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An Autumn Tour

in the

United States and Canada.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY-THE UNITED STATES.

The

THERE are few of the usual attractions to tempt the ordinary tourist to America. voyage across the Atlantic is always rather formidable, the cost of travelling is high especially since the Civil War, and the country has but few antiquities or historical memorials, -its cities and public buildings being mere copies of those in Europe. Even its natural beauties, great as they are, have scarcely enough speciality about them to tempt the traveller to undertake the voyage and the many hundred miles of wearisome travel necessary to reach them.

B

Yet, to the thoughtful and intelligent English traveller, there are, I think, ample inducements to be offered. It must surely be interesting to see this vast territory, so lately a part of the mother country, being gradually settled and peopled-to mark how the energy and ability of the race to which he himself belongs have, in so short a time, built large cities, cultivated great tracts of country, covered them with a network of railways and canals, and introduced all the modern appliances of science and civilisation into what was but a few years ago an uncleared wilderness—above all, to observe the development of English laws, social customs, and political principles, under totally different circumstances from those under which they originated.

Whether I may class myself amongst the thoughtful and intelligent or not, such, at any rate, were the motives that had long made me anxious to visit the United States ; and though the time which I was able to devote to my visit was unfortunately but too short, still I trust I have brought away some clear impressions of the country and people, which are in the main truthful, as they certainly are honest. I went with every disposition to be pleased and with no pre-conceived theories to

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