All These Patronising Airs, I Doubt Not, Were Assumed
Purposely To Impress The Minds Of Those Worthy People With An Idea
Of Their Vast Superiority.
I have sometimes, I confess, been a
little annoyed with the familiarity of the Americans, Canadians as
well as Yankees; but I must say that experience has taught me to
blame myself at least as much as them.
If, instead of sending our
youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the
natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British
abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the
cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in
wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they
would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to
them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities
would soon be rubbed off by the rough towel of democracy.
It is curious to observe the remarkable diversity in the accounts
given by recent emigrants to this country of their treatment, and of
the manners and character of the people in the United States and in
Canada. Some meet with constant kindness, others with nothing but
rudeness and brutality. Of course there is truth in both accounts;
but strangers from an aristocratical country do not usually make
sufficient allowance for the habits and prejudices of a people of a
land, in which, from the comparatively equal distribution of
property, and the certain prosperity attendant on industry, the
whole constitution of society is necessarily democratical,
irrespectively of political institutions. Those who go to such a
country with the notion that they will carry everything before them
by means of pretence and assumption, will find themselves grievously
deceived. To use a homely illustration, it is just as irrational to
expect to force a large body through a small aperture. In both cases
they will meet with unyielding resistance.
When a poor and industrious mechanic, farmer, or labourer comes here
without pretensions of any kind, no such complaints are to be heard.
He is treated with respect, and every one seems willing to help him
forward. If in after-years the manners of such a settler should grow
in importance with his prosperity - which is rarely the case - his
pretensions would be much more readily tolerated than those of any
unknown or untried individual in a higher class of society.
The North Americans generally are much more disposed to value people
according to the estimate they form of their industry, and other
qualities which more directly lead to the acquisition of property,
and to the benefit of the community, than for their present and
actual wealth. While they pay a certain mock homage to a wealthy
immigrant, when they have a motive in doing so, they secretly are
more inclined to look on him as a well-fledged goose who has come to
America to be plucked. In truth, many of them are so dexterous in
this operation that the unfortunate victim is often stripped naked
before he is aware that he has lost a feather.
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