who
stays there. The first, naturally, see the best side of everything,
and if they describe their experiences, the pictures drawn are
scarcely fair ones. The second class, as a rule, it goes without
saying, are not strong with their pens, and were it otherwise, having
to win the bread of life, they have no leisure. There are of course
exceptions. The political aspect of America has been well depicted,
the features of that huge continent aptly described in several books
by good authors, but of true social pictures there are few. Among
these there are no better than what Dickens wrote in "Martin
Chuzzlewit," for the types there discussed are truly painted with
great humour, the only fear is the reader thereof may conceive they
are national, instead of what they truly are, characteristic of a
large class.

The Americans know us far better than we know them. While, including
emigrants, more pass from Great Britain to the States than America
sends eastward, the proportion in _visitors_ is certainly American.
They come in shoals to England and Europe, returning generally the
same year. Not strange, therefore, that their knowledge of our habits
and customs exceeds ours of theirs. That the Americans know this is
so, is shown by the style of conversation held with a "Britisher,"
when by chance (if he does not show it otherwise) his nationality is
discovered. In England if A, an Englishman, meets B, an American, A
does not discuss England with B as if it was necessarily all new to
him. B is supposed to have probably been here before, possibly to
know England as well as A does, and often it is so. But on the other
side of the Atlantic A (and generally truly) is supposed to know
nothing of the country. This was one of the salient features that
first struck me. Quite true, in my case at least, I did know nothing!

When, in England, a conversation, say on a rail carriage, is held
between an Englishman and an American, the chances are against the
latter being asked how he likes England. The Englishman should feel,
if he does not, that it is begging a favourable answer, anyhow that
the reply, politeness considered, cannot be worth much. Under the
same circumstances, in the States (unless the American has visited
Europe), the chances are three to one the query will be put in the
first half-hour. The form varies. Sometimes it is put diffidently,
and in the nicest words. Sometimes just the other way. "Does not your
mind expand when yo