I don't hold to all these new improvements.
They've been going too far in this Commonwealth." "What have they been doing ?" I asked.
"Doing!" he returned, "Why, they're gradually taking the cuspidors out of the church pews!" Before the question of dialect is dropped, it should be said that those who do not believe the soft southern pronunciation is derived from negroes, can make out an interesting case.

If, they ask, the negro has corrupted the English of the South, why is it that he has not also corrupted the language of the West Indies--British and French?
French negroes speak like French persons of white blood, and British West Indian negroes often speak the cockney dialect, without a trace of "nigger." Moreover, it is pointed out that in southern countries, the world over, there is a tendency to soften the harsh sounds of language, to elide, and drop out consonants.

The Andalusians speak a Spanish comparable in many of its peculiarities with the English of our own South, and the south-Italians exhibit similar dialectic traits.

Nor do the parallels between the north and south of Spain and Italy, and of the United States, end there.

The north-Italians and north-Spaniards are the "Yankees" of their respective countries--the shrewd, cold business people--whereas the south-Italians and south-Spaniards are more poetic, more dashing, more temperamental.