The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-19 00:00:00

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MANNERS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
Some ten or twelve days ago the Daily News
published a letter from its American correspondent
—as usual, with him, an essay—the subject being
English and American .Manners. The Pall Mall
Gazette, taking a long time for reflection, pursued
the theme in an article last Wednesday, and al-
though we must trust to the impression left by a
hurried reading of the American correspondent, we
will endeavour to give the gist of what both these
writers say. The American correspondent notices
two classes of Englishmen who visit the United
States, both producing a disagreeable impression on
the American mind. The one is the simple snob ;
supercilious, condescending, and showing in every
word and action his belief in the inferiority of all
around when compared with his belongings. Such
are snore or less common to every country, but per
haps ai=surne the most disagreeable type in the
British spechnen. But the impression they create
is neither deep nor lasting; for offensive and dis-
agreeable persons can easily be dropped, while ex-
cuses are made for ignorance and narrow-minded-
ness ; the other, moreover, creates real annoy-
ance, and the more as he does so unconsciously.
of ~,ithre and refinement find their
way into American homes refined as theirs, and
occupied by people as cultivated as those with
whom they have been bred. Their astonish-
ment is the more freely expressed, as they think
it implies a compliment, while Americans receive
it with ill-disguised annoyance. If the English-
man does not say so, still he means that he came to
America expecting to find civilization advanced
but a few stages from life in the Back Woods.
Instead of well-read, nurtured, and travelled ladies
and gentlemen, with tastes cultivated as highly •
as in any European society, be looked for
good honest men and women, who understood
how to buy and sell, crops and herds, wooden
houses, and labour-saving machines. That the
man should be surprised, is not surprising, when in-
stead, he meets people who know Europe better
than he does, whose pictures and statuary are of a
higher order of art, whose library embraces a
wider range,whose dwellings are superior, and where
the cookery and wines are at least as good. Ameri-
cans say their visitor ought not to have been so igno-
rant of American society. Had it been of French, of
Italian, or of German society he would have been
ashamed to let such ignorance appear, and in openly
announcing it in America he shows that it is com-
mon to his whole class. What right have those
who profess to know the world to be thus complacently
unacquainted with a community now exercising
upon it the greatest influence of the age? The
Pall Mall Gazette, limiting the discussion to the
wealthy of both nations, takes this strange ground.
What most distinguishes the aristocracy of Eng-
land is their epigrammatic mode of expression. The
effort is to give the pith of stories, cutting away
heads and tails. Not to be concise is to be a bore,
and instead of the full meaning the terse sentences
are only intended to convey an outline of it or hint.
With those in the lowerstation the reverse isthe case.
They follow to the end the thought, argue out their
assertion, and tell the whole story, while the hearer
may vainly suggest that he has anticipated the
point. Now Americans being our offshoot, says the
Gazette, derive their origin from the middle not
from the highest class, and the difference chiefly dis-
tinguishing all even the most wealthy and refined in
America, who are precisely on the same level as to
externals with the wealthy and refined in England
from them, is the same, as between the aristocratic
and the middle and lower classes here. Americans
are long-winded in conversation, in speeches, and
even in wit. The American correspondent allows
that the English used to be considered in America
the guide and model in manners, though this is be-
coming an exploded error. What Englishmen consi-
der essentials often taking them as tests are generally
mere conventionalities to be found in no other coun-
try, a habit or perhaps a necessity of Great
Britain. Mixing a good deal on the Continent,
Americans have discovered that other Europeans re-
gard the English as anything but refined, and when
the only true test is applied to some of their con-
ventionalities it is found that these are not signs of
good manners, have nothing to do with manners, or
may be really bad manners. The true test is simple
kindliness, and the manners which embody most
consideration for others, are the best. Now, may
not the Pall Mall's marked difference be a mere
conventionality in imitation of the sparkling mode
of conversation characteristic of Frenchmen fos-
tered by their epigrammatic language, but which
comes out as a bad copy when tried by the English ?
A. Frenchman conveys more in a shrug and a
grimace than an Englisman can do in a long-
winded sentence, but the Pall Nall takes tbis servile