The danger of it was that it might detract from the reality and vividness of the narrative as a picture of Western life.
Most American critics of the book seem not to have been struck by this doubt which has occurred to me.

They realize perhaps more faithfully than some of the English critics have done that these mad contrasts are by no means uncommon in the primitive and virile life of the West and North.

Just as California in the old days, just as Ballaret in Australia drew the oddest people from every corner of the world, so Western towns, with new railways, brought strange conglomerations into the life.

For instance, a town like Winnipeg has sections which represent the life of nearly every race of Europe, and towns like Lebanon and Manitou, with English and French characteristics controlling them mainly, are still as subject to outside racial influences as to inside racial antagonisms.
I believe The World for Sale shows as plainly as anything can show the vexed and conglomerate life of a Western town.

It shows how racial characteristics may clash, disturb, and destroy, and yet how wisdom, tact, and lucky incident may overcome almost impossible situations.