Let no one who wishes to receive agreeable impressions of American manners, commence their travels in a Mississippi steam boat; for myself, it is with all sincerity I declare, that I would infinitely prefer sharing the apartment of a party of well conditioned pigs to the being confined to its cabin.
I hardly know any annoyance so deeply repugnant to English feelings, as the incessant, remorseless spitting of Americans.
I feel that I owe my readers an apology for the repeated use of this, and several other odious words; but I cannot avoid them, without suffering the fidelity of description to escape me.

It is possible that in this phrase, "Americans," I may be too general.

The United States form a continent of almost distinct nations, and I must now, and always, be understood to speak only of that portion of them which I have seen.

In conversing with Americans I have constantly found that if I alluded to anything which they thought I considered as uncouth, they would assure me it was local, and not national; the accidental peculiarity of a very small part, and by no means a specimen of the whole.

"That is because you know so little of America," is a phrase I have listened to a thousand times, and in nearly as many different places.