Over Here: Impressions of America by a British officer

Your Son, Brother or Friend in Arms
It is your duty to instruct and advise him as to what is in store for him at the front. This book will give you the facts,—read it and counsel your boy for his physical and spiritual good, or better still send him a copy and call his attention to the chapters that you think will be of the greatest value to him.
If You Are an American
Read it for the true facts it will give you of the living and working and fighting under actual war conditions. It will help you understand what difficulties face our army, both officers and men, in France. You will thereafter read the war news and letters from the front with deeper sympathy and greater understanding.

During a year spent largely in Pennsylvania, with occasional visits to other states, I have found little to criticise, but rather much to admire, much indeed to love. America now means a great deal to me, since it contains so many people that I have learnt to care for, so I want to let my cousins as well as my own countrymen know my thoughts.
From the day that I landed in New York until the present moment, I have been treated with a kindliness that surpasses anything I thought possible in this world. I have been able to see, I hope, where misunderstanding has arisen, and, being a Highland Scotchman, I am able to express my feelings.
I have written more about persons than about places. Sometimes I laugh a little, but never unkindly; and I do this because I realize that American people rather appreciate a joke even at their own expense.
Often I have heard, over here, that it is impossible for an Englishman to see a good joke. A man told me once that the Kaiser was disguising his submarines as jests, with an obvious design. The idea was interesting to me, because if there is one thing that we Britons pride ourselves upon, it is our sense of humour. Of course, the explanation is obvious. Most humour is based upon the surprising incidents and coincidents of domestic relations, and how on earth are we poor British to appreciate specious American humour when we know nothing of American home life, and but little of American society?