Sketches of the South and !Vest. By Henry Deedes. (Blackwood.) —
Mr. Deedes gives us here the impression made upon him by nearly a year's travel and residence in the United States. He appears to have gone with and to have retained strong prepossessions in favour of the South. These, we cannot but think, sometimes make him unfair. He can hardly have taken decent pains, for instance, to ascertain the truth when he says, "The Northern armies were certainly commended, and chiefly officered by Americans, bat the hordes of soldiers were the rabble of all countries, born Americans being very rarely found in the ranks, excepting amongst the troops raised in the West." No justice is done to the devotion shown in the New England States, and our correspondent, "A Yankee," who gave the exact figures, has shown that the native-born Americans formed a very largely preponderating part of the rank and file of the Northern armies. Apart from this fault, the book is pleasant and readable enough ; and it certainly contains one or two very good stories. What could be better than this, as illustrating the rapid progress of Western cities ? A traveller at Chicago, finding that all the hotels were full, guessed "that he would sleep out on the prairie." This accordingly he did, and found, when he awoke in the morn- ing, that an hotel had been built over him. Very good, too, is the story, though it is not of so decidedly American a flavour, of the old lady whop when asked how she felt on her pony running away, replied, "Well, Sir, I trusted in Providence till the breeching broke, and then I jumped out."'
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