I
noticed the walls of New York thickly posted with placards chiefly of an
inflammatory political character. Many of these breathed agrarian
principles, that would in Europe have been inadmissible, and would,
without doubt, have led to the immediate arrest and imprisonment of the
authors. Here, however, they are but little noticed by the populace, and
not at all, I believe, by the authorities. Cheap newspapers are pushed
into the face of the passer-by, at the corner of every principal
thoroughfare, the prices varying from two to six cents. These, as may be
supposed, contain, together with the current news, every description of
scandal and trash imaginable, their personality being highly offensive,
injurious, and reprehensible. Thus the freedom of the press is abused in
every part of America, and this powerful engine of "good or ill"
converted from a benefit (as it is if managed with propriety) into a
public nuisance.
One peculiarity, exceedingly annoying to an Englishman, which is
observable even in good society in New York and elsewhere in America, is
a prying curiosity as to the affairs of those with whom they converse.
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