The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-02-14
AMERICAN MANNERS.
ISt lanes Gaxette,I

pleased if a west-countryman, afier spending few days in the north of fell to eriticising everything that was not according b the usages of Devon or SCuieEset, and accouusinR for the difference in every case by mere stu pidity or perverstty on the part of his hosts. The continent of North Ancrica is good deal bigger than Yorkshire, and considerably more different from Eng llnd than the north of England from the south. Yet English people are constantly behaving hke our supposed west country. man. They spend . Vacation oF 70 rush. ing about the United States and Canada, with or withoas introducfions and other aids of forethought, come home, and turn out . budget of crude censure as fast as they can get 1t printed and then, if it happens to be suggested to them that they have committed an impertience, call everybody to witness what an unreason- able and touchy sort of people are these Americans, or these coionists, or both, as the case may be. Perhaps even such reckless travellers do some good in dis polling the gross and pafpable errors that prevailed generation or two agu. No one in England-at any rate, no one who is likely to read this page-now believes that the men of Boston drive about with their bocts sticking out of the carriage window, or that New Workers pick their teeth with bowie knives. B1t mistakes of somewhat less obvious kind are still current, and, indeed, are fostered as often as not by the kind of travellers we have mentioned. We shall here point out some of those which, if an Euglishman starts with them as fixed ideas, are most likely to get him into trouble. They are easily corrected, in our opinion, by using ones own eyes even for short time with moderate attention and without prejudice. Yet we cannot but fear that the truth will appear paradoxical. Much of what we shall say is equally applicable to English Canadian society. As for the French civilization and manAers of Lower Can- ada, they arc world by themselves.
 I. That Americans are always in a hurry. This is capital error and a source of others. Americans may be much occupied but their speech and action in detail are, on the whole, more deliberate than an Enelishman's their speech remarkably 90. There is far less repetition and Interruption in Anglo. Amesican than in British talk. With ne there is % much careless speaking and careless hearing that the first answer or remark when people meet s apt to be little more than signal te call attention. On the wess side of the Atlantic . man says thing meaning to say it once for all, and does not expect to have to repeat it. Again, 1t is true that Americans ob- ject b unpunctuality more than Enklish. men; ss, in a country of long distances, 1t is easily understood that its conse- quences may be grayer. But this has nothing to do with being in hurry. On the contrary, the American habit is to allo~ greater margin of time for ap-
 pointments than we do here. And, in
 truth the fatal facilities of English dwell-
 CTS in cities for running things fine do not exist in America. The "gondola of
 London will redeem at q pinch many
 delays, with speed neither practised nor
 practicable in thoroughfares engrossed
 by horse-cars. The conditions of Ameri-
 can life make 1t needful to prefer labor
 saving to time saving in most u ings of common use. In short, the practical Englishman's method is to begin with allotting sixty-three minutes work to the hrst hour, and then to scramble panting after the odd three minutes during all the hours that follow. The American aliows time enough, but not more than enough and he allows it only once. '
 2. That Americans are melancholv. This is widely spread mistake, founded on wrong inference rather than long ob- servation the fact being that the Aneri- can travelling public, as seen in hotels and other public places, is of a bearing sober and decorous even to dullness. But this is not evidence of unhappiness or moroseness. It is nothing but an outward habit legitimately akin to the air of self centered reserve which has long been at- tached by tradition and repute to the public appearances of well-to.do Enghsh. people. A stranger from almost any part of Europe would probably form the same od-hand judgment if he were set down, m the morning-room of almost any Eng fish club. with the same kind of plausi- bility and with the same injustice. Ameri- cans attach, if possible, even greater
 weight than we do to the virtue of mind.
 ing one's own business. The present writer mel near John Browns home in the Adirondacks man who had known John
 Brown well. That Brown had been a Irregular abolitionistrs was to this old neighbor . mere accident. He remen,- bered Brown asa good steady-going sort of man who z minded his own bssiness ;n such was his version ot the Heratian jisfsm sf kesaeem fyeposin. Thus it is . point of dignity not to thrust ones self directly of indirectly cn ones neighbor for the time being. Not that Ameri.ans repel advances as English people some times do. But they do not, as a rule, in- yite them. We arc not concerned to deny that garrulous and curious people
 may bs found out west But if they were ever commonly to be met with in the eastern stAses, they arc not 90 now. On the other hand, these staid and silent people, if yos ssddssa syosr,eN to them with patience and courtesy for any req. sonable purpose, will tske quife as mnch trQubls @ hsap you as an average Bag lishman. Thsy may look lass intEested Sx.-v ~~H A sh. AI