published 'American Party Names' by the distinguished American landscape
architect and fervent abolitionist Frederick Olmsted, which made it clear
to English readers who were the 'goodies' in the American presidential
election that year:
'The platform of the republican party may be condensed into
three sentences, First, they want Congress to rule the terri
tories and exclude slavery therefrom; second they want the
restoration of the Missouri compromise,^) third, they want to
respect the rights of other nations the Democrats want -
first, Congress not to meddle with the territories; second
Kansas to be a slave state; third, to acquire more territory
suitable for the further extension of slavery without regard to
the rights of anyone'.
As regards America generally, Dickens does allow his old acquaintance,
Thomas Grataan, who had been British consul in Boston during his 1842 visit,
to mock at the national 'levity and conceit' in an article 'Amerocan Changes
of Names' (22 November 1856) and W.B. Jerrold to satirise in 'Manners Made
to Order' (2 May 1857) a book for etiquette for American Ladies but such eas^
jeering at things American is comparatively rare in the Magazine's pages.
Even that 'material, eminently Jonathonian form of Christianity, Mormonism,
is not denied some virtues in James Hanney's article 'In the Name of the
Prophet - Smith I (19 July, 1851) though Dickens did give the piece its
satirical title and cautioned his sub-editor, 'for God's sake don't leave
in anything about such a man (Smith) believing himself - which he as no
right to do and which would be inference justify almost anythinq'.
Perhaps the most interesting Household Words article on American subject
from our point of view is George Augustus Sala's Colonel Grunpeck and
Mr, Parkinson' (14 April, 1855). Sala was one of Dickens's special protégés,tX
regular contributor to the journal and one whose work Dickens very freely
ejdited. And as Sala deliberately imitated Dickens's style people must
in any case often have imagined his work actually to be Dickens's.
In this particular piece Sala elaborately depicts an American straight out of
Chuzzlewit, one Colonel Grunpeck of Kentucky, whose
'hatred and contempt for this country and its inhabitant
Britishers were something dreadful. He took the British
lion; he twisted that animal's tail, and tied knots in
it, he tore out the hair of his mane; he cut off his claws;
he skinned him alive; he muzzled him; he made him stand on
his hind legs and beg; he whipped him through creation, as
one would a puppy-dog
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