Excerpt from The Mericans at Home: Byeways, Backwoods, and Prairies The populous towns are so similar in their general aspect and structure that a description of any one city will commonly be found applicable in the main to every other in the same State. Age, gradual or premature, is apparent in all. The people have become homogeneous. Staid and settled habits have superseded the foreign modes introduced by a heterogeneous mass of emigrants, and the bustle of building and settling has given place to the indispensable cares and duties of life. Collision soon wears off angularity, the surface is rendered smooth, and a certain degree of polish, according to the texture of the materials, is the natural result. Society has its conventional rules, which it rigidly enforces. Hence in every community men dress alike, think alike, and act alike, except in such cases where by the same rules they are allowed to agree or to disagree. 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.