Mr. Barnum is quite ready to give Englishmen a good
charac- ter for not offending general American taste. He differs with Mr. Goldwin Smith in thinking that the Americans hate the English, and declares it as the experience of forty years that they entertain for the English a "profound and sincere friendship." Perhaps Mr. Barnum may be a little biassed in this opinion by his special experience, Englishmen in America being, we suppose, in their very small way, a sort of lions, and so far agreeable, like others of Mr. Barnum's novelties, to American curiosity. But as far as we know, though his favourable opinion of us, as zither pleasing than otherwise to American taste, may be too strongly expressed, he is, on the whole, right. Americans are always kind to English- men personally, but they are not kind to England. England strikes them as containing something besides Englishmen, and that something offensive. They like us fairly as units, but they can't endure the historical and political conglomerate of which they think when they name us ass people. And it is their fidgetty tendency to warn us of this; by a course of protest
against the inferences which might seem to be warranted from their personal kindness, which leads to the false impression that they hate us. After all, it is moral scruple,—the _anxiety lest they should be misunderstood,—which leads the Americans to say so many unpleasant things to their English friends. As for us, we don't indulge in such scruples. Perhaps we are not good- natured enough to fear any misapprehension of our amiability.
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