Society, Manners and Politics in the United States

Society, Manners and Politics in the United States is described as a series of letters on North America, and its author is Michel Chevalier. The notice says M. Chevalier was sent to this country in 1834, under the patronage of Thiers, then Minister of the Interior, to inspect our public works, and spent two years in visiting nearly all parts of the Union. The text says that among all the acquisitions which have enriched the domain of science since the end of the last century, none has opened a wider field than Volta's discoveries relative to the motion of electricity.

The text says what is called the Pennsylvania canal is a long line of 400 miles, starting from Philadelphia and ending at Pittsburg on the Ohio, and that from Philadelphia a railroad 81 miles in length extends to the Susquehanna at Columbia. The text says it would be a mistake to infer from what has been said that the American civilisation is superior to our own, and that the multitude in the United States is superior to the multitude in Europe while the higher classes in the New World are inferior to those of the Old.