OUR AMERICAN COUSINS.

FROM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT.19

THE recent discussion which has taken place relative to the temper of the American people towards England will have accomplished a great purpose if it results in lessening, in ever so slight a degree, the prejudices with which each nation is apt to regard the other, and which mostly arise from an imperfect understanding of national habits and peculiarities. The Americans, strange as it may seem, do not in the least understand us, and it is equally strange that we do not understand them. They seem to feel that we are jealous of them ; that we have fallen far be- hind them in all that makes a nation great, and that we are ashamed of our humiliated position in the eyes of the world ; that every Englishman hates the Republic, and would like to see it split in twain ; and that we are always turning them into ridicule through sheer hatred and malice. Yet, whatever may be said to the contrary, individual Englishmen are always very popular in America, and are treated with exceeding kindness and hospitality until they are provoked by some unfortunate occur- rence into a hostile criticism upon a national characteristic which is not conformable to their ideas of comfort, dignity, or propriety, —for these are the three qualities with regard to which a stranger's conceits are constantly liable to receive a shock in America. It does not, for instance, accord with his notions of comfort to have tobacco-juice squirted all over a carpet, and to see the floor of

• This able ariter's estimate of American manners is obviously founded almost exclusively on what he has observed in N.,. York. We do not believe, nor, if we un- denitand him rohity, does he, that it applies to New Eaghtud or the country (thrillers at ally--En. Spectator.

every building he enters, and the pavement of every street he walks upon, covered with the dark and odious fluid ; nor does it satisfy his theories of dignity to be treated as the familiar of servants and shopkeepers, and to see Americans in the position of gentlemen subjected to what he would regard (although they are not so accounted in America) as indecorous incivilities from their inferiors in station ; lastly, no one will say that all the external features of public life in America are strictly in harmony with the English conception of propriety. The singularities of American life stand out so prominently that it is impos- sible to avoid being struck with them. The lower classes being uppermost, and being in no way superior to our own lower classes, are often painfully prominent, and they are as often regarded by the stranger as types by the national character, whereas they are only social excrescences, atery numerous and unsightly, but no more constituting the heart of the nation than a wart on a man's nose is the man himself. The Americans of the better order do not like the rudeness and insolence of the working classes any more than the stranger, but as they will say frankly, " We cannot help ourselves. Every man thinks he is as good as you are, and he knows that he possesses quite as much influence in the State.

How do you expect the judge who is elected by universal suffrage to keep the mob at a distance ? The culprit who is placed at the bar before him may be one of his warmest supporters, and hold scores of votes in his hand. The same principle applies to every man of any mark." The servant who cleans your boots in America never thinks of being commonly civil. He asserts his

right to talk with you, if he is in the mood, on any subject he thinks proper to introduce. The waiter-of an hotel will discuss the

news freely with a new arrival. One day a gentleman was talking to a distinguished American politician, while waiting for a certain conveyance, and he proposed to perform a small feat.

" I'll bet you five dollars you can't," cried the man who belonged to the conveyance, and who had overheard the conversation. The incident caused no surprise to the American gentleman, but the Englishman was rather taken aback by it. There is nothing par- ticularly disagreeable in such little circumstances when one be- comes accustomed to them, but no doubt they jar upon our insular and exclusive tastes. The free customs of America would be con- sidered an intolerable tyranny and hardship by the Englishman who did not happen to have familiarized himself with them.

Americans would do well to take a little more into consideration than is their wont one fact, namely, that other nations can and do criticize, and even caricature, each other's ways without flying into a bad temper on the subject. Above all, they have no right- to be angered at the occasional injustice done to them by the English press, when they look at the tone of their own journals' towards England. Their newspaper stalls are covered with coarse and vulgar drawings of England and Englishmen ; they would be insulting, only Englishmen are not so foolish as to be insulted by them. They estimate such productions at their proper value. They know that sensible Americans despise the trash as much as they can do. And, moreover, no English journals ever place Americans in so ridiculous and repulsive a light as their own papers constantly do. The New York Tribune, for example—for as every American eagerly and indignantly repudiates the Herald, and denies that it is in any respect an organ of public opinion, we will not instance that —the Tribune, we say, is a very respect- able journal, and yet it was only the other day that it discussed the subject of ladies' ancles with an abandon which, in England, would have brought the paper under " LordCarapbell's Act." Again, the same print, whose character is vouched for by having for its editor one of America's best known men, Mr. Horace Greeley, wrote of some ladies at the fashionable watering-place of Saratoga that their " limbs and chest challenged the marbles of Canova," and falling from this style, described one particular indifidual as "scrawny and bloodless," and another as having " large and tusk- like teeth." The same charming writer went on to say that his countrywomen were very attractive in person until they arrived at womanhood, when " the sweet and delicate budding girl becomes either a monstrously fat and sensual old whale of a woman, or, more probably, a scraggy, thin, skinny, shrivelled old skeleton." We never approach to this standard of criticism in England,

especially when ladies are in question, although Americans boast that there is no nation " under heaven "so polite to women as their own. Should we be doing them wrong if we say that with many of them politeness is a mere trick of manner, and not always a very graceful one, and that with an Englishman courtesy to women is an instinct? Suppose the following had appeared in the Times, what would Americans have said 2—

"Oar *amen, I observe, are much given to eking out their natural charms by artificial methods. There is as a general thing a very great effort to reveal as much as possible the peculiar female charms without the design being too evident. The same bony outline and niggardly fountains [we do not profess to understand this word] predominate. Either one extreme or the other. Tight lacing still compresses the lungs. Pads for every part of the body are in use. A device for puff- ing out to smoothness the wrinkles of the cheeks, called -plumpers,' has been introduced. False necks and busts have been abandoned as un- profitable."

This is published by Mr. Horace Greeley, in the Tribune—a paper which circulates more than any other among the grave and sober farming population of New England—and it seems to be received with applause, for the same stuff is constantly repeated. We may have said some mistaken things about Americans, and misjudged some of their institutions, but none of us have ever insinuated that American ladies were idealized and rendered so charming, as they undoubtedly are, by means of false necks and busts." The extract we have quoted is of course a stupid piece of reporter's garbage, but ribaldry of the 1381313 kind is to be found in one or other of the American journals every day.

Again we say Americans should look at home before they com- plain of "foreign" criticisms. If we judge them out of their own mouths, what must our opinion of them be ? Bat we do them no such injustice. At the same time we must beg permission to believe that they have some distinctive features of national life, as every other people has, and that owing to the peculiarity of their social system these features are more frequently disagreeable than lovely. If they have no objection to the publication of columns of advertisements from a detestable class of surgical practitioners if they do not mind Madame Restelle's publicly announcing every morning that she has a large establishment on Fifth Avenue for the reception of ladies who are anxious to escape, for particular reasons, from the eyes of the world for a time —if they do not care to interfere with a dozen other similar houses, all advertised regularly and without the smallest disguise or concealment—if they do not object to such things, no one else has a. right to com- plain. But will they allow that such " institutions " must necessarily strike the stranger as being a little curious? We do not draw any inferences from their existence, or from the fact that -every child-in New York must know of them-Madame Restelle's, for instance, being one of the finest and best known houses on Fifth Avenue—we only seek to explain to Americans why it is that we think them a peculiar people. There are English'► Madame Restelles probably, but the law obliges them to keep out of the sunshine. We are not more moral than our cousins. It is no claim of that sort that we set up. The point we wish to bring clearly out is this—Americans say to Englishmen. " You malign 'us by all sorts of representations and assertions." The English- man answers, " How are we to judge of you—by your press? " " Certainly not," replies the American, half angrily at it being supposed that his press reflects the national mind or thought. Yet that mind and thought must be reflected somewhere, and it is very difficult to know where to look for it, outside of private circles, which, we need not surely say, are as pleasant, genial, and warm-hearted as any private circles in the world can be. So, too, there are gentlemen of the most cultivated tastes, and of very great ability, connected with the journalism of America, but they seem powerless to elevate its character. What is the reason ? It is that the man of culture is not the represen- tative man in America. He is not foremost in political life, as a rule though no doubt political life includes some such men, whose names are familiar to us all. He is immensely in the minority, and the lower classes—the poor, the illiterate, the ill- bred—have the upper hand of him, and he knows it, and they know it too, and make him feel that they do. The true repre- sentative man is the risen man—he who hes just " struck ile," or who has made a successful dash in business. Excellent men they soften are—honest, cheery, and good-natured—but is- it so very scandalous or untrue to say that they are not very refined, and have not much to boast of on the score of education, good taste, or good manners ? Candidly speaking, does the true American gentleman delight in associates of this kind? He does not, and we all know it. Now it is not even these, but a class still lower, who really control the machinery of government. It is they who elect the magistrates and judges ; it is they who return the members of local legislatures, who in their turn send representatives to the Senate ; it is they who choose the President. We believe, as thoroughly as Americans can do, that their working classes are • And'adveralsed, too, publicly enough in. papers thought quire as respectable as the NM Fort Tribune, we are sow, to say.-“Sks

sterling and sound at the core. Whether they have, or have not. undue influence, and whether they always use that influence wisely or not, are questions of a different character, and it is not our purpose to discuss them. The popular impress is upon every part of city life in America,—on its public entertainments, which mainly consist of unblushing piracies of English plays, on its modes of conveyance through the public streets, on its very graves and churchyards. There is probably no large cemetery in the world so beautifully situated as Greenwood, where the dead of New York are chiefly buried. Delicious snatches of soft inland scenery vary with the flash of the great ocean beyond, upon which the ships of the world are ever sailing to and fro, presenting to the eye the commonest and the truest emblems of mortal life. With touching love and reverence for the dead the most beautiful spots in this beautiful ground are all chosen for graves, as if those who yet lived hoped that the inanimate forms below might still find solace in the mar- vellous loveliness of nature's work. Iu such a spot one desires above all things simplicity ; man's work seldom being marvellously lovely; and never very enduring, should be as inoffensive as possi- ble: The plain stone and the unaffected inscription suit nature's burial-grounds best—the brazen monuments and inscriptions should be accumulated, as of yore, in ‘Vwtminster Abbey. But at Greenwood everything is overloaded with extravagance and ostentation. The survivors seem to have struggled with each other who should build the biggest and most expensive tomb. All aorta of fantastic buildings assail the eye ; here an edifice which might suitably have been inscribed to some heathen deity, which looks exactly that combination of a Mohammedan mosque, a Hindoo temple, and a Methodist chapel which might have horri- fied the dreams of a crazy architect after he had seen the Jumma Musjid at Delhi, the golden temple at Benares, and the Shakers "' meeting-house near Albany. Large, gloomy-looking buildings intended for vaults, naked boys cut in stone over the

graves of children, affected inscriptions in the French manner—

as " My wife," " Mother," " Father," and so on—these are all over the grounds. One poor lady has had a tomb erected to her which seems to have been copied from the design on a twelfth-cake. Outside are figures of many winged beings, conjectured to be angels, and in- side is a life-size statue of the dead lady, surrounded with elaborate and endless frippery, the whole carved in thepurest marble. The ex- pense of this tomb must be great enough to drive other competitors to despair. The quiet sod of our English churchyards, covered with the daisy and the wild-flower, with the grey old tower close by, are not here. We have instead a staring monument, embellished with an elegant medallion of the gentleman below, with a deprecatory smile upon the lips, as if apologizing for the very unpleasant situa- tion in which you find him, and requesting to be taken down and carried back to the sculptor's yard, or put over somebody else's grave. There is a tomb to a seafaring man, with the hatches of a ship, bars, ringbolts, and all complete, outside in white marble, and on the top a full-length statue of the aspiring salt, clad in a fur coat, and taking a sight through his sextant, his face being judiciously turned towards the sea. All the graves are looked in with grim iron gates, on the door of which is affixed a number, thus, "John

Brown, 9682." The painful question is suggested, even to the mind least disposed to levity, " Will all these poor people who lie below remember their proper numbers at the critical time ? Are they to lose their names like the inmates of a penitentiary, and only be known by three or four numerals ?" There is a tomb to a• dog, who doubtless deserved it better than many of the company pre- sent with him. When the present writer saw this great grave- yard, the driver of the hack pulled up before a showy building, of marble, and adorned with many buxom and voluptuous-looking angels, belonging very decidedly to the female sex. These guardians of the sleeper below were but scantily robed, but the driver contemplated them with an air of abstract but fond admi- ration, and said to his fare, " This is as putty a lot as any in the greounds. Moniment to Mr. Fish." " Who was Mr. Fish ?" " Wholesale boot and shoemaker," says the man, without any sense

of the incongruity between the pursuits of the defunct and this memorial to his worth. " Them angels and all of it is cut out of Italian marble, which was wrecked twice in coming here, and cost many thousands of dollars." The worker in leather must feel proud of his tomb, if he ever revisits these scenes of his former use- ful toils. and his present glory.

Now all these objects are precisely those which a stranger will be sure to notice first, and about which he is likely to talk when he returns. We have exhibitions as bad in England, only we are not cross and fiery-minded when we are told of them. As Englishman rather likes to go to a- French theatre to see hiannelt

taken off. We wish that the Americans would be less sensitive to such criticism, as it is very natural and almost unavoidable to make, and which is not offered in mischief or animosity. They are sure to have it, even from those who like them best, and they ought to learn to take it smilingly, as a pugilist is said to come up to his punishment. On the other hand, it is very desirable that Englishmen should learn to see America as they see Europe,— with unprejudiced and intelligent eyes. Where we commonly fall into an absurd mistake is in judging of the American people from what we see of the populations of large cities, instead of from their rural communities. Every traveller sees New 'York, Boston, Philadelphia, and the rest of the Northern cities,—may see the Southern ones also,—but very few have been brought face to face with the yeomanry of the country. The true strength of the nation lies there. They are a prudent, thrifty, staid, indus- trious class, who have scarcely a feature in common, physical or mental, with the " American" snob or rowdy who haunts the one general place of public amusement of New York—the beer saloons which are the growth of the last ten years, and are not destined, we hope, to last another decade. These establishments are all below the pavement, and the only attraction in them is the presence of " pretty waiter girls "—called pretty on the placards, with as much truth as placards are capable of expressing. These girls wear dresses which reach only to their knees, and sometimes " bloomer " trousers, but generally nothing more than their boots and stockings. Broadway abounds with them, and in the back streets their "number is legion." The truth is that the vilest fea- tures of city life are exaggerated in New York ; it is impossible to over estimate the evil, but English travellers and English writers ought to get the fact a little more deeply into their minds than customary that New York is not America. The backbone of country, like other vertebrae, is not exposed. It lies away

the ordinary track of tourists, and we shall never do justic, to America until we know a little more about it. The oddities of the

people we have been made sufficiently acquainted with ; we should now like to be told something more about those conditions and circumstances of national life which have placed the Americans in the foremost rank as an inventive, industrious, and successful people, and which have enabled them to conduct a gigantic and desperate war through four years of the most terrible trial and difficulty to an honourable close.