Ir was n Scotch post who wrote the immortal lines wad some power the giftie gie us, Yo cee otirselves as others see us."
Such aspirations are, as we shall sea, less necessary south of the weed and eross the herring-pond than they are in Scotland, For whatever we inay think of the "and of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain snd the flood," the Scot never abuses it. He leaves it, Never in our experience have we come across such home troths told of Scottish people by Scotsmen as are of everyday occurrence in England and the United States. Probably gave iment by party is largely to blame for it. But however that may be, it cannot be gain said that the two countries last named need fear no temptation to think ton highly of themselves, if they will only take heed to the jeremiada, the philippics, and the pessimism of their own people. It is quite possible—Weare open to correction on this point—that the enormous growth of the recently published American dictionary, with a hundred thousand more words than Webster, is due to the invention of such political sling as "mugewamp, bulldozing, carpet-bagging," and the like. Whether that be so or not, we are prepared to stake our all on the statement, that there is not 2 Democratic journalist but is up to date with the newest of them, and that his Republican confreres are not 4 whit behind It is a most astonishing thing to an outsider that Americans should ever be able to hold up their heads at all, if they pay any attention to what their own papers say of them. But that of course they do not, and hence the sensitiveness to outside criticism, The American nation asa whole, not perhaps the best-informed circles, but the great majority who have sa rule ig but na opinion to guide them, are keenly alive to the criticism of their British or French visitors, They seem to think that by this means they may know something of the good points which Democrat denies to Republican and Republican refuses ta Democrat. It goes without saying that no foreign critic ever was capable of the sweeping criticism for which there is so much native precedent, No Englishman has ever found American Society "worse than that of Imperial Rome," neither has he described every American political institution ay "a mixture of bribery amt falsehood cemented by corruption." He has even fonnd things to admire in the manicipal affairs of New York, and has expressed his belief that there are Americans in political life as clenu-handed as Brit-ushers in similar circumstances, Bat to do this he has had to speak in direct: contradiction to many of his American fellow-critics,; who for years have held up their institutions to ridicrile and contempt; have hedanhed the reputations of eminent. mon, and befouled the fair fame of society women; who would have us believe that to be politician in the American sense is to cease to be a gentlemen in the sense that Englishman under st it; and that members of Manici aa, State legislatures, and even of Congress itself are all afflicted with the disease which Shakespeare in Julius Caesar designates by the term an "itching palm." Much more of this kind of critical abuse might ba referred to, bat the above must suffice. Should an Englishman bring 9 spicy paragraph to the entice of an American friend, the reply. is stereotyped one: "You mustu't take that sort of thing seriously, Nohudy does, Our papers think it amort; bat it doesn't deceive anybody." If the Britisher retort: " But are there no libel laws in your land?" the reply equally stereotyped: "That's only a fair sample of our criticism of public man. If they don't like it they can resign."
But there ara disadvantages, a Harper's Weekly points out. member of Senate who by-and-by becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs is given, as Sherman has sometimes done, to talk too plainly in diplomatic affairs, mhereupon the more formal Europeans shrug their shoulders at the fresh onto burst of Western rudeness, and Amorican travellers who know what " good form " is, are reduced to the hu mili: necessity of explaining that this pecaliarly characteristic action of the Western diplomat must not bg held to mean all that it says. This is the " He's-all-right-when-you-know-hiwn " sort. of apulogy, and, as Harper's says, must be distinctly "humiliating."
The article to which we refer takes its home readers to task other grounds. They are lacking in civilisntion, it says, and in proof thereof addaces the defiance and contempt for law exemplified in the horribly brutal cases of lynching, Here a; wo'one from the outside could s: thing stronger than the best papers of the States. Lynching is-held- up: to- the reprobation it deserves; but there xre scores and hundreds of other sheets which not only defend, but glory in these disgraceful outbursts; "and ministers of the Guspel have not been to juin in the proof that they and their congregations as well as.the editors of their papers do indeed lack civilisation as this writer above referred to declares.
But it was ever so in Anglo-Saxon lands, Do yon want to know what you really are? Ask your brother. Has society belle too great n faith in her own charms, the same brother will tell her the homely trath. But—she will not take it seriously. Neither does any land take to heart the plain advice.of its own sons, If there be no other escape from a pebulinrly painful dilemma, we fall back upon "the system," which like " corporation has no soul to be naved, wor body to be kicked. Even in business matters everything is not ad it shankd be in the States, Protection has done much to set the consumer against the producer, and to this is doubtless due soma of the virulence in the endless attacks upon trusts, plutocrats, and manufacturers generally. Puck goys farther, and in a recen' ne declares that order to sell their wares American mannfacturars do not hesitate to staup to the dodge of placing deceptive labelt upon them with the legends "Made in England," or "Made in Germany," us the case may be. This, if it be trae—for Puck may by referring merely to Republic mannfacturers—is quite a come dow" for the native home of artificial eggs and wooden nutmegs. It argues detent—1 word which is to be found in the biggest of American dictionaries only for reference to foreign lauds. It is an acknowledgment that as yat the mother country can more than hold her own in some things against her giant son, As Britishers, of course we knew this before, but it is a distinct sign of progress for Uncle Sam's cumic papers to acknowledge it, Nothing is so helpful to "getting on" as a clear knowledge of whut is keeping us back, In glancing at Amerienns' opinions of Americans we are struck with their similarity to those of British for British, The main difference lies in the age of the two lands. England has come ta years of discretion, even us nations go, for centuries. Nhe United States are growing, and have by no means arrived at, or near, maturity, but there are unmistakeable signs that the young giant of the West is to follow very closely in the footsteps of his hoary old parent. We shall be more than pleased when the following is finished, and the two march onward side by side, and hand in hand.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.