upon the French people by
their near neighbors. I cannot do better here than to offer my readers,
in the following passage, a share in one of my letters written home; it
has at least the advantage of recording on the spot impressions
received by me after careful examination under the most favorable
circumstances. I was writing about the beauty of the parks:

"It is amazing to see the great space of this little island that these
English folk have reserved for air, and health, and beauty; and it is
for all, the poorest and meanest as well as the richest and noblest;
there are no privileged classes in this. As to the effect upon their
health, I suppose it must be something, but it shows for very little.
G---- [a gentleman who is very strong upon the subject of degeneracy,
which I have always doubted] will laugh and say that it was a foregone
conclusion with me, but to set aside my inference he will be obliged to
take the position that there is nothing so misleading as facts, except
figures. I have now seen many hundreds of thousands of Englishmen and
Englishwomen of all classes. I have placed myself in positions to
examine them closely. At the great Birmingham musical festival my seat
gave me full view of the house, chorus and all. The vast hall was
filled with people of the middle and upper middle classes, and at one
end with members of the highest aristocracy, who occupied seats roped
off from the rest, and called 'the President's seats'--the President
being the Marquis of Hertford. At the end of the performance, both
evening and morning, I hastened to a place where a great part of the
audience would pass close before me. At Westminster Abbey I stood again
and again at the principal door and watched the congregation as they
came out; I have done the same in swarming railway stations; I have
walked through country villages and cathedral towns; I know the human
physiognomy of all quarters of London pretty well; I have seen the
Guards and the heavy dragoons, and I say without any hesitation that
thus far I find that the men and the women are generally smaller and
less robust than ours, and above all that the women are on the whole
sparer and less blooming than ours. The men are ruddier on the whole;
that is, there are more ruddy men here; but the number of men without
color in their cheeks seems to be nearly the same as with us. The
apparent inconsistency of what I have said is due to the fact that the
ruddy men and women h