"From Dublin to Chicago" by James Owen Hannay. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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James Owen Hannay. From Dublin to Chicago
From Dublin to Chicago
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE
CHAPTER II. PRESSMEN AND POLITICIANS
CHAPTER III. THE "HUSTLING" LEGEND
CHAPTER IV. HOLIDAY FEVER
CHAPTER V. THE IRON TRAIL
CHAPTER VI. ADVANCE, CHICAGO!
CHAPTER VII. MEMPHIS AND THE NEGRO
CHAPTER VIII. THE LAND OF THE FREE
CHAPTER IX. WOMAN IN THE STATES
CHAPTER X. MEN AND HUSBANDS
CHAPTER XI. THE OPEN DOOR
CHAPTER XII. COLLEGES AND STUDENTS
CHAPTER XIII. THE IRISHMAN ABROAD
Отрывок из книги
James Owen Hannay
Published by Good Press, 2021
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I noticed, when in New York, that it takes a posted letter much longer to get from one street in that city to another quite near at hand than it does in London for a letter posted in the same way to get from Denmark Hill to Hampstead. I connect this fact with the dislike of letter-writing which is prevalent among Americans. But I do not know which is cause and which is effect. It may be that the American avoids letters because he knows that they will go to their destination very slowly. It may be, on the other hand, that the American post-office has dropped into leisurely ways because it knows that it is seldom used for business purposes. Love letters it carries, no doubt, for it is difficult to express tender feelings on a telephone, and impossible to telegraph them; but love letters are hardly ever urgent. The "Collins" or "Hospitable Roof" communication must be a letter and must go through the post, but the writer and the recipient would both be better pleased if it never arrived at all. Business letters are different things, and I am sure the American post-office carries comparatively few of them.
I wish that some one with a taste for statistics would make out a table of the weights of the mail bags carried on Cunard steamers. I am convinced, and nothing but statistics will make me think differently, that the westward bound ships carry far more letters than those which travel eastward. All Englishmen, except for obvious reasons English journalists, write letters whenever they have a decent excuse. Americans only write letters when they must. It was, I think, the late Charles Stewart Parnell who observed that most letters answered themselves if you leave them alone long enough. This is profoundly true, although Englishmen do not believe it. I have tried and I know. Americans have either come across Parnell's remark or worked out the same truth for themselves. I applaud their wisdom, but I was once sorry that they practice this form of economy. If we had got an answer to our letter before we sailed, we should have left the coat behind us. As it was, we took the coat with us and carried it about America, giving ourselves indeed a good deal of trouble and reaping very little in the way of comfort or credit by having it. When we did get the letter it showed us that the Americans really do object strongly to these coats and have made a law against them. If we had known that before starting, we should have left the coat behind us at any cost to our feelings.
