fT jo 
614 British Travellers in America. Efe 
Ail thig Would be truemuch I’ know to be true, and'the rest I believe 
to' be so; and yet, if it were told here, the Americans would neyer 
believe it—never, unless they knew the character.of the man who 
told the story to be unimpeachable for caution as well as for truth. 
So little do they know here of such dreadful habits—for here, although 
they never go to work in a battle as men do in England, and although 
such a thing as a fair stand-up fight was never seen here, it would be a 
thing never to be forgiven here if one wrestler were to, kick the shins 
of another, or if a man were to strike another while he was down, or 
scratch, or bite, or otherwise injure his adversary than by fair throws ; 
it would be so, I mean to say, with about ninety-nine Rag drauthetae ‘the 
whole population here; though perhaps, with a portion of the remaining 
hundredth, it might be considered lawful to overcome an adversary, any 
how, who had agreed to have it “ rough and tumble—-any how.” 
But enough :—at some future period it may lie in my way to, expose a 
few more of the strange errors that prevail with you touching America, 
and the people of America, and which have grown up out of the testi- 
mony of British travellers in America. A.D, 
THE SEVEN AGES, 
NoTWITHsTANDING the eloquence of maternal partiality, the earliest 
months of our existence are very far from seducing—our “ mewling” 
little interesting except to mamma—and tlie rest of the quotation no 
where so agreeably exemplified as “in the nurse’s arms.” 
A little older, and the child begins to shew its nature; evincing a 
power of discrimination in distinguishing its parents from any body 
else, which is brought forward as an evidence of very, extraordinary sa- 
gacity. Then we begin to talk—when we are really mteresting, and can 
be clever sometimes, if we are not asked to be so. : 
And from this age let us at one step be “ weaned from the nursery” — 
booted and breeched—master of our A B C—and familiar with “ Read- 
ing made Easy ;” , 
* And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel, 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school.” 
It is only, however, while we go to the preparatory day school that our 
« satchel” is in request; for no sooner does the urchin quit the 
ordeal of « pot-hooks ” and “ hangers,” and become conversant with the 
rudiments of his Eton Grammar, than—behold him severed from 
Mamma, and resident as “ boarder” at “ Hurly-Burly House’ Esta- 
blishment !” ne le sis isis 
A boarding-school is the first step towards that state of life where 
Grief at leaving a parental home, thence to be severed by dis ce’and 
time, is a feeling which most of us have experienced, and acknowlédgéd 
as poignant. We shall not readily forget the sorrows of “ Black ‘Mon- 
pleasures and pains are rendered more vivid and acute by Y aeeheee tik 
ae, Lat 
