THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

More or less introductory--Americans and Yankees
not synonymous--Want of courtesy in the
States--The Press--Voyage out--New York climate.

Apart from the object with which most authors write, viz. to make
money, I purpose this little book to serve three objects.

Firstly, to make the United States of America, and the Americans,
better known than they are at present to the mass of the English
public.

Secondly, to put a certain class of emigrants on their guard against
the machinations of a few agents in London, who victimize them not a
little.

Thirdly, to let the many who suffer from pulmonary diseases in
Europe know that across the Atlantic is a cure-place excelling, owing
to its peculiar climate, any in the Eastern hemisphere.

That my own knowledge of the United States is a superficial one, I
admit in stating I was there not quite five months. _If_ I have a
talent for anything, it is the power of absorbing facts and
describing them later. I kept no journal in America, but I made
copious notes of all I saw and heard while the impressions were
fresh. As I view all these in a bundle on the table before me, I feel
that I must describe succinctly, to bring all I have to say into a
"little book," and there are weighty reasons, with me at least, why
it should be no more.

As my book will be truthfully written, and my intentions are good,
success will not elevate me much, blame will not depress me. If the
book is a fair picture, as far as it goes, of a vast and wonderful
tract on the earth's surface, if it shows clearly the prevailing
characteristics of the Americans, what there is for us (the English)
to copy, what to avoid, if it prove of use to the ever-increasing
class of emigrants, and if it is readable and amusing withal, I shall
be more than satisfied.

I affirm that the United States and its denizens are _not_ more than
superficially known to English men and women. I beg the question. Why
is it? There are doubtless many books of American travel, politics,
descriptions, and what not. I had read many of these, but surprised
as I was on much I encountered after arrival, I was far more
surprised how little what I had read had prepared me to find. The
following may in some degree explain this. By far the larger number
who go to the States are of two classes. 1. The rich, who go for
travel, pleasure, and change. 2. The emigrant, who is poor, and