PREFACE

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.


Within a few years past, several of our visitors from the other side of
the Atlantic, have published their views of our country and her
institutions. Basil Hall, Hamilton and others, in their attempts to
describe the working of the democratic principle in the United States,
have been unfavorably influenced by their opposite political
predilections. On the other hand, Miss Martineau, who has strong
republican sympathies, has not, at all times, been sufficiently careful
and discriminating in the facts and details of her spirited and
agreeable narrative.

The volume of Mr. Sturge, herewith presented, is unlike any of its
predecessors. Its author makes no literary pretensions. His style, like
his garb, is of the plainest kind; shorn of every thing like ornament,
it has yet a truthful, earnest simplicity, as rare as it is beautiful.
The reader will look in vain for those glowing descriptions of American
scenery, and graphic delineations of the peculiarities of the American
character with which other travellers have endeavored to enliven and
diversify their journals. Coming among us on an errand of peace and good
will--with a heart oppressed and burdened by the woes of suffering
humanity--he had no leisure for curious observations of men and manners,
nor even for the gratification of a simple and unperverted taste for the
beautiful in outward nature. His errand led him to the slave-jail of the
negro-trafficker--the abodes of the despised and persecuted colored