The Truth About America

More or less introductory--Americans and Yankees not synonymous--Want of courtesy in the States--The Press--Voyage out--New York climate 1

CHAPTER II.

New York--National types--American currency--The States as a cheap domicile 19

CHAPTER III.

Why I went to America--Agents in London and the Eden promised--New York to New Orleans--Railroads in the States--American scenery--Ranch life--Deserts in the States--Antelope Valley 42

CHAPTER IV.

San Francisco--Army and Navy--International Court--Pacific coast--Californian ranch--Social customs--Good-bye, California! 94

CHAPTER V.

Nevada--Utah--Wyoming--Denver--A restless night--Seeking for a ranch--Ranch work--Colorado Springs, the Sanitarium of Western America 133

CHAPTER VI.

Ranch again--Tea--American press--Celebrities victimized--Last journey--Chicago--Beauty--Niagara missed--New York--Atlantic--Home 195

THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

More or less introductory--Americans and Yankees not synonymous--Want of courtesy in the States--The Press--Voyage out--New York climate.

Apart from the object with which most authors write, viz. to make money, I purpose this little book to serve three objects.

Firstly, to make the United States of America, and the Americans, better known than they are at present to the mass of the English public.

Secondly, to put a certain class of emigrants on their guard against the machinations of a few agents in London, who victimize them not a little.

Thirdly, to let the many who suffer from pulmonary diseases in Europe know that across the Atlantic is a cure-place excelling, owing to its peculiar climate, any in the Eastern hemisphere.

That my own knowledge of the United States is a superficial one, I admit in stating I was there not quite five months. If I have a talent for anything, it is the power of absorbing facts and describing them later. I kept no journal in America, but I made copious notes of all I saw and heard while the impressions were fresh. As I view all these in a bundle on the table before me, I feel that I must describe succinctly, to bring all I have to say into a "little book," and there are weighty reasons, with me at least, why it should be no more.

As my book will be truthfully written, and my intentions are good, success will not elevate me much, blame will not depress me. If the book is a fair picture, as far as it goes, of a vast and wonderful tract on the earth's surface, if it shows clearly the prevailing characteristics of the Americans, what there is for us (the English) to copy, what to avoid, if it prove of use to the ever-increasing class of emigrants, and if it is readable and amusing withal, I shall be more than satisfied.