muddy weather, it was almost inaccessible. It would appear that the defunct of Memphis resembled the living, in running long accounts; for it was placarded, at the gates of this abode of death-" Positively, no credit."

I must here chronicle, that the one solitary good dinner I had had for twelve months, outside of a private house, was at a French restaurant in Memphis. It was kept by Gaston, who furnished us with as good a dinner as could be got in Paris-for the simple reason, that the restaurant was conducted on the French principle, and the food cooked by a French cook. As regards fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, and fruits, as good a supply can no doubt be had in America as in any country in the world; but there little attention is paid either to the producing, or cooking of them. Poultry and cattle are generally but half fed; vegetables and fruits are neither well grown, nor well cooked. Peaches and have not grapes the flavour or perfume that they have in France. The system of canning unripe fruit renders it almost impossible ever to obtain it ripe for eating. It is all gathered before it comes to maturity; is canned and sent off elsewhere. Ripe fruit, in a country where fruit-trees abound, is the rarest thing to be met with, and most people make themselves ill by eating it unripe.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AMERICAN MANNERS.

ERHAPS, "the least said the soonest mended," might be thought to apply here; but I believe that in this, as in many other things, the more said the more mended. Therefore, at the risk of giving some pain to the few who possess good manners, I must say that the want of good manners in all classes of Americans is unpleasantly prominent, as the experience of every one who has travelled in the United States will confirm. Only by a continual course of diplomacy, and a persevering exercise of tact and forbearance can you obtain decent respect and civility. You are obliged to be constantly on your guard against impertinence and intrusion. You are for ever obliged to parade your self-respect and dignity, or some one will put his hands or his feet in your lap.

A lady stranger, with whom you have barely

exchanged five words, will march into your bedroom, at all hours and seasons, and coolly amuse herself with staring at your déshabille and toilet operations. She has not the slightest delicacy as to dressing or undressing herself in the presence of a stranger, and cannot, therefore, see why you should have any. She desires to satisfy her curiosity as to how you "fix" your hair; whether it is real, or false, like her own-which she at once pulls off to show you-whether your teeth are human or not; whether, in fine, the charms of the person, whom she has seen in public, "are hers as nature placed them," or whether, like herself, she is made up of "fixens." To thrust one's self unasked into the privacy of a bed-chamber would be considered rudeness all over the world. But American ladies will visit you in your chamber, in spite of the message that you are in bed and indisposed.

Perhaps it may be answered, "They are not ladies." Then I would ask who are ladies in America? The wife of a grocer, a tailor, or a chandler keeps, probably, the handsomest equipage in the city, lives in the most expensive house, and dresses in the most costly style; she is, therefore, considered the highest and most important leader of ton. "One of our wealthiest citizens," is as an introduction, or when used in a newspaper, always equivalent to "One of our

latter term is,

most respected citizens;" the however, rarely, if ever used. I have met and known intimately American ladies whose native refinement, delicacy of feeling and grace of manner are unsurpassed by the highest-bred European lady; but they are the exceptionsfew and far between.

An American woman is deficient both in external as well as internal delicacy. Her bosom knows no sacred privacy. She will start and tell you her whole family history and affairs before you have known her half an hour. A lady -of fashion, at all events-after an introduction on a steamer, told me the whole history of her life; the disagreeable character of her two husbands, the latter of whom had recklessly squandered the handsome property the first had left her, and of which she ought to have had the full enjoyment, as she certainly married him for it, and he died two years after, being much older than her own father. We suggested that it would probably have been as well to have remained a widow. She appeared to take a retrospective glance, then replied, she "felt lonesome," she "felt like marrying again."

One lady told me on making her return-call, of a piece of scandal that had been afloat concerning herself some years before, and which most women would have preferred to have kept

to themselves. A second, on her first visit, entertained me with the details of a horrible surgical operation she had gone through. Another with the cruelty and infidelity of her husband. This lady, commenting on the interview to another, a mutual friend, exclaimed, "What a provoking creature that Mrs. -is, she never said a word about herself." The middle classes are rough, and always ready to be impertinent. Servants are particularly wanting in due deference and respect. They acknowledge neither master nor mistress, but are their masters in fact, for upon the slightest cause of offence they immediately, and without a moment's warning, leave you to cook dinner, wait upon yourself, and do otherwise as bon vous semble. If you chance to give an order that does not please your servant, you must make up your mind to execute it yourself; and the most curious part of the history is, that these, male and female, are all Irish servants. No people in the world are at home more obsequious to their masters than the poor Irish dependants and servants, and no class of people more arrogant and self-asserting when they become Americanized. Such is the inevitable rebound from servility to tyranny. The Irish peasant cannot tyrannize in America because he is controlled and balanced by Ger

your own