A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF

A SERIES OF ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN SCOTLAND IN

THE BEGINNING OF FEBRUARY 1879

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

OF.

THE UNITED STATES:

THE SUBSTANCE OF A SERIES OF ADDRESSES.'

I HAVE a strong belief that all of us ought to know the Americans better than we do. They are really and truly our kin. This is not a mere phrase. When one goes among them one finds that they are very little removed from us after all, and the community of language makes intimacy very easy. An intimate acquaintance and friendship with them must be most beneficial to both parties, in order to cultivate the arts of peace and material progress, and to avert the possibility of misunderstandings which have led, and might even yet lead to war between two sister countries, than which, in these modern days of destruction, nothing can be more awful or more terrible; but a risk to which we are always exposed as long as misunderstandings are possible. It seems to me very unfortunate that most of the popular English writers who have described the Americans have caricatured them; and that is so not only as regards the writers of the past who have suffered