For English and American humourists have
not always seen eye to eye. When we fail to appreciate their humour they
say we are too dull and effete to understand it: and when they do not
appreciate ours they say we haven't got any.

Now Mr. Leacock's humour is British by heredity; but he has caught
something of the spirit of American humour by force of association. This
puts him in a similar position to that in which I found myself once when
I took the liberty of swimming across a rather large loch in Scotland.
After climbing into the boat I was in the act of drying myself when I
was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent to the shore. "You
have no business to be bathing here," he shouted. "I'm not," I said;
"I'm bathing on the other side." In the same way, if anyone on either
side of the water is unintelligent enough to criticise Mr. Leacock's
humour, he can always say it comes from the other side. But the truth
is that his humour contains all that is best in the humour of both
hemispheres.

Having fulfilled my duty as chairman, in that I have told you nothing
that you did not know before--except, perhaps, my swimming feat, which
never got into the Press because I have a very bad publicity agent--I
will not detain you longer from what you are really wanting to get at;
but ask Mr. Leacock to proceed at once with his lecture on "Frenzied
Fiction."

CONTENTS

I. THE BALANCE OF TRADE IN IMPRESSIONS
II. I AM INTERVIEWED BY THE PRESS
III. IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON
IV. A CLEAR VIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF ENGLAND
V. OXFORD AS I SEE IT
VI. THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICAN PRESS
VII. BUSINESS IN ENGLAND
VIII. IS PROHIBITION COMING TO ENGLAND?
IX. "WE HAVE WITH US TO-NIGHT"
X. HAVE THE ENGLISH ANY SENSE OF HUMOUR?

MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND

I. The Balance of Trade in Impressions

FOR some years past a rising tide of lecturers and literary men from
England has washed upon the shores of our North American continent. The
purpose of each one of them is to make a new discovery of America. They
come over to us travelling in great simplicity, and they return in
the ducal suite of the Aquitania. They carry away with them their
impressions of America, and when they reach England they sell them. This
export of impressions has now been going on so long that the balance
of trade in impressions is all disturbed. Ther