AMERICAN TRAITS.

It is usual in this country to regard the Americans as a homogeneous people, and to accept the Yankee as a fair type of the whole nation. But this is a fallacy. The inhabitants of the South, and more especially the descendants of the early French and Spanish colonists to be found in the Gulf States, differ radically in their morals, manners, and customs from the population of other sections of the Union. It is not, however, our purpose in this paper to enter into an extended disquisition upon the characteristics of the people of the United States, our object being simply to touch briefly upon a few of their more prominent traits. The Puritan element in the character of the first settlers of New England has exercised an influence upon social life there which has not been confined to that limited area, but has made itself felt, in a more or less marked degree, throughout the whole of the Northern States. The differences of race and climate have, however, not only been obstacles to the inhabitants of the South accepting the Puritan standard of morals, but have also prevented the development of those traits of character to be found in the population of other parts of the country, and which are more peculiarly distinctive of the Americans as a people. We shall therefore limit ourselves to dealing with those national characteristics which have come under our observation in the Northern States.

That submission to the will of the majority which is inculcated by democratic institutions has exercised a marked influence upon the social no less than upon the political life of the people of the United States, save in the late Slave States. It has not only had the result of preventing the development of individuality of character, but likewise has considerably modified that obstinacy of temper and dogged tenacity of opinion which are to be found in the Anglo-Saxon race. The late Lord Beaconsfield on one occasion said in the House of Commons that a gentleman who had spent several years in America had declared to him that it was his belief that ‘the citizens of the republic were the most tractable people in the world, and the readiest open to conviction by argument.’

In the United States, the absence of that segregation of the various grades of society which exist in Europe is evinced by the habits and manners of the masses in that country. If the national independence of character be occasionally pushed too far, and degenerate into offensive self-assertion, at least it prevents any approach to servility. No inequality of position or circumstances will induce a native of any of the Northern States to submit to being dealt with in the manner or spoken to in the tone which, in England, the man in broadcloth too frequently adopts, as a matter of course, towards the man in fustian. The late Sydney Godolphin Osborne used to relate how, once, a respectable artisan said to him: ‘I like you, my lord; there is nothing of the gentleman about you.’ The meaning of the speaker was undoubtedly that Lord Osborne did not treat him in the patronising manner that members of the higher class usually address those whom they regard as their social inferiors. Now, no one perhaps has a keener appreciation of the advantages of wealth and education than the American; but that the possessor of them should feel himself justified in using towards the man who lacks these adventitious gifts the language of a superior to an inferior, is what he cannot understand, and which he will not for one moment put up with. An anecdote Thackeray used to relate of an experience of his when in the United States well illustrates this trait of the people. While in New York, he expressed to a friend a desire to see some of the ‘Bowery Bhoys,’ who, he had heard, were a class of the community peculiar to that city. So one evening he was taken to the Bowery, and he was shown a ‘Bhoy.’ The young man, the business of the day being over, had changed his attire. He wore a dress-coat, black trousers, and a satin waistcoat; whilst a tall hat rested on the back of his head, which was adorned with long well-greased hair—known as ‘soap-locks’—a style which the rowdies of that day affected. The youth was leaning against a lamp-post, smoking an enormous cigar; and his whole aspect was one of ineffable self-satisfaction. The eminent novelist, after contemplating him for a few moments with silent admiration, said to the gentleman by whom he was accompanied: ‘This is a great and gorgeous creature!’ adding: ‘Can I speak to him without his taking offence?’

Receiving an answer in the affirmative, Thackeray went up to the fellow, on the pretext of asking his way, and said: ‘My good man, I want to go to Broome Street.’

But the unlucky phrase, ‘My good man,’ roused the gall of the individual spoken to. Instead, therefore, of affording the information sought, the ‘Bhoy’—a diminutive specimen of humanity, scarcely over five feet in height—eyeing the tall form of his interlocutor askance, answered the query in the sense that his permission had been asked for the speaker to visit the locality in question, and he said, patronisingly: ‘Well, sonny, yer kin go thar.’

When Thackeray subsequently related the incident, he laughingly declared that he was so disconcerted by the unexpected response, that he had not the courage to continue the dialogue.

The question, however, differently put would, in all probability, have elicited a civil answer from ninety-nine out of a hundred of the members of the class to which the man belonged. In fact, the discourtesy, and even rudeness, of which some travellers in the United States complain have arisen from the fact of their failing to appreciate the difference existing between the social systems of that country and their own.

The wide gulf in culture which in England separates the upper and middle classes from the lower orders, does not exist in America. This has arisen from various causes. In the first place, the great bulk of the people of the Union are much better educated than is as yet the case in this country. The admirable system of common or, as they are termed, ‘public’ schools which prevails in America affords facilities for all children obtaining a sound English education without the payment by their parents of any school fees, and at a trifling cost to the taxpayer in all sections of the Union, and especially in the West, where large grants have been made of the State lands in support of the public schools. In the second place, the social status of the working classes who are natives of the United States has been raised by the fact that the Americans are almost exclusively engaged in avocations demanding intelligence and skilled labour. This has been owing to the circumstance that upon the coloured population and the Irish and German immigrants have devolved those coarse and irksome occupations which have to be followed by a portion of the inhabitants of other countries. To give one instance of this alone, it may be stated that rarely is a native American citizen, man or woman, found occupying the position of a domestic servant in any of the Atlantic cities.

The wages, too, commanded by artisans and mechanics averaging nearly double those of the same class in other countries, it follows, necessarily, that vice and crime—the inevitable concomitants of a state of society in which the condition of the mass of the lower classes is but one step removed from absolute indigence, as is the case in most European countries—are not nearly so prevalent in America. In the New England States, where the foreign population is small, there is not a country in Europe—possibly with the exception of Holland—where there is so little crime. Few persons, indeed, are aware how much the foreign element in the community, in many of the States, contributes to the statistics of the offences which come under the cognisance of the criminal tribunals. In the State of New York alone, seventy per cent. of the infractions of the law are committed by the Irish, whilst the fair ratio of this class in proportion to the whole population would be a little less than twenty per cent.

One of the most marked characteristics of the Americans is their rooted determination to resist any legislation which shall recognise any class distinctions in the community. Of course, no one contends that the man of wealth, education, and culture is not the superior, in one sense of the word, of him who lacks these. The equality insisted upon is simply this: that no class of society shall make the circumstance of enjoying these adventitious advantages a ground for the members of it basing a claim to be a separate caste, possessing rights and privileges—fenced in by law—denied to the bulk of their countrymen. This sentiment found expression in the opposition which the proposal met with, a few years ago, that persons in the Civil Service of the Federal government should be irremovable, save for misconduct, instead of being turned out of their places after every change of administration, as had previously been the case. It was argued that fixity of tenure of office would have the result of creating a bureaucracy, the members of which would come in time to regard themselves as a privileged class. That these apprehensions were unfounded, experience of the practical working of the new system of government patronage has proved. But the very fact of the objection having been raised at all shows how sensitive public opinion was on the subject.

One noticeable feature of American society is that in none of the Northern States does an officer in the army or navy enjoy the social status that he commands in all European countries. Holmes, in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, has commented upon this trait of his countrymen. He says: ‘It is curious to observe of how small account military folk are held among our Northern people. Our young men must gild their spurs, but they need not win them. The equal division of property keeps the younger sons of rich people above the necessity of military service. Thus, the army loses one element of refinement, and the moneyed upper classes forget what it is to count heroism amongst their virtues. Still, I don’t believe in any aristocracy without pluck as its backbone. Ours may show it when the day comes, if ever it does come.’

The opportunity for young men of the wealthier class proving their manhood came sooner than Holmes anticipated when he penned the above remarks; for less than three years later, the civil war broke out, and then this class were not slack in responding to the call of their country for their services. Numerous instances occurred of young men reared in luxury—unable to obtain commissions owing to their want of military training—shouldering muskets in the ranks of the Federal armies; and their patriotism received due recognition from their fellow-citizens. But in time of peace it is the members of the community who are engaged in those pursuits best remunerated who are held in the highest estimation—a necessary result of a condition of society in which wealth is the standard by which social position is measured and defined. The girl who in the French song exclaims, ‘Oh! que j’aime les militaires!’ utters a sentiment which as a rule finds no echo in the hearts of the American fair. An odd illustration of this fact came under the observation of the writer when he was resident in New York. A lady—whose brother had been educated at the government Military Academy at West Point—gave, in all seriousness, the reason why this gentleman, after graduating, had not accepted a commission in the army, in these words: ‘He had a higher ambition than to be a mere soldier, so he has become a dry-goods merchant.’

In New York, and indeed in all the larger Atlantic cities, a class has sprung up of late years which affects to look down upon the political and social institutions of their country. Mr Howells, in his novel A Woman’s Reason, speaking of one of the Upper Ten, says: ‘He saw what a humbug democracy and equality really were. He must have seen that nobody practically believes in them.’ This sentiment may accurately reflect the opinions of a limited class, but it is an absolute fallacy to assert that such views are generally entertained. On the contrary, they have not to any appreciable extent permeated the people at large, and there is not the slightest likelihood of their affecting the national life or changing its standards.

In closing these desultory observations upon some of the characteristic traits of the Americans, the writer may state that they are based upon personal observation during a residence of several years in the United States.