Page:Doom of the Great City - Hay - 1880.djvu/58

 less readily from Transatlantic quills. Speaking of the lecturer’s manner his critic says: ‘He slaps his thighs till the noise resounds throughout the length and breadth of the hall. He drags himself almost on all fours from corner to corner, then knuckles himself, so to speak, back to the reading-desk, which he falls upon as if he would shiver it in pieces and then eat them. He double-shuffles and stamps on the floor till the uprising dust obscures him; he beats his breast, clenches his fist, clutches his hair, plays ball with the furniture, outhowls the roaring elements, streams with perspiration, foams at the mouth, paces up and down till he looks like a lion in a cage lashing his tail And such a mimic is he that when he placed a chair in the centre of the platform, and kept trotting around it to show how certain old fogies revolve in the same everlasting orbit, he actually resembled a dog trying to make time against his disappearing tail.

“It is natural that in a land where the art, or rather science, of advertising has been carried to so extraordinary a pitch of perfection, peculiar privileges should fall to the lot of those whose calling gives them in a pre-eminent degree the use of that highly-prized instrument—the trumpet of fame. Hence America has not inappropriately been termed the ‘Paradise of Editors.’ For some highly piquant details on the subject we will refer our readers to Mr. Day’s chapter. It must not be supposed that our author has confined his observations on American life to these brilliant sketches of men and manners in the ‘Empire City’. In his agreeable company we have the privilege of visiting the ‘city of brotherly love,’ as he terms Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania, and the second city of the United States as regards population; the ‘gay capitol,’ as the Americans delight to call Washington, the seat of government; and the ‘hub of the universe,’ as scholarly Boston, the home of authors and blue stockings, has been nicknamed. For Mr. Day’s impressions of these respectively representative centres of Transatlantic life and culture we must refer our readers to his bright and animated pages, of the spirit of which, at once genial and candid, we trust this review has given them some idea, however necessarily inadequate.”—Social Notes.

“Such an interesting and amusing book is sure to find plenty of readers. Nor will any one who takes it up lay it, down without profit as well as pleasure. It tells us about hotels and boarding-houses—those banes of family life—about popular preachers, and mediums, and free love, and tippling; besides taking us to Boston, and Washington, and Utah, and Philadelphia. Mr. Day by no means flatters the Americans; doubtless he thinks, with Dickens, that, having started on such high principles, they are bound to keep well above the European level. The New York tramcars, if cheap, are nasty. On trance mediums and others of the Sludge genus it is impossible to be too hard; Mr. Day does not spare them. Nor is he pleased with the popular preachers. Dr. Ward Beecher’s sermon he finds shocking in delivery, and below mediocrity in subject-matter and arrangement, although enlivened with sentences like this: ‘Some say lawyers can’t go to heaven. It’s a lie. Some say merchants can’t go to heaven. It’s a lie,” each sentence being emphasized with a violent stamp of the foot. There are some surprises in the book. We know the Americans are etiquettish, but we could not have imagined Emerson declining an invitation to dinner because he had no dress coat with him. Mormon women, we had often heard, are ugly; but that a ‘porter-house steak’ costs 5s., and that New York meat is not only very inferior, but very badly cooked, was news to us. American editors have wonderful privileges; in many places they get their food and clothing gratis in return for ‘personal’ articles. The book ought to be studied by all who want to see the shadows as well as the lights of American society.”—Graphic.

“We would not recommend Mr. Day to visit the United States for some time to come. The sweeping strictures that he passes on some of our cousins’ most cherished institutions would probably lead to his introduction to Judge Lynch. On this side of the Atlantic, however, we can afford to laugh at these revelations of the undercurrent of life in the States. The book will, however, serve to show those who believe in Mr. Bright’s doctrine of the immeasurable superiority of the United States over England that there is another and a very different side to the case. Between the unsparing censures of Mr. Day and the unmeasured praise of Mr. Bright, our kinsmen across the Atlantic may well wonder what is their real character.”—Globe.