A physician makes observations on American life for an English audience. A memoir of the doctor, born in New Hampshire, which leads him toward commentary on American politics, slavery, education, and morality.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
George H. Devol was the greatest riverboat gambler in the history of the Mississippi. Born in Ohio in 1829, he ran away from home and worked as a cabin boy at age ten. At fourteen he could stack a deck of cards. Over the years, he bilked soldiers, paymasters, cotton buyers, thieves, and businessmen alike. He fought more fights than anyone, and was never beaten. This is his story. Nobody was ever bored by it.
Excerpt from Forty Years of American Life, Vol. 2 of 2 English tourists in America become better acquainted with the life of hotels, railways, and steamboats - the life of the floating and voyaging population of America - than any other. Most of them do not seem to like it. From first to last they have done little but find fault. It is all different from, or, as the English say, different to, what they have known at home. Being different, an Englishman naturally thinks it is worse. I do not altogether agree with this opinion. In certain respects I undoubtedly prefer the American hotel, railway, and steamboat to the English. More Americans travel, and Americans travel more than the people of any other nation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.