y the
Americans; they point to it, and exclaim, "See what your aristocracy
are!" forgetting that the crime is committed by one out of thousands,
and that it meets with the disgrace which it deserves, and that this
crime is, to a certain degree, encouraged by our laws relative to
divorce. Do the Americans imagine that there is no _crim. con_.
perpetrated in the United States? many instances of suspicion, and some
of actual discovery, came to my knowledge even during my short residence
there, but they were invariably, and perhaps judiciously, hushed up, for
the sake of the families and the national credit. I do not wish, nor
would it be possible, to draw any parallel between the two nations on
this point; I shall only observe that in England we have not considered
the vice to have become so prevalent as to think it necessary to form
societies for the prevention of it, as they have done in the United
States.

It has been acknowledged by other nations, and I believe it to be true,
that the nobility and gentry of England are the most moral, most
religious, and most honourable classes that can be found not only in our
country, but in any other country in the world, and such they certainly
ought from _circumstances_ to be.

Possessed of competence, they have no incentives to behave dishonestly.
They are well-educated, the finest race of men and women that can be
produced, and the men are brought up to athletic and healthy amusements.
They have to support the honour of an ancient family, and to hand down
the name untarnished to their posterity. They have every inducement to
noble deeds, and are, generally speaking, above the necessities which
induce men to go wrong. If the Americans would assert that luxury
produces vice, I can only say that luxury infers idleness and
inactivity, and on this point the women of the aristocracy in this
country have the advantage over the American women, who cannot, from the
peculiarity of the climate, take time exercise so universally resorted
to by our higher classes. I admit that some go wrong, but is error
confined to the nobility alone; are there no spendthrifts, no dissolute
young men, or ill brought up young women, among other classes? Are
there none in America? Moreover, there are some descriptions of vice
which are meaner than others and more debasing to the mind, and it is
among the middling and lower classes that these vices are principally to
be found.

The higher classes in