exhibit
the same dh-graceful scenes of venality and
falsehood. No simple change in the time of
the law, at any rate, can work any improve
ment. Nor will such a change render it any
more difficult for the dishonest alien to procure
the franchise. . He can just as easily swear to
a long residence as a short one, while it will
happen that the rarer we make the privilege, ;
the more we increase the difficulties of access ;
to it, the longer we postpone the minority,
the greater will be his inducements to evade
the law. In proportion as a prize becomes
more valuable, the temptations to a surrepti
tious seizure of it increase, but where an end
is easily achieved, the trouble of waiting till
it be obtained in the regular way is preferred
to the hazards of a clandestine or criminal at
tempt to carry it off.
. Besides, it is a puerile piece of injustice
towards the alien to inflict him with a disabil
ity because of our ovn laches. We have fail
ed to administer our laws as they should be,
and, experiencing some injury in consequence,
we turn rouud to abuse the foreigner, like a
foolish and petulcnt whe kicks the stone
over which he stun.od. The more magnan
imous as well as sensible course would be to
amend our faults. Let us make the five years
of probation what the courts may easily make
them, by rigidly exacting the criterions of the
law an interval of real preparations for cit
izenshipand the present term will be found
long enough. But whether long enough or
not, the question of time that is, whether it
shall be five or ten is a rimple -question of
internal policy, not of lasting principles, to
be determined by the facts of experience, and
by no means justifying the virulent ana whole
sale denunciations of foreigners, it is the fash
ion with some to fulminate.
BYOGBAPHY.
Edward n. Dixon, M. D , tho well Inown
surgeon of this city, is one of those men whose
originality and force of character is well cal
culated to arrest the attention of American
youth. : If we were called on to present a
strong example of what may be called the ex
ecutive temperament, we sh6nld find it difficult
to discover a more distinctive one than the
subject of the present sketch; as a surgeon he
has been long celebrated for the extraordinary
delicacy and success of his operations in all
the more difficult departments of his profes
sion ; it is only of bite years the public has
been called on to criticize his efforts as a pio
neer in the cause of medical reform. He has
demanded and received so large a portion of
attention both here and in i-urope, for bis
celebrated journal, the Seal-pel, now in the
seventh year of its existence, that we conceive
our readers will be interested in a slight biog
raphical sketch of its editor and originator ;
it is furnished by a friend intimately acquain
ted with the domestic habits of this extraor
dinary man.
He descended from English and French
parent-age, and his ancestors were amongst
the earliest inhabitants of this city. He was
born oa the first day of January, 1809, and
is now in his 47th year. He is a man of iron
nerve, - Bnd will unconquerable. J. very
beautiful page of his family history may be
found in the last August number of his Scui
pel; it details-, with touching simplicity the
noble conduct of his maternal gr&ndiather,
when summoned to betray General Washing
ton, who was his guest at Fort Lee in 1776.
He was seized at midnight by General Knyp
hausen, the day after tho evacuation of Fort
Lee, and conveyed from his home across the
river to Fort Washington on the New Aork
Bide, by a file of Hessian soldiers; but he re
fused to -give the least information, and was
returned by the indignant Briton, who became
ashamed of his conduct from the lofty tone of
his prisoner. None who have read the inci
dent as told by Dr. Dixon, or followed him
through the pages of his journal, will be sur
prised at thu following sketch of his profes
sional career the inherits the boldness and
love of liberty of his progenitors.
It will be seen that he is as celebrated in
the use of the actual scalpel, as that inky one
which has gained hira so much reputation!
his operations on the eye, and in all the more
delicate departments of his profession, have
given him deserved celebrity. We have heard
it said, that hi first opera rinn was m ex
traction of the Cataract, and that it was done
feucccfuUy with a common lancet ! Such a
thing could only be h ue of ouc who was born
for an operator, for the operation is concedod
to be thu most delicate one known to surgeons.
Wc as phrenologists, however, think it is
easily accounted for by his immense percep
tive faculties, extraordinary coolness, and
great mechanical genius ; it is known that he
has invented a greater number of surgical in
struments admirable for simplicity and effec
tivencs, than any other surgeon in tho coun
try. - '
That ho does not confine his attention to
the mechanical department of surgery, is am
ply proved ; his numerous literary contribu
1 tions to the medical and surgical journals, the
immense amount of didactic matter from his
i pen
iu
tue pages of his own journal, have
given him a European as well as American
reputation for his accurate scientific acquire
incuts. The Lomlcm Jartcct on the first ap
pearance of the Scalpel, claimed the credit of
originating " thia glorious journal," in seven
pages of extracts, alleging that if theie had
been no Lancet in Europe, there would havo
been no Scalj)el in America;" the LoacrBa
Acu and vhe 7tW followed, and declared
that t!e journal had all the charms of a ro
rnanci;, with the highest moral and ecientlfie
tone. Several other works, on practical sub
jects, have originated from Dr. Dixon's pen.
and have proved his varied capacity for severe
investigation of the" more abstract principles
Lof his profession. Ilia practice, however, is
almost exclusively confined to surgery, and
consultations on the more difficult and obscure
diseases of woman. His celebrated work oa
iii 3 latter subject; has won him the peculiar
confidence of the sex, in all questions aior
immediately connected with the preservation
of their health ; whilst the high moral tone of
all his writing removes all embarrassment
that might originate from his vivacious man
ner, for he has himself remarked in some of
his humorous " scalpellinga," " I have mack
more the appearance of an opera singer or a
pirate than of the gravity of a physician or
surgeon.'
Dr. Dixon s social habits are most aereea
blc ; no man can be in his company without
catching the mirthful contagion of his vara
impulsiveness. The social reunions at big
house are rendered peculiarly delightful by
the refined yet genial receptions of a wife aad.
daughter, whose charming naturalness of man
ner render them universally beloved and ad
mired amongst the intellectual circle by whiek
they are surrounded. He requires aad takes
much exercise on foot ; until of late years.
twenty or thirty mile walks in the country,
were of semi-weekly occurrence ; at preaeat
he may be seen striding through th street,
and rushing into shops and printing nlces.
like some wiry and high-strung race-hwree.
He has a powerful muscular system, aad not
a pound of fat -on his body, nor ever will he
have ; he is too active.
A peculiarity of Dr Dixon's is the extra
ordinary rfttentiveness-cf his memory, especi
ally for the more classic prokictions of tho
poets. We have heard it related of him,
that on occasion of A long ride to one of the
watering places, ra -eompasy with the Honor
able llobt. J. Walker, aad St. George Camp
bell, of Philadelphia, the couversatiaa was
chiefly on Poetry, when the Doctor -quoted so
freely from Chaucer -down to our living poets,
that a wager was made the next evening, that
he would repeat extemporaneously a hundred
verses frem various authors. . It was forthwith
taken ; the Doctor being forcibly seized, was
carried to the parlor, and compelled to begin,
before the whole company ; piece after piece
followed, and he got into the spirit f lis au
thors ; occasionally he would rtop and beg to
be released, but the ladies carried it by accla
mation, that he must proceed. Peculiar
pleasure was derived from bis extraordinary
fire and pathos, and inimitable -quamtness as
the quotations were poured forth like a water
fall. The interest was greatly heightened by
the absence of all announcement -of tslea to
the pieces quoted, the listener being eiliged
to gather the sentiment as the piece vas reci
ted, or to draw upon his own memory and
reading for the titles. Our informant remarks,
that he sever saw the feelings of an asdienca
so played upon by any dramatist n the pub
lic -stage. Several hundred verses were re
peated, amid tears and shouts of laughter of
the audience, and it was voted mem. eon. that
the Doctor was entitled to the thanks of tho
house for his inimitable entertai&iucTil. .
Oa several occasions Dr. Dixon has addres
sed the young men of this city oa physical
and intellectual culture, and given ainplo
proof by his masterly control of tfee audience,
that he might have taken the highest rank n '
legal orator or a statesmen. He takes, how- -ever,
no part in politics, and the . writer has
heard him say, he never ia all his life waa ;
present at a political meeting. -- There is not an
actor of any ote who bas appeared upon our
boards for twenty years preceding the last ten.
of whom the Doctor cannot give a graphio
impersonation in voice and manner; but his
extensive professional duties and journal now
absorb his entire atteBtion, &i that he is rarely
seen at places of amusement. - '
The doctor narscs with peculiar gusto some
antipathies, and takes great pleasure in direc-'
tiug against them his Nttirical missives. To- "
bacco m every form, walking sticks, rocking
chairs, jewelry, receive at his pen unmerciful
ridicule, whilst he greatly admires eleganco 1
of attire, artistically furnished apartments, and
all manly-and athletic exercises. We havo
often been enchanted with the eloquent arti-.'
cles on the subject of physical developement
as essential to a healthy mind, in the pages of '
his journal. The artidea on the Cultivation 1
of the Life Power, as he is fond of calling
health, aro oqual in eloquence to any we have
ever read, and will do more to elevate the
condition of our young men than the abstract
inculcation of all the ethical and moral code
ever promulgated. -There is a vitality about '
that is oul-inspiring : you feci the wiiter'a
heart beat in every line. His love of humor"
is uncontrollable, neither the gravity of hi
trofession, nor the overflowi&g sympathies of
is nature, can overcome it. Wheu you open
his journal you "feel that it could have been
written by no other than Dixon. Tears at .
his scenes iu practice, shouts of laughter at
his satirical sketches and anecdotes, and in
dignation at his audacious charges upon your
self and your vices, are sure to follow tho '
persual of his unequaled pages. Tho reader
will throw it down with indignation, when'
some quaint line will meet hia e-e. and he will
be surprised at an exquisitely satirical sketch
of the editor on some of his follies, written by
his own pen ! Anon you will find a severe
examination of a course of treatment of some
luckless patient, and an absolute condemna
tion of himself as a surgeon ! The Watrri
Cure Juuntul and Phrenology comes ia faf "