The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-03-24
George A. saIa,s American Notes.

lows about our American peculiarities
Don't run away with the notion that il
America chance acquaintance are easily
made, The extreme tacturnity of the work
ing classes have dwelt upon over and owe
again. In the cars or on board steamboat
a stranger rarely speaks to you, and morc
rarely if you speak to him does he give yol
civil answer. You may live for weeks il
an hotel without exchanging word will
any one save the clerks. At the table GAotel
there is no miscellaneous conversation. Ii
the smoking room you pick up no chatty
citizens of the world and what delightful
cosmopolitan acquaintance have we not
picked up in hotels, even in England, the
so-called crusty, and surly. Once or twice
have tried the ladies' drawing room il
American caravansaries but have spedi-
ly grown frightened of that family vault
handsomely carpeted, with corpses in Grim
oline, scattered about like embalmed monks
in the catacombs of Palermo, and have fed
away dismayed. The truth is, that the ex-
IRENE publicity of hotel life in America
makes the respectable classes chary of talk
ing to strangers. They will eat with you,
drink with you, smoke with you, spit with
you, and almost sleep with you-for you FIRE
quenty have to share steamboat stateroom
with stranger, and once | have been ask
ed whether | wanted bed to myself, Oh
would ''room" with man | didn't know
from Adam-but they won't talk with
you. You may be a confidence man,
!. e., swindler. You may have just OBJ
tanned your exeat from some States Prison
or at this moment, alas you may be Sc
cesh, Copperhead-I have been informed
more than once that am one of the latter,
! though, goodness knows, my locks are in
Ginning far more towards a grey than cop
perry hue-or a spy. Ia this country, too
| no distinctions Of dress mark the different
classes in society. The clergyman dresses
| like layman, and the prisoner in the dock
is often better attired than the judge on the
| bench You don't know whether the person
sitting next to you is prime minister or a
| Peter Funk auctioneer, a member of Con-
gress or a spiritualist medium. A friend OF
mine who had a remarkable faculty for ma
king friends under the most unpropitious
circumstances, did contrive to patch up an
acquaintance with a most atfable, fluent,
and welI-informed person at the Fifth Az
enue Hotel. The atfable person asked him
to liquor, and subsequently handed him a
card informing him that he was chiropo-
dist, and offering to extract his corns at the
rate OF dollar aplece-no root no cash.
With shame, too, must confess, that the
only chance acquaintance l have. made here,
whiskered handful gentleman, whom l
took to be brigadier general at the very
least, turned out, according to his own ex-
planation to be interested in a dentifrice,
he had a fifth in a patent for making tooth
powder, and lived royalty on the profits.
Now do you comprehend the reluctance of
Americans to foregather with people they
don't know You may be highly respect
able person; But per contra, you may be a
croupier at faro table, or distinguished
felon just fugitive from Europe!
Produce however, one of those magic en-
yeIopes containing a note of introduction and
the case is at once altered. The open Sc
same seldom fails. The bullet rarely misses
the billet Once let the Americans really
know who and what you are, and they well
come you with open arms. Their houses,
their horses, their carriages, their servants,
are all at your disposal, not metaphorically,
as the Spaniards offer them, but actually
and entirely. They will dine you, they will
breakfast you, they will sup you, and when
there is nothing legitimate i'll the way of
eating or drinking going on, they will press
you with oysters. They will give you if
you allow them, great deal more cham
payne, MADEIRA, Scotch ale, and Bourbon
wiskey than is good for you. If you say
you are tetotaler, they will send you doz-
en- Of Congress water or etfervescing sarsa-
parilli. Ii you confess yourself smoker,
they will cram your pockets with cabanas,
or send you a box of imperials almost as
long and as strong as pokers. Admire an
American author and then you will find his
works, handsomely bound, on you table
when you return home. 1t happened the
other day that, intending to look in at New
Crleans thought l might as we'll get up a
little Spanish. Forthwith a copy OF Ollen-
DORIS Spanish grammar was sent me. They
will insist on paying your hackney COACH
your omnibus and ferry fare; and positive
ly believe that were | mean enough to ask,
could find dozen friends who would pay
my hotel bill. That which they do to stran
gers the Americans are not slow to do among
themselves A gentleman of mature years
informed me lately that his uncle had sent
him thousand dollars as a new years gift.
They are always making presents. ANY
person of good means, with a house of his
own, is sure to have from six to dozen
nphews, nieces, and cousins staying with
him for a montaVGt a time. | never knew
such people for having cousins, particu lar
y females, and pretty. Ten to one, also, but
you will find an adopted child in every 9TH
er family. When an American fails in
busness-and most of them fail at some
time or another-he is sure, if he be at all a
decent kind of a man, to find friends who
will not only loan, but give him money
to start afresh. And, pray let me add, that
it would be doing a cruel and shameful
wrong to this people, to assume that their
hospitality towards strangers within their
gates is dictated by vulgar spirit of osten-
tation. That there are vuIgarians and
''stuck up" and ostentatious folks in the
Union is clear enough but their great heart
in respect to the sacred duty Of hospitality
is sound and in the performance Of that du-
ty they beat the English, the Irish and the
kussians-which is saying great deal
In France you know, you get little but
sugar and water out OF your friends; in
Germany nothing but smoke; and in Italy
there are some grand houses where you
can only obtain supper by paying for it. In
Spain you can obtain nothing to eat, be.
cause, beyond eggs and chocolate and gar
lie, there is nothing to eat. But in the
United States you may ruin your digestive
organs in a fortnight. If the oysters and
canvas-back ducks don't give you dyspepsia
the eternal ice-creams and candied sweet
meets will; and when you fall sick, you
will have plenty Of kind friends to press
Hostetter's and brakes Plantation Bitters
as curatives on your acceptance. All this is
done lin sheer bounteous generosity, and
kindness of heart. Not vapid tourist
lands in New York-with letters always be
it understood-not guardsman runs down
from Canada, not a gunroom mess of a
man-of-war comes into port, but the flood
gates of American hospitality are opened.
With all their real shrewdness and impu-
ted cunning, the Americans are in many
resnects as frank. as simple and as innocent