ABSTRACT
The first impression of an English traveller in the United States is likely to be that he has come to a country where there is certainly more democracy, and perhaps more individual liberty, than there is in Great Britain. There is far more democratic sentiment. Shop assistants, though very obliging, treat customers as equals; there is very little of ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. The haircutter has the same manner as a university man, of solicitude based upon kindness, not upon a sense of the monetary value of your patronage. There is no cringing, no oily subservience, no touching of hats. All this is refreshing and agreeable. It results from the fact that feudalism and aristocracy have been unknown in the United States since 1776, and were felt to be alien even before that time.
