BY T. W. H. CROSLAND Author of “Lovely Woman” and “The Unspeakable Scot” London: A. F. THOMPSON & CO. 92 Fleet Street, E.C. 1907...

“And what, prithee, hath overtaken Guy?” “Guy—why Guy diced and drabbed and ruffled away his inheritance, and to save his neck took shipping for the tobacco plantations where, they say, he married a daughter of Lo, the poor Indian, and none hath since heard of him.” This is the kind of talk that one could hear in the clubs of London a matter of, say, two hundred and fifty years ago. In plain terms, Guy, poor devil, being a wastrel,—and a broken wastrel at that—had betaken himself to America, the

The population of the United States, according to the last census returns, is about a hundred millions. Names in American directories invariably begin with Aarons and end with Zaccharia, and millionaires are marked with a star—thus *. In a town, or—as the puffed up merchant in stars and stripes would call it a city—of fifty thousand inhabitants you will find that the local directory stars quite twenty-five thousand as millionaires. It is pretty certain that fully ninety-nine per cent. of these b

“In the Ortum of 18— my friend, the editor of the Baldissville Bugle, was obleged to leave perfeshernal dooties & go & dig his taters, & he axed me to edit for him doorin his absence. Accordinly I ground up his Shears and commenced. It didn’t take me a grate while to slash out copy enuff from the xchanges for one issoo, and I thawt I’d ride up to the next town on a little Jaunt, to rest my Branes which had bin severely rackt by my mental efforts (This is sorter Ironical)

But possibly the fault is mine. You see I’m English. Perhaps the above example of the New Humour is really a choice sample of the New Pathos. Again; and this smacks of genius:...

As to prose, here you are:...

“Some time ago two surgeons took a ten-pound tumor out of Dave Saunders, an’ to-day he got a terrible big bill for the operation.” “Is Dave goin’ to pay it?” “No; he sez, ‘they’ve got enough out of him already.’”...

Behold the tippler and mark how he tippeth in the streets. Whoso hath discolouration of the optic? Is it not the meddler? Yea. He that is a lunkhead condemneth that which he comprehendeth not. Be thou not envious of them that have vacation in time of influenza. I have not gone out of my way to search for these excerpts in the cheaper class of American comic publication. Nor have I been at special pains to search for blemishes through the files of the ten cent “high class journal” which is laid u

The abounding gentleman from Idaho, or Cincinnati, or Nahant, will tell you that the American woman is a dream of beauty and goodness. If I am to credit the American he would not take eighty thousand dollars for her—no, sir! At least, he doesn’t calculate that he would. The American woman, sir, is a peach. The American man believes in her down to the soles of his store boots, and has been educated to regard her as a being of angelic antecedents and destiny. Far be it from a simple scribbler to p

Mr. William Dean Howells, who is one of the leaders of that small band of American authors who have a right to literary consideration in England, has lately published an entertaining romance which he calls “Through the Eye of the Needle.” With Mr. Howells’s story as a story I have nothing to do. In the process of relating it Mr. Howells offers us some candid criticisms of his countrymen which will serve to illustrate the real opinion of the cultivated American as to himself, and all that to him

It is said that killing a man will not prevent him from going to Chicago, and you may be certain that nothing will prevent an American from getting himself elected President of the United States if he can possibly manage it. The United States Presidency is believed by the patriotic American to be the very finest position that mortal man could possibly desire to occupy, outshining in glory and honour, if not exactly in importance, all “the effete thrones of Yurrup” rolled into one paroxysm of pur

“The man who would in business rise must either bust or advertise” is the American’s article of faith. In civilised countries advertising is confined to its proper limits, that is to say, it is part of the business of a tradesman. In America everybody advertises, and advertises through a megaphone. The United States appears to have been created for the pure purpose of advertising itself and everything that occurs in it. In England of late we have been a little overtroubled with the persistent an

I am in the happy position of never having gazed upon a pea-nut in my life. Therefore my notions of what the pea-nut may be are of the haziest. But I gather as the result of some research that it is a species of provender, and that it is purchased and consumed by the American masses in pretty much the same spirit and on pretty well the same occasions that the common Cockney of our own happy British Islands purchases and devours barcelonas and whelks. In other words, a pea-nut is an inevitable co

The Americans are nothing if not fiercely and incorrigibly theatrical. It is true that they have only one pose, namely, the pose of being gloriously and unaffectedly American. Yet in all the large issues of life they display a strong sense of the stage, they revel in the more obvious situations, and they have an innate love of a good curtain. These facts are strikingly illustrated in the American law courts, where all small matters are managed on the lines of comedy, and all large matters on the

The Americans are all “sports.” But to their credit, they are one and all “dead games.” They have a sporting tradition which extends back to the time when their great-grandfathers gambled for negresses and went trailing for Indians in pretty much the same way that an Englishman goes shooting wild duck. It is said, with what truth I know not, that the Americans hunt the fox in red coats and top-hats, and that they are yachtsmen and fishermen and big game killers. I have met a considerable number

The national peril of the United States is hogs. Of the peculiar and subtle influences which have driven most Americans into the pig business I find it impossible to formulate any reasonable account. Of course, there is the fact that the pig business has large monies in it, and that America is a country in which it would seem you have only to tickle a little pig with a hoe to turn him into a fine fat porker. There can be no doubt whatever that a very large percentage of Americans think, talk, an

Before I leave the jury of potent, grave and reverend Britishers to their own reflections on the subject before them, it may be well to indulge in a little summing-up. I have shown that the fiery, untameable American is a creature of more than doubtful antecedents, and that he conceals beneath a veneer of smartness and originality several qualities of mind and heart that are not greatly to his credit. I have shown that his destiny would seem to lie in the direction of a reversion to a condition