ENGLISH PHARISEES AND
FRENCH CROCODILES.
CHAPTER I.
FOREIGNERS.
People very often speak ill of their neighbors, not out of wickedness, but merely out of laziness; it is so much easier to do so than to study their qualities and all the circumstances that might oblige you to change your opinion.
For instance, some fifty years ago, a great English wit, Sydney Smith, said that it required a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke.
Well, an English joke, he probably meant.
However, the satire was neatly expressed. When the English get hold of a good joke, and see it, it lasts them a long time.
The Scotch are a hundred times more witty and humorous than the English; but John Bull still goes on affirming that "it requires a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke."
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