As Yankees See Us; or, the Customs of the Cockneys.
By Leander Richardson. (Griffith, Ferran, and Co.)—In a note prefixed to this book, the English editor observes that he does not suppose the author intends his countrymen to accept literally all his statements about English manners and customs ; but while admitting that some of Mr. Richardson's strictures are based on exaggeration, he considers that the book supplies " entertaining reading." We think, on the contrary, that these sketches of London life are as dull as they are frequently inaccurate. The humour is forced and wearisome, and when, which happens sometimes, Mr. Richardson writes seriously, he is at once confident and ignorant. What are we to think of a news- paper correspondent who can deliberately affirm that "the English rule in Ireland provides for hanging first and investigating afterwards, or not at all," and that Myles Joyce was " murdered with the direct connivance of Lord Spencer and the Government officials, who knew as well as Joyce himself that he was absolutely guiltless F" Not content with this barefaced assertion, the writer adds that among the men arrested for the Maamstrasna murder, the Government "picked out the most timid and ignorant, and said to them, ' You must swear to the guilt of these men. If you do not, we have evidence which is ample to hang you upon. If you do, you are saved.' Trembling and terrified, the men did as they were bid." The absurdities of the book are manifold, and will be contradicted by the daily experience of every English reader. For example, the writer states that a lady of attractive appearance cannot shop by herself in London without meeting with insult, that "no reasonably good- looking girl can walk a block in London in the day-time without being approached by half-a-dozen of the flower of English snobbery," and that "women may walk about at night with four times the security they can command by daylight." It is but fair to add that Mr. Richardson does succeed in pointing out, though with consistent exaggeration, several of the moral and social evils that infect the life of London.
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