The Americans, in their fear of their institutions giving way, and their careful guard against any encroachments upon the liberty of the people, have fallen into the error of sacrificing the most virtuous portion of the community, and driving a large portion of them out of the country. This will eventually be found to be a serious evil; absenteeism will daily increase, and will be as sorely felt as it is in Ireland at the present hour. The Americans used to tell me with exultation, that they never could have an Aristocracy in their country, from the law of entail having been abolished. They often asserted, and with some truth, that in that country property never accumulated beyond two generations, and that the grandson of a _millionaire_ was _invariably_ a pauper. This they ascribe to the working of their institutions, and argue that it will always be impossible for any family to be raised above the mass by a descent of property. Now the very circumstance of this having been invariably the case, induces me to look for the real cause of it, as there is none to be found in their institutions why all the grandsons of _millionaires_ should be paupers. It is not owing to their institutions, but to moral causes, which, although they have existed until now, will not exist for ever. In the principal and wealthiest cities in the Union, it is difficult to spend more than twelve or fifteen thousand dollars per annum, as with such an expenditure you are on a par with the highest, and you can be no more. What is the consequence? a young American succeeds to fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year, the surplus is useless to him; there is no one to vie with--no one who can reciprocate--he must stand alone. He naturally feels careless about what he finds to be of no use to him. Again, all his friends and acquaintances are actively employed during the whole of the day in their several occupations; he is a man of leisure, and must either remain alone or associate with other men of leisure; and who are the majority of men of leisure in the towns of the United States? Blacklegs of genteel exterior and fashionable appearance, with whom he associates, into whose snares he falls, and to whom he eventually loses property about which he is indifferent. To be an idle man when every body else is busy, is not only a great unhappiness, but a situation of great peril. Had the sons of _millionaires_, who remained in the States and left their children paupers, come over to the old Continent, as many have done, they would have stood a better chance of retaining their property.