Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — OTHER NATIONS DISLIKE THEM. [ARTICLE]

OTHER NATIONS DISLIKE THEM.

An English Writer Severely Criticises His Own Countrymen. A writer in the London Truth speaking of the fact that the English, as a rule, are disliked by people of other nations, says some frankly disagreeable things about his fellow countrymen. We English, he writes, are by no means a lovable race. We have many admirable qualities. We are a hardy, practical, persevering people; but these are not in themselves sympathetic properties We are aggressive, self-assertative, purse-proud, and hypocritical. We are apt to sing psalms and pick pockets at one and the same time, and our neighbors, not altogether unjustly, therefore, resent the overrighteous tone that we adopt in criticising them and their concerns. Wherever the Englishman goes he has the fatal influence of spoiling even the most simple of characters. A fewBritish tourists will make the inhabitants of the most inexperienced province shrewd, suspicious, grasping and dishonest. This is within the common knowledge of any who have traveled in little-visited lands, and a consideration of this phenomenon will enable us the better, perhaps, to understand why our neighbors, and more especially the French, so heartily detest us. It is also a curious fact that whenever there are any general elections to be held in the great republics the most popular policy is to twist the tail of the British lion. It would be instructive, as a subject for the dull season, to discuss the question, “Are we English really much superior to all other nations ? ” I think we are; but apparently our neighbors thinks otherwise ; and it might be well, therefore, to discover whether we are mistaken or whether they ate stupidly prejudiced.