The Great RepublicInternational criticism.--The big things of America.--Scenery and cities.--Liberty.--Equality.--Sweetness and light.--The harvest of democracy.--The foreign element.--Justice.--The cost of democracy.--Foreign policy |
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administration altogether American amusement Andrew Carnegie Anglo-Saxon army beauty Boss CHAPTER charm Cheyenne Chicago Chickering Hall citizens civilised coloured Congress corrupt cost courts crime criminal criticism culture declared Democracy democratic demoralisation doctrine dollars dynamite educated effect England English Englishmen equality Europe evil expenditure favourable foreign policy fortunate France girls Government honest honourable hundred Indian institutions interest Irish judges justice ladies LEPEL GRIFFIN less Liberals London Lord Coleridge Lowell lynch law lynching marriage Matthew Arnold ment millions monomania Monroe doctrine moral Mountains municipal murder navy negro Niagara outrage paper-mill Paris party Philistines polygamy popular possess probably punishment race railway regard Republic Republican Rocky Mountains Russia savage scenery seen sentiment social society Solid for Mulhooly spirit streets taste thousand tion to-day town traveller United universal suffrage vote Washington York young
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Page 10 - Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind, England doos make the most onpleasant kind : It 's you 're the sinner oilers, she 's the saint ; Wut 's good 's all English, all thet is n't ain't ; Wut profits her is oilers right an
Page 51 - To-day, the American woman is, to speak plainly, physically unfit for her duties as woman, and is perhaps of all civilized females the least qualified to undertake those weightier tasks which tax so heavily the nervous system of man. She is not fairly up to what nature asks from her as wife and mother. How will she sustain herself under the pressure of those yet more exacting duties which nowadays she is eager to share with the man?
Page 10 - Americans will often say that the sentiment of the country cannot fairly be ascertained from newspapers ; but in a country where the press has attained an unprecedented development, and where newspapers are, to all appearance, the only literature of the vast majority, a foreigner must assume that they represent, with some exactness, the popular opinion. There is no reason why the English should be popular in America. They are almost the most disagreeable race extant, and are often unendurable to...
Page 9 - the remnant " upon which he was inaudibly eloquent in his first New York lecture — the salt which is to purify American society, the examples of sweetness and light which are to illumine and beautify the degenerate western world. But whether writers like Mr. White misunderstand and misrepresent English society, or whether we are as black as we are painted, British equanimity will probably remain unshaken. In either case it is certain that the English are not popular in the United States, although...
Page 6 - ... their own standard of taste or morals. English travellers are apt to expect too much ; and men who travel uncomplainingly in Spain, where night is chiefly distinguished from day by its change of annoyance, or in Bulgaria, where the only procurable bath is a stable bucket, complain bitterly at not finding in the rude hostelries of the Western States of America the conveniences and the cuisine of Bignon or the Bristol. But, apart from unreasonable claims, which, throughout life, make up so large...
Page 7 - The stranger would be far more disposed to accord an ungrudging admiration to the many improvements and conveniences which America has introduced into common life, if it were not demanded so peremptorily with regard to numerous matters on which there may be a reasonable difference of opinion, or on which impartial observers would give the preference to English methods. But whether it be hotels or railway cars, horses or carriage-building, banks or beautiful women, oysters or engineering, the ordinary...
Page 106 - The City of New York has, for many years, been one of the most striking and convenient illustrations of what is known in America as Boss rule, and the many millions that it has cost the people, in waste, peculation, and undisguised and unblushing robbery, form the price which they have had to pay for the pretence of freedom. Matters are now less openly scandalous than of old, but the same system is in full force. Boss Kelly, who sways the destinies of New York, has been able, from his near connection...
Page 176 - Hemisphere as dangerous to their peace and safety," that "with the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power they have not interfered and will not ; but that any interposition for the purpose of oppressing or controlling any of the States whose independence the Republic has, after mature consideration, acknowledged...
Page 8 - Review he has contributed an article on " Class Distinctions in the United States," which, for fierce and contemptuous abuse of the mushroom millionaires whose evil example is demoralising American society, exceeds anything which a partially-informed Englishman could fairly or with propriety write. I do not, however, desire, by criticising American society further than it influences political and national life, to lay myself open to the charges of bad taste or superficiality which may justly be brought...
Page xvii - WHETHER the discovery of America by Columbus has been of advantage or loss to the so-called civilised peoples of the Old World would form an interesting thesis for discussion. When we remember the gentle and refined races of Mexico and Peru trampled beneath the gross feet of Pizarro, Cortes, and the Inquisition ; or regard the savage picturesqueness of the Indian tribes that wandered over the North American continent, cruel, brutal, and happy, uninjured by and uninjuring Western...