not agree with them; but, when I come to give a reason for my preference, I can give none, except that their way of pronunciation is not our way. So it is with manners. It is not our custom to say, "I guess," instead of "I suppose ;" and this is the only objection to the expres sion I can think of. If, as I believe, a kindly cordiality to strangers, a friendly empressement" to make them feel at home, is one of the best proofs of good breeding, then there is no want of that in New York society. Its great defect appears to me to be a certain want of variety. Everybody, directly or indirectly, is connected with commerce, and, therefore, everybody knows about everybody else to an extent quite extraordinary to an Englishman. I had not been a week in New York before everybody in my hotel, from the strangers who sat beside me at dinner, to the black waiters, knew (how, it is a mystery to me still) that I was connected with pen and ink. On the second day after my arrival in New York, I took a walk with an old Southern friend of mine; and, next day, he was remonstrated with, because he had been walking with an Englishman whose sympathies were supposed to be in favour of the North. This knowledge of your neighbour's affairs is the rule, and not the exception. When I first arrived here, I was very shy of asking people if they knew old American acquaintances of mine I had met in Europe. I had a keen recollection of the absurdity of the question I have had so often asked me, in remote parts of the Continent, whether I knew Signor Smith, of London, or Herr Brown, of Liverpool, and feared to commit a like mistake. However, I soon found that the chances were that my former acquaintances were known to, if not known by, the acquaintances I made here. Society in New York is as numerous, and as much divided into sets, as that of any European city of like size; but the fact that the male portion is practically engaged in one pursuit makes people acquainted with each other's affairs to an unusual extent. There is no

commerce; and, indubitably, society, in the fashionable sense of the word, suffers in consequence. Any objection, however, to New York society, should be qualified by a grateful record of the lavish profusion and elegance of the refreshments offered you, and-pardon the order of the extreme beauty of the young ladies. In no evening party I was ever present at have I seen so many beautiful girls as in a New York ball-room. There is a delicacy and refinement about their features, quite peculiar to this country; and, even if observation shows you that beauty here is short-lived, well, so are most good things in this bad world of ours.

Without admitting the exact truth of the trite saying, that in a free country the condition of the press is a correct index of its state of civilization, the "status" of the American press is one of the questions which most interest a traveller-especially one who, like myself, has known much of the press at home. In its broad characteristics, then, an American newspaper, like almost every other American institution, is fashioned after the English, not after the continental type. It resembles our newspapers in the immense amount of news given, in the great space occupied by advertisements, and in the fact that the leaders are practical comments, not abstract essays. Here, however, the resemblance between the American press and the London press pretty well ceases. An American paper is a sort of cross between a country newspaper and a penny paper. Reading is so universal an acquirement here that a far lower class reads the newspapers than is the case with us; and, therefore, the degree of education found in the newspaperreading public is probably lower than in Britain. Moreover, an immense proportion of the papers sold here are sold by the street newsvendors, It is on this chance circulation that the newspapers mainly depend; and, out of a given number of copies sold, a very small percentage, indeed, is sold to regular subscribers. The inevitable

encourage that "sensation" system of newspaper headings and paragraphs which offends our taste so constantly. Again, all American papers-I am speaking of dailies-are principally local papers. New York is in no sense the capital of the United States in the way in which London and París are capitals in their countries. New York is the most important town in America, and, therefore, its papers have a wider circulation than those of any other town; and this is all. As you change your district you change your newspapers. The whole circulation of the New York Herald, in the South, previous to the secession, was not equal to its circulation in one ward of New York alone; and yet this was the only Northern paper which was read in the South at all. So, at Philadelphia, the reading-room of one of the principal hotels, where I am now writing, is filled with local papers, but has only one obscure New York print amongst its files, and I have not met with a copy of Herald, or Tribune, or Times, for sale in the streets. The New York press is the nearest approach to a metropolitan press that exists in America, but it is an approach only. The result of this is that the local press in America is very superior to ours, while the metropolitan press is inferior in the same proportion. Thus, when the low standard of the New York press is taken, not altogether without reason, as a proof of the absence of high mental culture in the United States, the relatively high standard of the local press ought fairly to be taken as evidence of the extent to which education is diffused.

repeated news of the Federal victories, the Herald boasted that its average circulation was over 113,000. This does not strike me as enormous. For, if I remember rightly, the Daily Telegraph sold over 140,000 copies on the day after Prince Albert's death. Probably, with such an extra" sale, the average daily sale of the Herald would be under 100,000. What the amount of its political influence may be it is more difficult to ascertain. Every educated American you speak to about it rejects with indignation the idea that it has any influence whatever; but still I find they all read it.

With all its faults, the Herald is the most readable of the New York papers. The New York Times appears to me a feebler edition of the Herald, without its "verve," and as regards foreign affairs, though not as to home ones quite as unscrupulous. The Tribune carries more weight by its individual opinion than any paper in the city. It is better written, better printed, and more carefully got up than any of its two cent. contemporaries. There is a kind of "doctrinaire" tone about its articles, which renders them somewhat heavy to digest; and, also, though its rivals abuse it constantly as a "niggerworshipper," yet its utterances about slavery are hardly outspoken enough to give its writing the force which always accompanies the expression of strong convictions. The most lucrative part of its sale is derived from its weekly edition, of which it circulates nearly 200,000 in the Northern States. The most respectable-looking, to English eyes, of the New York papers, are the Post, of which Bryant is the editor, and the World, which is the organ of the mercantile community. But neither of these papers has a very extensive circulation.

There are many small peculiarities about the New York papers, which strike an English reader curiously. As I said before, if they like to call a leader an "editorial," to talk of letters being "mailed," instead of sent by mail, and

matters of taste, about which there can be no dispute. But there is a carelessness about the writing, which, to me, is indefensible. Apparently, leaders are written without the proofs being revised. Constantly you come across sentences which do not construe; while clerical errors are allowed to pass, for not correcting which the reader of any respectable English paper would be dismissed at once. Then, again, all the news is broken up into short paragraphs, with appropriate headings in large capitals, in a way which, though convenient to a reader in a hurry, is fatal to good writing. The advertisements are arranged upon a starring system, with a diversity of type and variety of space which injure the appearance of the paper. The prominent words are reprinted perhaps a dozen times consecutively, to catch the reader's eye. The personal and matrimonial advertisements also are a source of constant amusement to a stranger. From a perusal of them, you would form a curious opinion as to the social state of New York, and, amongst other things, you would come to the conclusion, that it was the custom here, whenever a gay young Lothario met a soft-hearted Dulcinea in the streets, not to address her personally, but to insert an advertisement next day in the papers, expressive of admiration and the desire for further acquaintance. Let me say that, in all questionable advertisements, such as those of concert saloons, "where gen"tlemen may indulge in intellectual con"versation with 'pretty waiter girls,' or of bachelors, "who require a genteel"looking housekeeper of domestic habits, "weight not under 160 pounds," or of, widows "seeking a young husband of loving disposition," or others of an even less questionable kind, the Herald has a deserved and undisputed predominance. Still, it would be unjust to judge of the social condition of New York by such a test. And the Tribune is as free from objectionable advertisements as the most respectable of London newspapers. Take it altogether, the press of America is the press of a great and a free country.

there are hosts of minor journals-evening ones, bi- and tri-weeklies, and so on -of more or less note. In every town too, almost in every village, there are local papers; and the American population might be defined, as a newspaperreading population, par excellence. The cause of this demand for periodical reading is a fact, not, I think, sufficiently appreciated in Europe-that the American people is probably the best educated one, not excepting the Prussian, in the whole world. For years past, there has been a growing conviction in the minds of all the upper class of Americans, that the only condition on which a system of government, based like theirs on universal suffrage, could be maintained permanently, was that a large uneducated class should have no permanent existence in the State. In obedience to this conviction, a more or less perfect system of gratuitous education has been established throughout the whole of the Free States. In the Slave States no such system exists; and, therefore, it is in the South alone that such a thing as a mob, in the European signification of the phrase, exists at all; though, from the

comparative smallness of the Southern cities and the thinness of the population, the Southern mob is not nearly so powerful a class as a similar body would be in the North.

The free schools which I visited in New York impressed me very favourably. The class-rooms are clean, convenient, and very plainly furnished. The instruction is entirely gratuitouseverything, down to the pens and ink, being provided by the State. Education is not compulsory; but the demand for it is so great that, practically, a very small proportion of the children in the city fail to receive regular instruction, and the school benches are always more than filled. Judging from the entrybooks of the school I looked over, the social standing of the children's parents would embrace every class, from the professional man with limited means, to the common artizan. The sole practical qualification appeared to be that the

a decent dress; and, in a city where rags are so uncommon as in New York, this qualification is nothing like so severe a one as it would be with us. The dresses of the pupils varied from silks and broadcloth to the commonest stuffs and velveteen--but they were all scrupulously clean. There is no religious. instruction given, so that children of all sects come equally; but, at the commencement of the day's work, a few verses of the Bible are read, and, I believe, the Lord's Prayer is repeated. The teachers in all the classes, except two or three of the highest boys' classes, are women. All of them struck me as intelligent, and many were very pretty and ladylike. Their salaries vary from about 50% to 1007.; and, as their work is finished by 3 P.M. the pay seems liberal enough. The average age of the girl-pupils is from seven to seventeen; that of the boys from seven to fifteen, after which the ablest boys are sent from the schools, to receive a classical education at the Free Academy. Reading, writing, ciphering, geography, grammar, history, book-keeping for the boys, and moral philosophy for the girls, were the staples of instruction: and I could not discover that any foreign language was ever attempted to be taught.

I came in to the classes as a casual visitor, and therefore saw the working of the system in its every-day aspect. The children apparently understood very well what they were taught. I know that I heard a number of those mysterious questions asked, about what the price of a silk dress would be, containing I am afraid to say how many yards and fractions of yards, supposing that threeelevenths and five-seventeenths of a foot of silk cost so much. I believe that the answer was given rightly, and I am sure that the children explained very distinctly why they gave the answer which they did give. What struck me most was the look of intelligence and the orderly behaviour of the children. In some classes there were nearly fifty children, and yet the one mistress appeared to have no difficulty in maintaining order,

The highest class of girls were engaged, when I was taken to their class-room, in the study of what was called intellectual philosophy, and were set, in my presence, to discuss the theme, whether the imagination can create, or only combine. I admit freely that they talked as much nonsense as any score of young ladiesor boys too, for that matter-always do, when they begin discussing the question of innate ideas; but they obviously knew and understood all the stock common-places and appropriate illustrations which it is proper to quote upon the subject. The teacher was obviously a strong abolitionist in her views, and propounded a question to her class, whether a New England minister, who preached pro-slavery doctrines, could be right subjectively. Nine-tenths of the class disposed of the question with more feeling than logic-by an enthusiastic negative. Indeed, the vote was unanimous, with the exception of one lazy, fat-looking girl, who had been amusing herself, during the discussion on innate ideas, by tickling her neighbour's neck with a pen, and who woke up at this question, with the remark, "Well, I guess he'd be about right anyhow." At these schools, by the way, coloured children are not admitted.

Besides the State schools, there are several free public schools, kept up by voluntary contributions. The Roman Catholics have large schools, to which they try very hard to attract the children of their own creed, as they look with great, and from their own point of view not unfounded, jealousy on the free schools. The "House of Industry" schools, too, at the Five Points, which I went over, are chiefly maintained by the Episcopalians, and seem to be a very useful institution. Situated in the very lowest quarter of New York, they are designed to educate children of a class too low to find admission elsewhere. They are, in truth, Ragged Schools; and, in order to induce the parents to let their children come, the school feeds them during school hours. In the classes I went through,

By

American parents. There were representatives of almost every foreign nation, but the majority were Germans, Irish, and Negroes; for the poor about the Five Points are too wretched to care for colour. Of course very little can be taught to such a class of children, but still they learn to read and write, and, for children, they sing beautifully. By these and similar schools, as far as I could learn, one half of the children of the "Arab" population in New York receive some kind of education, so that the proportion of the rising generation in this city which will grow up without any education is but small. In the other Free States, where there are not the great difficulties of an enormous city to contend with, the spread of education is even more universal than in New York.

To this free general education I attach extreme importance in relation to slavery. If, as seems probable, the North subjugates the South, I cannot believe that the next generation of the North (educated as it will be to an extent to which no generation in the States has been educated yet), will long submit to the stigma of slavery. Hereafter the North will have the power, and, I trust, will have the will also. There are already signs of a great change. In New York, the black population is relatively very small; and, from the connexion of the city with

the South, its pro-slavery sympathies were stronger than those of any other Northern town; but, since the secession began, public feeling has changed. I was present the other night at a meeting in aid of the slaves deserted by their masters at Port Royal. The room was crowded. There were probably some three three thousand well-dressed people present, who cheered enthusiastically every expression of abolition sentiment; but what struck me most was that, sitting amidst the crowd, were numbers of blackmen and women-a thing which a few years ago would not have been tolerated at a New York meeting. Again, abolition papers are now popular; abolition lectures are frequent; the negro Douglas can lecture in the city to crowded audiences; and modified abolitionism is the fashionable opinion of polite society. There are stern facts, too, to be quoted also, as well as sentiments. An American slaver-captain has just been hung in New York, after forty years virtual suspension of the law against the slave-trade, and any attempt to excite popular sympathy in his behalf failed signally. It would be well if our own politicians, who are so fond of demonstrating, on abstract grounds, that the war going on in the Union has no bearing on the question of slavery, could look more to facts and less to theories. E. D.