COURTESY OF AMERICANS.

I like the Americans more and more: either they have improved wonderfully lately, or else the criticisms on them have been cruelly exaggerated. They are particularly courteous and obliging; and seem, I think, amiably anxious that foreigners should carry away a favorable impression of them. As for me, let other travelers say what they please of them, I am determined not to be prejudiced, but to judge of them exactly as I find them; and I shall most pertinaciously continue to praise them (if I see no good cause to alter my present humble opinion), and most especially for their obliging civility and hospitable attention to strangers, of which I have already seen several instances.

I have witnessed but very few isolated cases, as yet, of the unrefined habits so usually ascribed to them; and those cases decidedly were not among the higher orders of people; for there seems just as much difference in America as any where else in some respects. The superior classes here have almost always excellent manners, and a great deal of real and natural, as well as acquired refinement, and are often besides (which perhaps will not be believed in fastidious England) extremely distinguished-looking. By the way, the captains of the steamboats appear a remarkably gentlemanlike race of men in general, particularly courteous in their deportment, and very considerate and obliging to the passengers.—Lady Emeline Wortley.