Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Industry, Technology, Nationalism, Cultural Geography, Progress, Steamships, Railways, Telegraphy, Machinery, Manufactories, Gender, Race, Commerce

    Written in the style of a boastful Yankee, responds to an extract from an article in the New York Herald which claims that the United States of America is now rich enough to 'do without' John Bull's money and can 'whip him in a matter of muscle' as well as inventions, including steamboats, india-rubber shoes, city railways, sewing-machines, the electric telegraph, and reading machines. The writer agrees, emphasising that 'In steam en-gines and goloshes we air no small snakes, and we beat you ind and ind in any game you're up to [...] or any other skientific sort o' time-slaughter'. Admits that while 'Our steamers air first-chop [...] they du bust up', but boasts that unlike the English 'we don't turn our young women into sewing machines'.