404 WRITERS ON AMERICAN MANNERS. 



reaching America, mingle on terms of equality at public 

 tables and in conveyances with the commonest operatives, 

 they feel disgusted with the manners of the people around 

 them, without considering they belong to a different class 

 from their own associates at home. In Britain, a person of 

 rank is generally regarded with respect by the classes below 

 him. In the United States, rank seldom meets with or 

 expects deference from the people, and the humblest citizen 

 familiarly enters into conversation with every individual 

 who addresses him. This self-possession of the Americans 

 is often mistaken for forwardness, and their unembarrassed 

 conversation for insolence. In Britain, the different classes 

 of population generally remain distinct, and many of their 

 excesses are hid from common gaze. In most parts of the 

 United States, the bar-rooms of hotels form the only scenes 

 of tippling, and, being at all times open to the public, a 

 traveller is apt to consider the people more dissipated than 

 they really are. Were a gentlemanly foreigner to meet the 

 lowest class of the people of England at table, and associate 

 with them in their haunts of vice, his adventures would form 

 a high-coloured picture of British manners and society. 



The strictures of British writers on the manners of the 

 people of the United States seem to have created a strong 

 prejudice in the minds of emigrants of every description. In 

 the month of May last, a person who had long followed the 

 trade of a country wright in his native village, situated in 

 East Lothian, introduced himself, and asked my opinion re 

 garding the best place of settlement for himself and family in 

 America. He had made up his mind to emigrate, and left 

 me in the determination of residing in the United States. I 

 have just learned, however, that he keeps a spirit store in the 

 village of Niagara, Upper Canada, and assigned as a reason 

 for leaving the States, that he could not endure the manners 

 of the people. The conduct of this Scottish clown is a good 

 satire on the remarks of such refined travellers as Trollope, 

 Hamilton, &c. 



On first reaching the United States, the plainness of the 

 people s manners appeared remarkable. In all classes there 



