380 EMIGRANTS KNOW LITTLE OF HOME. 



that are far distant. Many of our people at home are 

 in the habit of hearing so much of the growth of Ame 

 rican cities, that they are apt to forget that anything is 

 doing among ourselves, and to leave their own country 

 in consequence. Our Transatlantic cousins also, proud 

 and delighted as they may well be with the increase of 

 their towns, and with the filling up of their empty lands, 

 make each other believe that they stand alone, not 

 merely as a rapidly progressing, but as an innately 

 energetic people. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of 

 those who emigrate to America from the British Islands 

 know, by personal observation, little or nothing of their 

 native country, beyond the locality in which they have 

 been brought up, and generally nothing more than the 

 outside appearance of that. When they cross the 

 Atlantic, everything is as new and wonderful to them 

 as London or Birmingham would be if they had been 

 taken to these cities instead, and they very soon agree 

 with all they talk to in asserting, that what they have 

 not seen does not exist, and &quot; that there is nothing 

 equal to this in the old country.&quot; 



Even writers of travels have not been exempt from 

 the same failing. Very few know their own country 

 sufficiently well, before they begin to compare it with 

 others. To be able to judge correctly of the United 

 States, an Englishman must have seen a good deal of the 

 progress of material development in the various seats 

 of home industry, while, to do justice to our little island, 

 our Transatlantic friends must come over and see us. 



That the smallest possible degree of additional (!) 

 modesty would not sit amiss even upon the New 

 Yorkers themselves, to whom the growth of their towns 

 is really due, will appear from the following para 

 graphs which fell into my hands during the few days 

 of my stay in the city. 



The New York Herald, of the 14th September 1849, 



