The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-02-14

r 2 land. There h yes q greater and more dangerous fallacy in the way of the Eng admitted to AmeFican society, namely:s s os - ~@.
 3 That Amexicans are uncezemor ntous. American manners allow greater
 freedom to certain persons and in oertain conditions than we are accustomed to (thou9h neither co broadly as we arc apt to think, noT withozt degrees and dis tinctions in local usage); whence . rash ohseryer may ccnclpAe shes in American society there is 10 etiquette at all Aay one who acts on that conclusion, viii do % to his own great discom6fure. There is less etiqnette, certainly, in America than here. For one thing there are no fixed rulss sf pssrs@sscs, and we believe that Americans have some difSculty in realizing their existence in this country. But some etiquette there is and what there is of 1t is more strictly observed than with us; 70 that it is, for example, almost a worse breach of good manners In Boston or New York than in London to dispense with evening dress. without express request or license from ones host. Absence of shyness and awkwaEdness is quite a different thing from lawlessness ]; one cause of them, in fact, is the laxity of social rules which in England often makes 1t difficult for q wsii-neaning person to know whether he is doing the night thing or not. The best American manners have an inde6nable charm in which per- feet freedom and frankness are com pounded with certain fl avor of old-world politeness. Little traits of a piece with this are the frequent use of Sir" and of one or two formulas of greeting which sound at first rather stifly to an E aglish ear, having been faithfully preserved in the new country after they have been mostly dropped in the old. For our own part, we hah or more than half regret the Johnsonian fashion.
 4 That rowdiness is mark of Ameri- can assemblages. One is really ashamed to set down this az curreut pellet but many Englishmen speak and write as if they believed 1t. We shall only say that any such Eaglishman can easily unde- ceive himself by going to the Central Park of New York on Sunday after noon. He will there see a multitude of people which it would be difficult to sur- pass anywhere else in scale, taking num- ber and density together Cor New York has only one park, and everybody seems to go there), and impossible to surpass in good behavior. Then the English in- Etinct of discipline Aourishes, and abounds at every turn. It is shown even in such matters as political processions, which are not by any special merit of ar tistic composition or detail Qhings which Germans OF Italians would arrange much better with the same opportunities). but by good order and good marching. We have said nothing of the influence of on American maners, beiiev- ing it much less for good or for ill than ls commonly supposed. In any case American democracy has a strongly con- servative side, as has lately been well shown.
 Finally, there is one very simple point on which we shall not dwell, because it is apt to be forgotten not only in America, but in mest quarters of the world by travellers of most nations. Still it is to be noted that inferences drawn indiscrimi- nately from the people one sees in the street and the hotel to the people one does not see in their own houses are not always or necessarily correct.