Evangelical author Favell Lee Mortimer (1802-1878) set foot only twice outside England, but that didn’t stop her from writing harrowing travel books for Victorian children. From The Countries of Europe Described (1850):

• “There are not nearly as many thieves in Wales as there are in England.”
• “[On Easter] the streets of Petersburgh are filled with staggering, reeling drunkards.”
• “Nothing useful is well done in Sweden.”
• “It is dreadful to think what a number of murders are committed in Italy.”
• “The Greeks do not know how to bring up their children.”
• “A great many people have coughs in Vienna, because the east wind blows very cold.”
• “Though the Portuguese are indolent, like the Spaniards, they are not so grave, and sad, and silent.”
• “The Hungarians are much wilder people than the Germans; they are not industrious; they do not know how to make things; most of them cannot read or write.”
• “The greatest fault of the Norwegians is drunkenness.”
• “The Poles love talking, and they speak so loud they almost scream; and they are proud of this, and say that the Germans are dumb.”
• “Denmark is flat, but not nearly as flat as Holland, nor as damp, nor as ugly.”

“I do not mean to say that there are as many robbers in Sweden as in Sicily; there the robbers are seldom punished at all: in Sweden they are punished; but yet the rest of the people go on stealing.”