A great many of our ideas about American manners are mere traditions of an utterly gone-by state of things, as far away from their present manners (for changes are rapidly effected in America) as our own present manners are from those of Squire Western’s and Parson Trulliber’s day. In travelling 8,000 miles, through all parts of the Union, I never once saw, even in the woods of the South, or on the prairies of the West, any more than in New York or Boston, a _table d’hôte_ dinner, served, at the sound of a bell, at one time for all the guests of the house, upon which a scramble ensued for every dish. I should be surprised to hear that this practice now existed in a single hotel in the Union. The method of proceeding, which is now universal, is for every single person, or party of persons, to be served separately. Nor are the middle-class Americans, who are the chief frequenters of hotels, more rapid in despatching their meals than we are. They are the reverse of talkative. They are not inquisitive. They are far more civil and helpful to one another and to strangers than Englishmen are. Those whom we should consider in good society are in a very high degree quiet and unassuming. I never heard an American use the word ‘Siree’ for Sir; nor did I ever hear one ‘guess’; nor was I ever asked to ‘liquor.’ And so one might go on with many other things which were once American practices, but have been utterly abandoned. The fact is that the Americans are the most reasonable and teachable people in the world. Prove to an Englishman that he is wrong, and he will cling to his mistake more closely than before. Prove to the Americans that they are wrong, and the whole people will, as if they were one man, readily abandon their mistake. [Sidenote: _Our Diplomacy with America._] I left Washington by an early train. Trains, as is the case with the hours for breakfast and for business, are earlier in the United States than in England. On coming down to the bar of the hotel at 5 A.M., I found that the night service of the hotel had spent their long watch in listening to Mr. Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist,’ each reading aloud in his turn.