I met a man, on the train, yesterday—­a New York man (he said he was)—­of very agreeable manners.  He told me what his business was, and when I told him my business in New York, he surprised me by asking:  “What are you going to say to them in your speech that will be real sassy, and calculated to make all their pet corns ache?” I told him I did not know what he meant, that of course I should say nothing but the most pleasant things I could think of; that, in fact, I intended to read my speech, lest, in the agitation of the moment, I might overlook some complimentary impromptu little touch.  Then he laughed and said:  “Why, that isn’t the way to do at all—­in New York.  It is easy to see you are a stranger, and don’t read the papers.  The correct thing nowadays is for the guest to criticise his entertainers.  Mayor So-and-So always does it.  And only last year—­it was at an Irish banquet, too—­the speaker of the evening, a Down-Easter like yourself, just spilled boiling vitriol over the whole company, and rubbed it in.”

I told him I didn’t believe that story, and asked him to tell me the gentleman’s name.  And he only answered me, evasively:  “I didn’t say he was a gentleman.”

I trust I know better than to say anything uncomplimentary about the Press of New York, which compiles, or constructs, news for the whole Continent, not only before our slower communities have heard of the things chronicled, but often, with commendable enterprise, before they have happened.

I admire the Press of New York.  There are a great many Boston men on it, and I have no mission to reform it.  In New York, when you have a surplus of journalistic talent, you export it to London, where it is out of place—­some of it.  The feverish race for priority, which kills off so many American journalists, sometimes, it would seem, almost before their time (but that is a matter of opinion), is unknown in London.  A man who reads the “London Times,” regularly and conscientiously, is guaranteed forever against insomnia.  London “Punch” is a paper which the severest ascetic may read, all through Lent, without danger to his sobriety of soul.

London gets even with you, too.  You send her an Astor, and she retaliates with a Stead.  We ought to deal gently with Mr. Stead; for he says that we are all children of the one “Anglo-Saxon” family—­without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude.  He avers that England looks upon America as a brother, and that may be so.  It is not easy, at this distance of time, to know just how Romulus looked upon Remus, how Esau looked upon Jacob, how Cain looked upon Abel—­but I have no doubt that it was in about the same light that England looks upon America—­fraternally!  But she ought not to afflict us with Mr. Stead.  We have enough to bear without him.