Part 1 (1/2)
The Truth About America.
by Edward Money.
CHAPTER I.
More or less introductory--Americans and Yankees not synonymous--Want of courtesy in the States--The Press--Voyage out--New York climate.
Apart from the object with which most authors write, viz. to make money, I purpose this little book to serve three objects.
Firstly, to make the United States of America, and the Americans, better known than they are at present to the ma.s.s of the English public.
Secondly, to put a certain cla.s.s of emigrants on their guard against the machinations of a few agents in London, who victimize them not a little.
Thirdly, to let the many who suffer from pulmonary diseases in Europe know that across the Atlantic is a cure-place excelling, owing to its peculiar climate, any in the Eastern hemisphere.
That my own knowledge of the United States is a superficial one, I admit in stating I was there not quite five months. _If_ I have a talent for anything, it is the power of absorbing facts and describing them later. I kept no journal in America, but I made copious notes of all I saw and heard while the impressions were fresh. As I view all these in a bundle on the table before me, I feel that I must describe succinctly, to bring all I have to say into a ”little book,” and there are weighty reasons, with me at least, why it should be no more.
As my book will be truthfully written, and my intentions are good, success will not elevate me much, blame will not depress me. If the book is a fair picture, as far as it goes, of a vast and wonderful tract on the earth's surface, if it shows clearly the prevailing characteristics of the Americans, what there is for us (the English) to copy, what to avoid, if it prove of use to the ever-increasing cla.s.s of emigrants, and if it is readable and amusing withal, I shall be more than satisfied.
I affirm that the United States and its denizens are _not_ more than superficially known to English men and women. I beg the question. Why is it? There are doubtless many books of American travel, politics, descriptions, and what not. I had read many of these, but surprised as I was on much I encountered after arrival, I was far more surprised how little what I had read had prepared me to find. The following may in some degree explain this. By far the larger number who go to the States are of two cla.s.ses. 1. The rich, who go for travel, pleasure, and change. 2. The emigrant, who is poor, and who stays there. The first, naturally, see the best side of everything, and if they describe their experiences, the pictures drawn are scarcely fair ones. The second cla.s.s, as a rule, it goes without saying, are not strong with their pens, and were it otherwise, having to win the bread of life, they have no leisure. There are of course exceptions. The political aspect of America has been well depicted, the features of that huge continent aptly described in several books by good authors, but of true social pictures there are few. Among these there are no better than what d.i.c.kens wrote in ”Martin Chuzzlewit,” for the types there discussed are truly painted with great humour, the only fear is the reader thereof may conceive they are national, instead of what they truly are, characteristic of a large cla.s.s.
The Americans know us far better than we know them. While, including emigrants, more pa.s.s from Great Britain to the States than America sends eastward, the proportion in _visitors_ is certainly American.
They come in shoals to England and Europe, returning generally the same year. Not strange, therefore, that their knowledge of our habits and customs exceeds ours of theirs. That the Americans know this is so, is shown by the style of conversation held with a ”Britisher,”
when by chance (if he does not show it otherwise) his nationality is discovered. In England if A, an Englishman, meets B, an American, A does not discuss England with B as if it was necessarily all new to him. B is supposed to have probably been here before, possibly to know England as well as A does, and often it is so. But on the other side of the Atlantic A (and generally truly) is supposed to know nothing of the country. This was one of the salient features that first struck me. Quite true, in my case at least, I did know nothing!
When, in England, a conversation, say on a rail carriage, is held between an Englishman and an American, the chances are against the latter being asked how he likes England. The Englishman should feel, if he does not, that it is begging a favourable answer, anyhow that the reply, politeness considered, cannot be worth much. Under the same circ.u.mstances, in the States (unless the American has visited Europe), the chances are three to one the query will be put in the first half-hour. The form varies. Sometimes it is put diffidently, and in the nicest words. Sometimes just the other way. ”Does not your mind expand when you consider the inst.i.tutions of this great country, when you see how like a clock the machinery works, &c.?” Or, more shortly, ”And how do you like our glorious country?” This last is a very favourite form. It was asked me many times in exactly the above words. My general reply (a safe and true one) was, ”Well, I don't like it as well as England, though I see much we might copy with advantage, &c.” The American, perhaps, then adds, ”Ah, that's natural, but I'm glad you can discriminate, which few Britishers can, for believe me” (here he gives you a painful dig in the side), ”they are prejudiced right away in favour of that little insignificant island.” I cannot say the words are exact, but their drift is. The expression, ”How do you like our glorious country?” I'll swear to.
Let it not be supposed that the above is characteristic of the Americans. It is so of the Yankee cla.s.s alone. It is a significant word that ”Yankee,” I do not like it altogether, for it has more or less of depreciation in it. Still no one writing of America can help using it occasionally. What does it mean? In Latham's Dictionary it is defined, ”Term applied in England to the Americans of the United States generally.” This may have been so, it is certainly not the case now. Why, I know not, but the term has acquired a low meaning.
In speaking to a subject of the United States, you might ask him, ”Are you an American?” You could certainly not, without transgressing good taste and most certainly offending him, ask if he is a Yankee.
In what sense, then, may the word rightly be used? Sometimes it is employed to designate the inhabitants of the Northern States, but this again is wrong, simply, if for no other reason, that they do not relish it. By ”Yankee” _I_ understand, and shall use it to mean, a denizen of the Northern States, but one of a low type. The North American gentleman or lady can vie in that way with any nationality (in intelligence they are perhaps ahead of their compeers), but the Yankee, ”the cute Yankee,” is a very _p.r.o.nonce_ type, peculiar to America, and there are, alas, many of them. They hail princ.i.p.ally from the North, but I have seen some in the South, and when met with there they grate against you more in proportion because civility and courtesy are generally the rule in the latter States.
We have all heard that servants in America are named ”helps.” This alone signifies a great deal. They object to serve you, they do not mind, ”if you make it worth their while,” helping you. The same feeling pervades all but the well-educated and intellectual cla.s.ses in the States. Even where, as in New York, contact with Europeans has rubbed off some of this peculiarity, it exists. The shopman serving you seems to do so under protest. The conductor on the rail treats you as his equal. The hotel official picks his teeth, and expectorates in dangerous proximity to your boots, while entering your name. You need not, 'tis true, shake hands with the shopkeeper, even if he recognizes you, simply because there is no time in New York for such courtesies, but you have to do it out West.
The first thing that strikes you on landing in America is the want of deference and courtesy among all cla.s.ses. Not only from the inferior to the superior, but _vice versa_ also. The maxim _n.o.blesse oblige_ has no sway there. In England, speaking to an equal or a social inferior, ”Kindly do this,” or ”Please give me that,” is general. In America the ”kindly” and ”please” are carefully omitted, and the servant or ”help” retaliates by the substance and tone of the answer.
But I am wrong, perhaps, to use the word retaliates, for I never found that civility in asking produced any other effect.
The maxim in America seems to be that every man is as good as his neighbour, or better, at least every man seems to think so, and why, thinking so, they should address anybody as ”Sir,” beats their comprehension, and they simply don't do it.
It seemed to me, among the cla.s.s I write of, that the feeling is ”Civility argues inferiority, _ergo_, the less given the better.” It can only be some feeling of the kind, deeply implanted, that accounts for the fact that the Yankee (mind I use the word as I have defined it above) is the most uncourteous being in creation.
The press in all countries reflects public opinion more than it leads it. Suppose a paper--I say not in London, but in Manchester, then the comparison is perfect--were to write of the Empress Eugenie as some American papers write of our Royal Family. Were she spoken of as simply ”Eugenie,” and even lauded as such, would not the paper so speaking of her be certainly d.a.m.ned? But ”Wales” I have seen in several Northern States papers, do duty for our Queen's eldest son and future king. Nay more, in such papers woman's s.e.x is no defence.
Her Royal Highness, Princess Beatrice, is written of by her Christian name only, and her husband is alluded to as ”Battenberg.” Even worse, I have an article (I care not to sully this page with even an extract) about him, which was headed ”Beatrice's Mash,” the last being a slang word used in the States for lover!
There are, of course, papers and papers in America, and many would not be guilty of the solecisms above alluded to; still, such are the exceptions. I do not care to name the two in which the above appeared, but as they were the leading journals in the capital of a western state, it is evident that this kind of thing goes down, for they, and many like them, flourish.
But to other subjects. I went out to New York in that magnificent Anchor Line steamer, the _City of Rome_, which, after the _Great Eastern_, is the largest vessel afloat. The Atlantic was exceptionally kind, like a mill-pond, all the way between Liverpool and Sandy Hook, and the pa.s.sage was nice in every way. We crossed in something less than eight days. The society on board was extensive and good--Americans, French, Germans, English, and others, there was no lack of choice. I studied the Americans most, for they were to me a new study, and I was very much pleased with the result. When I left the s.h.i.+p, I did so with the impression that, nation for nation, as regards intelligence, wide views, and general knowledge, the women certainly, if not the men, were ahead of us English. I had not many opportunities in America of mixing with the upper cla.s.ses, but my limited experience there strengthened the above belief. Of course, all I met on the _City of Rome_ were more or less travelled Americans (in no country, perhaps, does travel make a greater change than among our transatlantic cousins), but I was particularly struck by the intelligence, and the broad and charitable views of the ladies.