rhaps equally heinous. Was not the British landlord who
voted against the repeal of the corn laws, so that land might continue
to bring in a high rent at the expense of the poor man, really acting
from just as corrupt a motive of self-interest as the American
legislator who accepts a bribe? It does not do to be too superior on
this question.

We may end this chapter by a typical instance of the way in which
British opinion of America is apt to be formed that comes under my
notice at the very moment I write these lines. The _Daily Chronicle_
of March 24, 1896, published a leading article on "Family Life in
America," in which it quotes with approval Mme. Blanc's assertion that
"the single woman in the United States is infinitely superior to her
European sister." In the same issue of the paper is a letter from Mrs.
Fawcett relating to a recent very deplorable occurrence in Washington,
where the daughter of a well-known resident shot a coloured boy who
was robbing her father's orchard. In the _Chronicle_ of March 25th
appears a triumphant British letter from "Old-Fashioned," asking
satirically whether the habit of using loaded revolvers is a proof of
the "infinite superiority" of the American girl. Now this estimable
gentleman is making the mistake that nine out of ten of his countrymen
constantly make in swooping down on a single _outre_ instance as
_characteristic_ of American life. If "Old-Fashioned" has not time to
pay a visit to America or to read Mr. Bryce's book, let him at least
accept my assurance that the above-mentioned incident seems to the
full as extraordinary to the Bostonian as to the Londoner, and that it
is just as typical of the habits of the American society girl as the
action of Miss Madeleine Smith was of English girls.

"Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
England doos make the most onpleasant kind.
It's you're the sinner ollers, she's the saint;
Whot's good's all English, all thet isn't, ain't.
She is all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair.
An' when the vartoos died they made her heir."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] See, _e.g._, "Ad Familiares," 5, 18.

[10] This was written just after President Cleveland's pronunciamento
in regard to Venezuela, and thus long before the outbreak of the war
with Spain.

[11] This paragraph was written before the outbreak of the
Spanish-American war; but the events of that struggle do not seem to
me to call for serious modification of the opini