Hamburg Is An Ill, Close-Built Town, Swarming With Inhabitants, And,
From What I Could Learn, Like All The Other Free Towns, Governed In
A Manner Which Bears Hard On The Poor, Whilst Narrowing The Minds Of
The Rich; The Character Of The Man Is Lost In The Hamburger.
Always
afraid of the encroachments of their Danish neighbours, that is,
anxiously apprehensive of their sharing the golden harvest
Of
commerce with them, or taking a little of the trade off their hands-
-though they have more than they know what to do with - they are ever
on the watch, till their very eyes lose all expression, excepting
the prying glance of suspicion.
The gates of Hamburg are shut at seven in the winter and nine in the
summer, lest some strangers, who come to traffic in Hamburg, should
prefer living, and consequently - so exactly do they calculate - spend
their money out of the walls of the Hamburger's world. Immense
fortunes have been acquired by the per-cents. arising from
commissions nominally only two and a half, but mounted to eight or
ten at least by the secret manoeuvres of trade, not to include the
advantage of purchasing goods wholesale in common with contractors,
and that of having so much money left in their hands, not to play
with, I can assure you. Mushroom fortunes have started up during
the war; the men, indeed, seem of the species of the fungus, and the
insolent vulgarity which a sudden influx of wealth usually produces
in common minds is here very conspicuous, which contrasts with the
distresses of many of the emigrants, "fallen, fallen from their high
estate," such are the ups and downs of fortune's wheel.
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