OLD-WORLD QUESTIONS AND NEW-WORLD ANSWERS. NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION. "I was interested in Mr. Pidgeon's book, because he not only told me something new of my own country, but even of my own native State, and something which has interested me very much."-Mr. RUSSELL LOWELL'S Speech at the Society of Arts, January 22, 1885. "His book abounds in information with regard to several of the leading industries of the districts which he visited, and of the social life which prevails in them."Saturday Review. "A most interesting and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Great Republic's social condition. . . . The record, written with spirit, humour, and singularly keen observation, of a rambling tour among the manufacturing towns and villages of New England. . . . We would fain follow Mr. Pidgeon through the fascinating narrative of his journeyings among the seats of industry in which the New Englander is the only operative. They are almost idyllic pictures which he paints with so deft a brush of the workshops and their surroundings.”—Pall Mall Gazette. "Mr. Pidgeon's former work, 'An Engineer's Holiday,' left nothing to be desired in the way of fresh and vigorous description of the United States of America, and his personal impressions of men and matters there. . . . The volume before us is a useful and interesting supplement of the previous narrative. In it the author treats the industries, resources, institutions, and customs of the New World in their relation to, and as bearing upon, the present and future of those of the Old World, in a luminous and direct fashion, which will prevent the subject from being found dry by readers to whom it may not appeal with any special interest."t."-Spectator. "The most delightful work on America that it has been our fortune to read for some years past." Standard. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. AN ENGINEER'S HOLIDAY; Or, NOTES OF A ROUND TRIP FROM LONG. 0° TO 0o. New and cheaper Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. "Mr. Pidgeon's book has a special value from the fact that he has noted down a very great deal more than most travellers. He appears to be one of those happy persons who are born with eyes, and to have acquired the use of them for practical purposes."-Saturday Review. "Mr. Pidgeon seems to have no prejudices and few predilections. He studied men and manners wherever he went, and gives his results in simple language, without literary ornateness. His praise of California and doubts about the future of Japan have specially struck us."—Academy. "This is the most interesting work of its comprehensive kind since 'Greater Britain.""-Spectator. "It is agreeable, as it is unusual, to come on a book of travel having so much that is fresh to say, and which combines so happily good sense and brightness."— Morning Post. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & Co. AND NEW-WORLD ANSWERS BY DANIEL PIDGEON, F.G.S., Assoc. INST. C.E. AUTHOR OF "AN ENGINEER'S HOLIDAY; OR, notes of a ROUND TRIP FROM LONG. 0° TO 。°" SECOND EDITION LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1885 PREFACE. THE United States of America are a great alembic, into which the emigrant vessels of Europe are constantly pouring a vast quantity of unknown, doubtful and even explosive matters; the raw material of the American people that is yet to be. The "American," such as I would distinguish him, is a social alchemist, the inheritor of a philosopher's stone, bequeathed him by a pious, free and courageous ancestry, and competent, as he believes, to transmute national character from base to sterling metal. Democracy is his social solvent, the common school his crystallizing agent and intelligent freedom the shining product which he seeks in his laboratory. His arduous. task is to separate obstinacy from English courage, superstition from French thrift, indolence from Irish shrewdness, want of enterprise from Scandinavian industry, shiftlessness from negro docility, and indifference from Chinese skill and patience. |