The Kentucky Gazette

American Inquisitiveness.

A gentleman who has travelled through most parts of North America, observes, that wherever you bend your course, to whomsoever you address yourself, you are instantly subject to a good humoured, neat elective, but very troublesome inquisition. "Do you enquire your road you are answered by a question—'I suppose you come from the eastward, don't you?' Oppressed with fatigue, hunger and thirst, and drenched, perhaps, with rain, you answer shortly in the affirmative, and repeat your enquiry: 'Methinks you are in a mighty haste: what news are there to the eastward?'—This is the only satisfaction you can obtain, till you have opened your real or pretended budget of news, and gratify the demander's curiosity. At an inn, the scrutiny is more minute: your name, quality and place of departure, and object of your journey, must all be declared to the company in some way or other (for their credulity is equal to their curiosity) before you can sit down in comfort to the necessary refreshment.

This curious spirit is intolerable in the eastern states; and the gentleman who has favoured us with this article, has heard the celebrated Dr. Franklin, who is himself a Bostonian, relate with great pleasantry, that in travelling, when he was young, the first step he took for his tranquillity, and to obtain immediate attention at these inns, was to anticipate enquiry. Saying, "My name is Benjamin Franklin, I was born at Boston, am a printer by profession, am travelling to Philadelphia, shall remain at such a time have no news—now what can you give me for dinner?"