BRITISH RESERVE. 11 



in the corner, his lower extremities wrapped in a robe of 

 fur, and his whole person in a denser, thicker, more im- 

 penetrable robe of British reserve. Another swell, simi- 

 larly wrapped up in the opposite corner, shares the 

 carriage with him. Each lights his unsocial weed, and 

 pulls out his ' Field ' or his ' Pall Mall,' and in morose 

 and gloomy silence these two very good fellows travel 

 from Euston Square to Edinburgh. Perhaps they both 

 belong to the same club, and have seen each other's faces 

 for years, without ever having once during that time 

 asked, or cared to ask, or even thought about, each 

 other's name. That is the way of the English. But this 

 sort of thing would be torture to a colonist. He of 

 " Greater Britain " would prefer the society of a chatty 

 lunatic, of a sociable convict, or even of a friendly nigger, 

 to that of a British swell who from first to last would 

 politely, but decisively, ignore his existence. English- 

 men often complain of the freedom of colonial manners, 

 but it is a question whether a little over-freedom is not 

 preferable to an over-reserve. There is hardly any man, 

 at home or abroad, from whom the wisest of us cannot 

 pick up some serviceable knowledge. 



If your colonial fellow-traveller asks your name, where 

 you are bound to, and even what is your business, he is 

 perfectly ready to answer any question you may put to 

 him. The Englishman who has passed his life in a cer- 

 tain corner of a certain coterie of a certain class, in one of 

 the most densely-peopled and class-abounding spots of the 

 globe, ought to make some allowance for the inquisitiveness 

 of the man of the thinly-populated country, where classes 

 and class prejudices have not had time to take root. He 



