AMERICAN NOTES
FOR
GENERAL CIRCULATION.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.
MDCCCXLII.
LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
I DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
TO THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE IN AMERICA,
WHO,
GIVING ME A WELCOME
I MUST EVER GRATEFULLY
AND PROUDLY REMEMBER,
LEFT MY JUDGMENT
FREE;
AND WHO,
LOVING THEIR COUNTRY,
CAN BEAR THE TRUTH,
WHEN IT IS TOLD
GOOD HUMOUREDLY,
AND IN A KIND SPIRIT.
CONTENTS TO VOLUME I.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
PAG 8
Going Away 1
CHAPTER THE SECOND. The Passage Out 20
CHAPTER THE THIRD. Boston ........ 57
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
An American Railroad. Lowell and its
Factory System • . . . . . 145
XVI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
PAGB
Worcester. The Connecticut River. Hart- ford. New Haven. New Haven to New York 170
CHAPTER THE SIXTH. New York 191
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison . . 233
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
Washington. The Legislature, and the
President's House . . . . .271
GOING AWAY, AND THE PASSAGE OUT.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
GOING AWAY.
I shall never forg-et the one-fourth serious and three-fourths comical astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of January eighteen- hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my head into, a " state-room " on board the Britannia steam-packet, twelve hundred tons bur- den per register, bound for Halifax and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty's mails.
That this state-room had been specially engaged for " Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady," was rendered sufficiently clear even to my scared intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the fact, which was pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin mattress, spread like a
VOL. I. B
Z GOING AWAY.
surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf. But that this was the state-room concerning which Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held daily and nightly conferences for at least four months preceding : that this could by any pos- sibility be that small snug chamber of the imagin- ation, which Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy strong upon him, had always foretold would contain at least one little sofa, and which his lady, with a modest yet most mag- nificent sense of its limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower- pot) : that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the
GOING AWAY.
agent's counting-house in the city of, London: that this room of state, in short, could be anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the captain's, invented and put in practice for the oetter relish and enjoyment of the real state-room presently to be disclosed: — these were truths which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to bear upon or comprehend. And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair slab, or perch, of which there were two within ; and looked, without any expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had come on board with us, and who were crushing their faces into all manner of shapes by endeavouring to squeeze them through the small doorway.
We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below, which, but that we were the most sanguine people living, might have prepared us for the worst. The imaginative artist to whom I have already made allusion, has depicted in the same great work, a chamber of almost interminable perspective, furnished, as Mr. Robins would say,
B 2
GOING AWAY.
in a style of more than Eastern splendour, and filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of ladies and gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and vivacity. Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we had passed from the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides ; having at the upper end a melancholy stove, at which three or four chilly stewards were warming their hands ; while on either side, extending down its whole dreary length, was a long, long, table, over each of which a rack, fixed to the low roof, and stuck full of drinking-glasses and cruet-stands, hinted dismally at rolling seas and heavy weather. I had not at that time seen the ideal presentment of this chamber which has since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of our friends who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on entering, retreated on the friend behind him, smote his forehead involuntarily, and said, below his breath, "Impossible! it cannot be ! " or words to that effect. He recovered him-
GOING AWAY.
self however by a great effort, and after a pre- paratory cough or two, cried, with a ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time round the walls, " Ha ! the breakfast-room, steward— eh I " We all foresaw what the answer must be : we knew the agony he suffered. He had often spoken of the saloon; had taken in and lived upon the pictorial idea ; had usually given us to understand, at home, that to form a just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and then fall short of the reality. When the man in reply avowed the truth ; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth ; " This is the saloon, sir " — he actually reeled beneath the blow.
In persons who were so soon to part, and inter- pose between their else daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment's disappointment or discomfi- ture, upon the short interval of happy companion-
6
GOING AWAY.
ship that yet remained to them — in persons so situated, the natural transition from these first surprises was obviously into peals of hearty laugh- ter ; and I can report that I, for one, being still seated upon the slab or perch before-mentioned, roared outright until the vessel rang again. Thus, in less than two minutes after coming upon it for the first time, we all by common consent agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most facetious and capital contrivance possible ; and that to have had it one inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and deplorable state of things. And with this ; and with showing how, — by very nearly closing the door, and twining in and out like serpents, and by counting the little washing- slab as standing-room, — we could manage to insinuate four people into it, all at one time ; and entreating each other to observe how very airy it was (in dock), and how there was a beauti- ful port-hole which could be kept open all day (weather permitting), and how there was quite a large bull's-eye just over the looking-glass which
GOING AWAY. /
would render shaving a perfectly easy and delight- ful process (when the ship didn't roll too much) ; we arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it was rather spacious than otherwise : though I do verily believe that, deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except cof- fins, it was no bigger than one of those hackney cabriolets which have the door behind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of coals, upon the pave ment.
Having settled this point to the perfect satisfac- tion of all parties, concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in the ladies' cabin — just to try the effect. It was rather dark, certainly ; but somebody said, " of course it would be light, at sea," a proposition to which we all assented ; echoing " of course, of course ;" though it would be exceedingly difficult to say why we thought so. I remember, too, when we had discovered and exhausted another topic of consolation in the cir- cumstance of this ladies1 cabin adjoining our state-
8 GOING AWAY.
room, and the consequently immense feasibility of sitting there at all times and seasons, and had fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on our hands and looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn air of a man who had made a discovery, " What a relish mulled claret will have down here !" which appeared to strike us all most forcibly; as though there were something spicy and high-flavoured in cabins, which essentially improved that composition, and rendered it quite incapable of perfection anywhere else.
There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing clean sheets and tablecloths from the very entrails of the sofas, and from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made one's head ache to see them opened one after another, and rendered it quite a distracting circumstance to follow her proceedings, and to find that every nook and corner and individual piece of furni- ture was something else besides what it pre- tended to be, and was a mere trap and decep-
GOING AWAY. 9
tion and place of secret stowage, whose osten- sible purpose was its least useful one.
God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudu- lent account of January voyages ! God bless her for her clear recollection of the companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody danced from morning to night, and it wTas " a run v of twelve days, and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity ! All happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow traveller; and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, or I shouldn't be half so fond of her) ; and for the ten thousand small frag- ments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and close at hand to their little children left upon the other ; and that what seemed to the un- initiated a serious journey, was, to those who were
10 GOING AWAY.
in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and whistled at ! Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for years !
The state-room had grown pretty fast ; but by this time it had expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay-window to view the sea from. So we went upon deck again in high spirits ; and there, everything was in such a state of bustle and active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace, and whirled through one's veins on that clear frosty morning with in- voluntary mirthfulness. For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and down, and every little boat was plashing noisily in the water ; and knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of " dread delight'1 on the far-famed fast Ameri- can steamer ; and one party of men were " taking in the milk," or, in other words, getting the cow on board ; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat with fresh provisions ; with butchers'meat and gardenstuff, pale sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and
C0IXG AWAY. 11
poultry out of all proportion ; and others were coiling ropes, and busy with oakum yarns ; and others were lowering heavy packages into the hold ; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in a state of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of passengers' luggage ; and there seemed to be nothing going on anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but prepara- tions for this mighty voyage. This, with the bright cold sun, the bracing air, the crisply-curl- ing water, the thin white crust of morning ice upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and cheerful sound beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible. And when, again upon the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel's mast her name signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side the beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes, — the long three thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six whole months of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had gone out and come home again, and it was broad spring already in the Coburg Dock at Liverpool.
12 GOING AWAY.
I have not inquired among my medical ac- quaintance, whether Turtle, and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good dinner — especially when it is left to the liberal construction of my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel — are peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change ; or whether a plain mutton- chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of conversion into foreign and disconcerting material. My own opinion is, that whether one is discreet or indiscreet in these particulars, on the eve of a sea- voyage, is a matter of little conse- quence ; and that, to use a common phrase, " it comes to very much the same thing in the end." Be this as it may, I know that the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect ; that it comprehended all these items, and a great many more ; and that we all did ample justice to it. And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit avoidance of any allu- sion to to-morrow ; such as may be supposed to prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a
GOING AWAY. 13
sensitive prisoner who is to be hanged next morn- ing ; we got on very well, and, all things considered, were merry enough.
When the morning — the morning — came, and we met at breakfast, it was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment's pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay every- body was : the forced spirits of each member of the little party having as much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and air, and rain of Heaven. But as one o'clock, the hour for going aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all disguise ; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to-morrow, this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast number of messages to those who intended re- turning to town that night, which were to be delivered at home and elsewhere without fail,
14 GOING AWAY.
within the very shortest possible space of time after the arrival of the railway train at Euston Square. And commissions and remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as it were, into a dense conglo- meration of passengers and passengers' friends and passengers'* luggage, all jumbled together on the deck of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet, which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now lying at her moorings in the river.
And there she is ! all eves are turned to where she lies, dimly discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter afternoon ; every finger is pointed in the same direction ; and murmurs of interest and admiration — as " How beautiful she looks!" u How trim she is!" — are heard on every side. Even the lazy gentleman with his hat on one side and his hands in his pockets, who has dispensed so much consolation by inquiring with a yawn of another gentleman whether he is " going
GOING AWAY. 15
across" — as if it were a ferry — even ho condescends to look that way, and nod his head, as who should say " No mistake about that : " and not even the sasre Lord Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman of might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found out already ; it's impossible to say how) thirteen times without a single accident ! There is another passen- ger very much wrapped-up, who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid interest how long it is since the poor President went down. He is standing close to the lazy gen- tleman, and says with a faint smile that he believes She is a very strong Ship ; to which the lazy gen- tleman, looking first in his questioner's eye and then very hard in the wind's, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She need be. Upon this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the popular estimation, and the passengers, with looks of de- fiance, whisper to each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don't know anything at all about it.
16 GOING AWAY.
But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions. Packing-cases, port- manteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breath- less rapidity. The officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway handing the passengers up the side, and hurrying the men. In five minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly deserted, and the packet is beset and over-run by its late freight, who instantly pervade the whole ship, and are to be met with by the dozen in every nook and corner : swarming down below with their own baggage, and stumbling over other people's ; disposing themselves comfortably in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible con- fusion by having to turn out again ; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on forcing a pas- sage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where there is no thoroughfare ; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair, to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands, impossible of execution : and in short, creating the most extraordinary and
GOING AWAY. 17
bewildering tumult. In the midst of all this, the lazy gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind — not so much as a friend, even — lounges up and down the hurricane-deck, coolly puffing a cigar ; and, as this unconcerned demea- nour again exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to observe his proceedings, every time lie looks up at the masts, or down at the decks, or over the side, they look there too, as wondering whether he sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping that, in case he should, he will have the goodness to mention it.
What have we here ? The captain's boat ! and yonder the captain himself. Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very man he ought to be ! A well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow ; with a ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation to shake him by both hands at once ; and with a clear blue honest eve, that it does one <rood to see one's sparkling image in. " Ring the bell ! " " Ding, ding, ding ! " the very bell is in a hurry. "Now for the shore— who's for the shore V —
VOL. I. C
18 going Away.
" These gentlemen, I am sorry to say." They are away, and never said, Good b'ye. Ah ! now they wave it from the little boat. te Good b'ye ! Good b'ye ! " Three cheers from them ; three more from us ; three more from them : and they are gone.
To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times ! This waiting for the latest mail- bags is worse than all. If we could have gone off in the midst of that last burst, we should have started triumphantly : but to lie here, two hours and more, in the damp fog, neither staying at home nor going abroad, is letting one gradually down into the very depths of dulness and low spirits. A speck in the mist, at last ! That 's something. It is the boat we wait for ! That 's more to the purpose. The captain appears on the paddle-box with his speaking-trumpet; the officers take their stations ; all hands are on the alert ; the flagging hopes of the passengers revive ; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look out with faces full of interest. The boat comes alon<r-
GOING AWAY. 19
side ; the bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere. Three cheers more : and as the first one rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath of life ; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first time ; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly through the lashed and foaming water.
C'l
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
THE PASSAGE OUT.
We all dined together that day ; and a rather formidable party we were : no fewer than eighty- six strong. The vessel being pretty deep in the water, with all her coals on board and so many passengers, and the weather being calm and quiet, there was but little motion ; so that before the dinner was half over, even those passengers who were most distrustful of themselves plucked up amazingly ; and those who in the morning had returned to the universal question, " Are you a good sailor?" a very decided negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, " Oh ! I suppose I'm no worse than anybody else ; " or, reckless of all moral obligations, answered
THE PASSAGE OUT. 21
bolcllv, " Yes : " and with some irritation too, as though they would add, " I should like to know what you see in vie, sir, particularly, to justify suspicion ! "
Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could not but observe that very few remained long over their wine ; and that everybody had an unusual love of the open air ; and that the favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to the door. The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as the dinner- table ; and there was less whist-playing than might have been expected. Still, with the excep- tion of one lady, who had retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet ; and walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy- and- water (but always in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven o'clock or thereabouts, when '4 turning in '■' — no sailor of seven hours' experience talks of
22 THE PASSAGE OUT.
going to bed — became the order of the night. The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were probably, like me, afraid to go there.
To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course ; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen ; the broad, white, glistening track, that follows in the vessel's wake ; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky, but for their blotting out some score of glistening stars ; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illu- minated card before him, shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence ; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope, and chain ; the
THE PASSAGE OUT. 23
gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power of death and ruin. At first, too, and even when the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar, it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper shapes and forms. They change with the wandering fancy ; assume the semblance of things left far away ; put on the well-remembered aspect of favourite places dearly loved ; and even people them with shadows. Streets, houses, rooms ; figures so like their usual occu- pants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the absent ; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as well acquainted as with my own two hands*
My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on this particular occasion, I crept
24 THE PASSAGE OUT.
below at midnight. It was not exactly comfortable below. It was decidedly close ; and it was impos- sible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold. Two passengers'* wives (one of them my own) lay already in silent agonies on the sofa ; and one lady's maid {rny lady's) was a mere bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her curl-papers among the stray boxes. Everything sloped the wrong way : which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne. I had left the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a lofty eminence. Now every plank and timber creaked, as if the ship were made of wicker-work ; and now crackled, like an enormous fire of the driest possible twigs. There was nothing for it but bed; so I went to bed.
THE PASSAGE OUT. 25
It was pretty much the same for the next two clays, with a tolerably fair wind and dry weather. I read in bed (but to this hour I don't know what) a good deal ; and reeled on deck a little ; drank cold brandy-and-water with an unspeakable dis- gust, and ate hard biscuit perseveringly : not ill, but going to be.
It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there 's any danger. I rouse myself, and look out of bed. The water- jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin ; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal- barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely dis- appears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.
Before it is possible to make any arrangement
26 . THE PASSAGE OUT.
at all compatible with this novel state of things, the ship rights. Before one can say, " Thank Heaven ! " she wrongs again. Before one can cry she is wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling con- stantly. Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high leap into the air. Before she has well done that, she takes a deep dive into the water. Before she has gained the surface, she throws a summerset. The instant she is on her legs, she rushes backward. And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rock- ing : and going through all these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together : until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.
A steward passes. "Steward!" "Sir!" "What is the matter? what do you call this?" " Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind. "
A head-wind ! Imagine a human face upon the
THE PASSAGE OUT. 27
vessel's prow, with fifteen thousand Sampsons in one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her exactly between the e)Tes whenever she attempts to advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body swoln and bursting under this mal-treatment, sworn to go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating : all in furious array against her. Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the air. Add to all this, the clattering on deck and down below ; the tread of hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen ; the gurgling in and out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault ; — and there is the head-wind of that January morning.
I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the ship : such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down of stewards, the
28 THE PASSAGE OUT.
I
gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast. I say nothing of them : for although I lay listening to this concert for three or four days, I don't think I heard it for more than a quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which terra, I lay down again, excessively sea-sick.
Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of the term : I wish I had been : but in a form which I have never seen or heard described, though I have no doubt it is very common. I lay there, all the day long, quite coolly and con- tentedly ; with no sense of weariness, with no desire to get up, or get better, or take the air ; with no curiosity, or care, or regret, of any sort or degree, saving that I think I can remember, in this universal indifference, having a kind of lazy joy — of fiendish delight, if anything so lethargic can be dignified with the title — in the fact of my wife being too ill to talk to me. If I may be
THE PASSAGE OUT. 29
allowed to illustrate my state of mind by such an example, I should say that I was exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after the incur- sion of the rioters into his bar at Chigwell. Nothing would have surprised me. If, in the mo- mentary illumination of any ray of intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts of Home, a goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come into that little kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and, apologising for being damp through walking in the sea, had handed me a letter, directed to myself in familiar char- acters, I am certain I should not have felt one atom of astonishment : I should have been perfectly satisfied. If Neptune himself had walked in, with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have looked upon the event as one of the very commonest everyday occurrences.
Once — once — I found myself on deck. I don't know how I got there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was ; and completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of boots
30 THE PASSAGE OUT.
such as no weak man in his senses could ever have got into. I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon me, holding on to some- thing. I don't know what. I think it was the boatswain : or it may have been the pump : or possibly the cow. I can't say how long I had been there ; whether a day or a minute. I recol- lect trying to think about something (about any- thing in the whole wide world, I was not parti- cular) without the smallest effect. I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the sky ; for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildlv about, in all directions. Even in that inca- pable state, however, I recognised the lazy gentle- man standing before me : nautically clad in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat. But I was too imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his dress ; and tried to call him, I remember, Pilot. After another interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and recognised another figure in its place. It seemed to wave and fluctuate before me as though 1 saw
THE PASSAGE OUT. 31
it reflected in an unsteady looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain ; and such was the cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile : yes, even then I tried to smile. I saw by his gestures that he addressed me; but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated against my standing up to my knees in water — as I was ; of course I don't know why. I tried to thank him, but couldn't. I could only point to my boots — or wherever I supposed my boots to be — and say in a plaintive voice, " Cork soles :" at the same time endeavouring, I am told, to sit down in the pool. Finding that I was quite insensible, and for the time a maniac, he humanely conducted me below.
There I remained until I got better : suffering, whenever I was recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to that which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in the process of restoration to life. One gentleman on board had a letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend in London. He sent it below
32 THE PASSAGE OUT.
with his card, on the morning of the head-wind ; and I was long troubled with the idea that he might be up, and well, and a hundred times a day expecting me to call upon him in the saloon. I imagined him one of those cast-iron images — I will not call them men— who ask, with red faces and lusty voices, what sea-sickness means, and whether it really is as bad as it is represented to be. This was very torturing indeed ; and I don't think I ever felt such perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did when I heard from the ship's doctor that he had been obliged to put a large mustard poultice on this very gentleman's stomach. I date my recovery from the receipt of that intelligence.
It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy gale of wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about ten days out, and raged with gradually increasing fury until morning, saving that it lulled for an hour a little before midnight. There was something in the unnatural repose of that hour, and in the after
THE PASSAGE OUT. 33
gathering of the storm, so inconceivably awful and tremendous, that its bursting into full violence was almost a relief.
The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall never forget. " Will it ever be worse than this?1' was a question I had often heard asked, when everything was sliding and bumping about, and when it certainly did seem difficult to comprehend the possibility of anything afloat being more disturbed, without toppling over and going down. But what the agitation of a steam-vessel is, on a bad winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is impossible for the most vivid imagi- nation to conceive. To say that she is flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a hundred great guns, and hurls her back— that she stops, and staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent throb- bing at her heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into madness, to be beaten down, and
VOL. I. D
S4« THE PASSAGE OUT.
battered, and crushed, and leaped on by the angry sea— that thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery — that every plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop of water in the great ocean its howling voice — is nothing. To say that all is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is nothing. Words cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and passion.
And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong a sense of its absurdity as I have now : and could no more help laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happen- ing under circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment. About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roar- ing down into the ladies' cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady —who, by the way, had previously sent a message
THE PASSAGE OUT. 35
to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast, and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They, and the hand- maid before mentioned, being in such ecstacies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial ; and nothing better occur- ring to me, at the moment, than hot brandy-and- water, I procured a tumbler- full without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa— a fixture extending entirely across the cabin — where they clung to each other in mo- mentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end ! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how immensely
D 2
36 THE PASSAGE OUT.
baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again ! I suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa, for at least a quarter of an hour, without reach- ing them once ; and by the time I did catch them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant spilling, to a tea- spoonful. To complete the group, it is necessary to recognise in this disconcerted dodger, a very pale individual, who had shaved his beard and brushed his hair, last, at Liverpool : and whose only articles of dress (linen not included) were a pair of dreadnought trousers ; a blue jacket, formerly admired upon the Thames at Richmond ; no stockings ; and one slipper.
Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning ; which made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of falling out, an impossibility ; I say nothing. But anything like the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I, literally, " tumbled up" on deck at noon, I never saw. Ocean and sky were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour. There was
THE PASSAGE OUT. 37
no extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us, for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large black hoop. Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it would have been imposing and stupendous no doubt ; but seen from the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and painfully. In the gale of last night the life-boat had been crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell ; and there it hung dangling in the air : a mere faggot of crazy boards. The planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away. The wheels were exposed and bare ; and they whirled and dashed their spray about the decks at random. Chimney, white with crusted salt ; topmasts struck ; storm- sails set ; rigging all knotted, tangled, wet, and drooping : a gloomier picture it would be hard to look upon.
I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies' cabin, where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers. First, the little Scotch lady before-mentioned, on her way to join
38 THE PASSAGE OUT.
her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before. Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with some American house ; domiciled in that same city, and carrying thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English country girl I have ever seen. Fourthly, fifthly, and lastly, another couple : newly-married too, if one might judge from the endearments they frequently inter- changed : of whom I know no more than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple ; that the lady had great personal attrac- tions also ; and that the gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board. On further consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled ale as a cure for sea- sickness ; and that he took these remedies (usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing persever- ance. I may add, for the information of the curious, that they decidedly failed.
THE PASSAGE OUT. 39
The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad, we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to recover ; during which interval, the captain wrould look in to communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve to-morrow, at sea), the vessel's rate of sailing, and so forth. Ob- servations there were none to tell us of, for there was no sun to take them by. But a description of one day will serve for all the rest. Here it is.
The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place be light enough ; and if not, we doze and talk alternately. At one, a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig's face, cold ham, salt beef ; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot col- lops. We fall to upon these dainties ; eat as much as we can (we have great appetites now) ; and are as long as possible about it. If the fire will burn
40 THE PASSAGE OUT.
(it will sometimes) we are pretty cheerful. If it won't, we all remark to each other that it 's very cold, rub our hands, cover ourselves with coats and cloaks, and lie down again to doze, talk, and read (provided as aforesaid), until dinner-time. At five, another bell rings, and the stewardess reappears with another dish of potatoes — boiled, this time — and store of hot meat of various kinds : not for- getting the roast pig, to be taken medicinally. We sit down at table again (rather more cheer- fully than before) ; prolong the meal with a rather mouldy dessert of apples, grapes, and oranges ; and drink our wine and brandy-and-water. The bottles and glasses are still upon the table, and the oranges and so forth are rolling about according to their fancy and the ship's way, when the doctor comes down, by special nightly invitation, to join our evening rubber : immediately on whose arrival we make a party at whist, and as it is a rough night and the cards will not lie on the cloth, we put the tricks in our pockets as we take them. At whist we remain with exemplary gravity (deduct-
THE PASSAGE OUT. 41
ing a short time for tea and toast) until eleven o'clock, or thereabouts ; when the captain comes down again, in a sou'-wester hat tied under his chin, andapilot-coat: making the ground wet where he stands. By this time the card-playing is over, and the bottles and glasses are again upon the table ; and after an hour's pleasant conversa- tion about the ship, the passengers, and things in general, the captain (who never goes to bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat collar for the deck again ; shakes hands all round ; and goes laughing out into the weather as merrily as to a birth-day party.
As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity. This passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un in the saloon yesterday ; and that passenger drinks his bottle of champagne every day, and how he does it (being only a clerk), nobody knows. The head engineer has distinctly said that there never was such times — meaning weather — and four good hands are ill, and have given in, dead beat. Several berths are full
42 THE PASSAGE OUT.
of water, and all the cabins are leaky. The ship's cook, secretly swigging damaged whiskey, has been found drunk ; and has been played upon by the fire-engine until quite sober. All the stewards have fallen down stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with plasters in various places. The baker is ill, and so is the pastry-cook. A new man, horribly indisposed, has been required to fill the place of the latter officer; and has been propped and jammed up with empty casks in a little house upon deck, and commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests (being highly bilious) it is death to him to look at. News ! A dozen murders on shore would lack the interest of these slight inci- dents at sea.
Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were running (as we thought) into Hali- fax Harbour, on the fifteenth night, with little wind and a bright moon — indeed, we had made the Light at its outer entrance, and put the pilot in charge — when suddenly the ship struck upon a bank of mud. An immediate rush on deck took
THE PASSAGE OUT. 43
place of course ; the sides were crowded in an instant ; and for a few minutes we were in as lively a state of confusion as the greatest lover of disorder would desire to see. The passengers, and guns, and water- casks, and other heavy matters, being all huddled together aft, however, to lighten her in the head, she was soon got off ; and after some driving on towards an uncomfortable line of objects (whose vicinity had been announced very early in the disaster by a loud cry of " Breakers a-head !") and much backing of paddles, and heaving of the lead into a constantly decreasing depth of water, we dropped anchor in a strange outlandish- looking nook which nobody on board could recog- nise, although there was land all about us, and so close that we could plainly see the waving branches of the trees.
It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the dead stillness that seemed to be created by the sudden and unexpected stoppage of the engine which had been clanking and blasting in our ears incessantly for so many days, to watch
44 THE PASSAGE OUT.
the look of blank astonishment expressed in every face : beginning with the officers, tracing it through all the passengers, and descending to the very- stokers and furnace-men, who emerged from below, one by one, and clustered together in a smoky group about the hatchway of the engine-room, comparing notes in whispers. After throwing up a few rockets and firing signal-guns in the hope of being hailed from the land, or at least of seeing a light — but without any other sight or sound pre- senting itself — it was determined to send a boat on shore. It was amusing to observe how very kind some of the passengers were, in volunteering to go ashore in this same boat : for the general good, of course : not by any means because they thought the ship in an unsafe position, or contemplated the possibility of her heeling over in case the tide were running out. Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately unpopular the poor pilot became in one short minute. He had had his passage out from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage had been quite a notorious character, as a teller of
THE PASSAGE OUT. 45
anecdotes and cracker of jokes. Yet here were the very men who had laughed the loudest at his jests, now flourishing their fists in his face, loading him with imprecations, and defying him to his teeth as a villain ! %
The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue lights on board ; and in less than an hour returned ; the officer in command bringing with him a tolerably tall young tree, which he had plucked up by the roots, to satisfy certain distrust- ful passengers whose minds misgave them that they were to be imposed upon and shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms believe that he had been ashore, or had done anything but frau- dulently row a little way into the mist, specially to deceive them, and compass their deaths. Our captain had foreseen from the first that we must be in a place called the Eastern Passage ; and so we were. It was about the last place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be, but a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot's part, were the cause. We were surrounded by banks,
46 THE PASSAGE OUT.
and rocks, and shoals of all kinds, but had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck that was to be found thereabouts. Eased by this report, and by the assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three o'clock in the morning.
I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above hurried me on deck. When I had left it over-night, it was dark, foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us. Now, we were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven miles an hour : our colors flying gaily; our crew rigged out in their smartest clothes ; our officers in uniform again ; the sun shining as on a brilliant April day in England; the land stretched out on either side, streaked with light patches of snow ; white wooden houses ; people at their doors ; telegraphs work- ing ; flags hoisted ; wharfs appearing ; ships ; quays crowded with people ; distant noises ; shouts ; men and boys running down steep places towards the pier : all more bright and gay and fresh to our
THE PASSAGE OL'T. 47
unused eyes than words can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted faces ; got alongside, and were made fast, after some shouting and straining of cables ; darted, a score of us, along the gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before it had reached the ship — and leaped upon the firm glad earth again !
I suppose this Halifax wTould have appeared an Elysium, though it had been a curiosity of ugly dulness. But I carried away with me a most pleasant impression of the town and its inhabit- ants, and have preserved it to this hour. Nor was it without regret that I came home, without hav- ing found an opportunity of returning thither, and once more shaking hands with the friends I made that day.
It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and General Assembly, at which cere- monial the forms observed on the commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it was like looking at West-
48 THE PASSAGE OUT.
minster through the wrong end of a telescope. The governor, as her Majesty's representative, delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne. He said what he had to say mean- fully and well. The military band outside the building struck up " God Save the Queen" with great vigour before his Excellency had quite finished ; the people shouted ; the in's rubbed their hands ; the out's shook their heads ; the Government party said there never was such a good speech ; the opposition declared there never was such a bad one ; the Speaker and members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a great deal among themselves and do a little : and, in short, everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home upon the like occasions.
The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished. Several streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to the water-side, and are intersected by
THE PASSAGE OUT. 49
cross streets running parallel with the river. The houses are chiefly of wood. The market is abun- dantly supplied ; and provisions are exceedingly cheap. The weather being unusually mild at that time for the season of the year, there was no sleighing ; but there were plenty of those vehicles in yards and bye-places, and some of them, from the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have "gone on" without alteration as triumphal cars in a melo-drama at Astley's. The day was uncommonly fine ; the air bracing and healthful ; the whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious.
We lay there seven hours, to deliver and ex- change the mails. At length, having collected all our bags and all our passengers (including two or three choice spirits, who, having indulged too freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying insen- sible on their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines were again put in motion, and we stood off for Boston.
Encountering squally weather again in the Bay
VOL. I. E
50 THE PASSAGE OUT.
of Fundy, we tumbled and rolled about as usual all that night and all next day. On the next after- noon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of January, an American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards the Britannia steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was telegraphed at Boston. 1
The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green sea, and fol- lowed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can hardly be exaggerated. A sharp keen wind blew dead against us ; a hard frost prevailed on shore ; and the cold was most severe. Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.
How I remained on deck, staring about me until we came alongside the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should have had them all wide open, and all employed on new
THE PASSAGE OUT. 51
objects — are topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss. Neither will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake, in supposing that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen, answering to that indus- trious class at home ; whereas, despite the leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed me), " because they liked the excitement of it." Suffice it in this place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order rooms at the hotel ; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical melo- drama.
" Dinner, if you please,11 said I to the waiter.
E 2
52 THE PASSAGE OUT.
" When? " said the waiter. " As quick as possible," said I. " Right away \ " said the waiter. After a moment's hesitation, I answered, " No," at hazard.
" Not right away?' cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that made me start.
I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, " No; I would rather have it in this private room. I like it very much.'"
At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his mind : as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition of another man, who whispered in his ear, " Directly ."
" Well ! and that's a fact ! 1 said the waiter, looking helplessly at me : '■ Right away.""
I saw now that " Right away " and " Directly ': were one and the same thing. So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.
THE PASSAGE OUT. 53
The hotel (a very excellent one), is called the Tremont House. It has more galleries, colon- nades, piazzas, and passages than I can remember, or the reader would believe ; and is some trifle smaller than Bedford Square.
Illlllji
«
pR*4S 7*
BOSTON.
i
BOSTON.
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
BOSTON.
In all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy prevails. Most of our Depart- ments are susceptible of considerable improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others would do well to take example from the United States and render itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners. The servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently con- temptible ; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs snarling about its gates.
58 BOSTON.
When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention, polite- ness, and good humour with which its officers dis- charged their duty.
As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the city in walk- ing down to the Custom-house on the morning after our arrival, which was Sunday. I am afraid to say, by the way, how many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished our first dinner in. America, but if I may be allowed to make a moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have accommodated a score or two of grown-up families. The number of creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company was requested, was in very fair proportion.
Not being able, in the absence of any change of
BOSTON. 59
clothes, to go to church that day, we were com- pelled to decline these kindnesses, one and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that morning for the first time in a very long interval. I mention the name of this distinguished and accomplished man (with whom I soon after- wards had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted), that I may have the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and respect for his high abilities and character ; and for the bold philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to that most hideous blot and foul disgrace — Slavery.
To return to Boston. When I got into the streets upon this Sunday morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay; the signboards were painted in such gaudy colours ; the gilded letters were so very golden; the bricks were so very red, the stone was so very white, the blinds and area railings were so very green, the knobs and plates upon the street doors so marvellously bright
60 BOSTON.
and twinkling ; and all so slight and unsubstantial in appearance — that every thoroughfare in the city looked exactly like a scene in a pantomime. It rarely happens in the business streets that a trades- man, if I may venture to call anybody a trades- man, where everybody is a merchant, resides above his store ; so that many occupations are often carried on in one house, and the whole front is covered with boards and inscriptions. As I walked along, I kept glancing up at these boards, confi- dently expecting to see a few of them change into something ; and I never turned a corner suddenly without looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behind some pillar close at hand. As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered immediately that they lodged (they are always looking after lodg- ings in a pantomime) at a very small clock-maker's, one story high, near the hotel ; which, in addition to various symbols and devices, almost covering the whole front, had a great dial hanging out — to be jumped through, of course.
BOSTON. 61
The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsub- stantial-looking than the city. The white wooden houses (so white that it makes one wink to look at them), with their green jalousie blinds, are so sprinkled and dropped about in all directions, without seeming to have any root at all in the ground ; and the small churches and chapels are so prim, and bright, and highly varnished ; that I almost believed the whole affair could be taken up piecemeal like a child's toy, and crammed into a little box.
The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably. The private dwelling-houses are, for the most part, large and elegant ; the shops ex- tremely good ; and the public buildings handsome. The State House is built upon the summit of a hill, which rises gradually at first, and afterwards by a steep ascent, almost from the water's edge. In front is a green inclosure, called the Common. The site is beautiful : and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of the whole town and
10
nil
n
'it
62
BOSTON.
neighbourhood. In addition to a variety of commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers : in one the House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings ; in the other, the Senate. Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted with perfect gravity and decorum ; and were certainly calculated to inspire attention and respect.
There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the University of Cam- bridge, which is within three or four miles of the city. The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of learning and varied attainments; and are, without one exception that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do honour to, any society in the civilised world. Many of the resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and I think I am not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those who are attached to the liberal professions there, have been educated at this same school. Whatever the defects of
betnB + chic I ■
wra;
■
-• —
PR <JS 7-2 A&3A2
11
/
BOSTOX.
63
American universities may be, they disseminate no prejudices ; rear no bigots ; dig up the buried ashes of no old superstitions ; never interpose between the people and their improvement; ex- clude no man because of his religious opinions ; above all, in their whole course of study and in- struction, recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond the college walls.
It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this institution among the small community of Boston ; and to note at every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has engendered ; the affectionate friendships to which it has given rise ; the amount of vanity and prejudice it has dispelled. The golden calf they worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the Atlantic ; and the almighty dollar sinks into something compara- tively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better gods.
fu\
62 B0ST0X.
neighbourhood. In addition to a variety of commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers : in one the House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings ; in the other, the Senate. Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted with perfect gravity and decorum ; and were certainly calculated to inspire attention and respect.
There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the University of Cam- bridge, which is within three or four miles of the city. The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of learning and varied attainments; and are, without one exception that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do honour to, any society in the civilised world. Many of the resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and I think I am not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those who are attached to the liberal professions there, have been educated at this same school. Whatever the defects of
BOSTOX. 63
American universities may be, they disseminate no prejudices ; rear no bigots ; dig up the buried ashes of no old superstitions ; never interpose between the people and their improvement; ex- clude no man because of his religious opinions ; above all, in their whole course of study and in- struction, recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond the college walls.
It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this institution among the small community of Boston ; and to note at every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has engendered ; the affectionate friendships to which it has given rise ; the amount of vanity and prejudice it has dispelled. The golden calf they worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the Atlantic ; and the almighty dollar sinks into something compara- tively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better gods.
64 BOSTON.
Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and charities of this capital of Massa- chusetts are as nearly perfect, as the most con- siderate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make them. I never in my life was more affected by the contemplation of happiness, under circum- stances of privation and bereavement, than in my visits to these establishments.
It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in America, that they are either sup- ported by the State or assisted by the State ; or (in the event of their not needing its helping hand) that they act in concert with it, and are emphati- cally the people's. I cannot but think, with a view to the principle and its tendency to elevate or depress the character of the industrious classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably better than a Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the latter may be endowed. In our own country, where it has not, until within these later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to dis- play any extraordinary regard for the great mass
BOSTON. 65
•
of the people or to recognise their existence as improveable creatures, private charities, unex- ampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to do an incalculable amount of good among the destitute and afflicted. But the government of the country, having neither act nor part in them, is not in the receipt of any portion of the gratitude they inspire ; and, offering very little shelter or relief beyond that which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector, merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.
The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly illustrated by these establishments at home ; as the records of the Prerogative Office in Doctors' Commons can abundantly prove. Some immensely rich old gentleman or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, makes, upon a low average, a will a-week. The old gentleman or lady, never very remarkable in the best of times for good
VOL. I.
66 BOSTON.
temper, is full of aches and pains from head to foot ; full of fancies and caprices ; full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike. To cancel old wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a testator's existence ; and relations and friends (some of whom have been bred up dis- tinctly to inherit a large share of the property, and have been, from their cradles, specially dis- qualified from devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so often and so un- expectedly and summarily cut off, and re-instated, and cut off again, that the whole family, down to the remotest cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever. At length it becomes plain that the old lady or gentleman has not long to live ; and the plainer this becomes, the more clearly the old lady or gentle- man perceives that everybody is in a conspiracy against their poor old dying relative; wherefore the old lady or gentleman makes another last will — positively the last this time — conceals the same in a china tea-pot, and expires next day. Then it turns out, that the whole of the real and
BOSTON. 67
personal estate is divided between half-a-dozen charities ; and that the dead and gone testator has in pure spite helped to do a great deal of good, at the cost of an immense amount of evil passion and misery.
The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asy- lum for the Blind, at Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual report to the corporation. The indigent blind of that state are admitted gratuitously. Those from the adjoining state of Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they respectively belong ; or, failing that, must find security among their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for their first year1® board and instruction, and ten for the second. " After the first year," say the trustees, " an account current will be opened with each pupil ; he will be charged with the actual cost of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week ; " a trifle more than eight shillings English ;
f2
68 BOSTON.
" and he will be credited with the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends ; also with his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses ; so that all his earnings over one dollar per week will be his own. By the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than pay the actual cost of his board ; if they should, he will have it at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not. Those who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained ; as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an almshouse, or to retain any but working bees in the hive. Those who by physical or mental imbecility are disqualified for work, are thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious community; and they can be better provided for in establishments fitted for the infirm."
I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute
BOSTON. 69
lines and scraps of tracery in distant buildings. Like most other public institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot ; and is an airy, spacious, handsome edifice. It is built upon a height, commanding the harbour. When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked how fresh and free the whole scene was — what sparkling bubbles glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface, as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light : when I gazed from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue — and, turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious distance : I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker. It was but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly for all that.
70 BOSTON.
The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a few who were already dismissed, and were at play. Here, as in many institutions, no uniform is worn ; and I was very glad of it, for two reasons. Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless custom and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and badges we are so fond of at home. Secondly, because the absence of these things presents each child to the visitor in his or her own proper character, with its individuality unimpaired ; not lost in a dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb : which is really an important consideration. The wisdom of encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no comment.
Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the building. The various classes, who were gathered round their teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and
BOSTON. 71
intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence which pleased me very much. Those who were at play, were gleesome and noisy as other children. More spiritual and affectionate friend- ships appeared to exist among them, than would be found among other young persons suffering under no deprivation ; but this I expected and was prepared to find. It is a part of the great scheme of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted.
In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are workshops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary manufactory because of their deprivation. Several people were at work here ; making brushes, mat- tresses, and so forth ; and the cheerfulness, in- dustry, and good order discernible in every other part of the building, extended to this department also.
On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any guide or leader, to a spacious music-
72 BOSTON.
hall, where they took their seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of themselves. At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or twenty, gave place to a girl ; and to her accompaniment they all sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of chorus. It was very sad to look upon and hear them, happy though their condition unquestionably was ; and I saw that one blind girl, who (being for the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat close beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she listened.
It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts ; observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is never absent from their countenances, and the like of which we may readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is
BOSTON. 73
expressed with the lightning's speed, and nature's truth. If the company at a rout, or drawing- room at court, could only for one time be as un- conscious of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of which wTe so much pity, would appear
to be !
The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb ; destitute of smell ; and nearly so, of taste : before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense — thesense of touch. There she wTas, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound ; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be awakened.
Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was radiant with intelligence and
74 BOSTON.
pleasure. Her hair, braided by her own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and development were beautifully ex- pressed in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow ; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside her ; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. — From the mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful hearted being.
Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound round her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it up, and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes.
She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and forms, writing her daily journal. But soon finishing this pursuit, she engaged in an animated communication with a teacher who sat beside her. This was a favourite mistress with
BOSTON. 75
the poor pupil. If she could see the face of her fair instructress, she would not love her less, I am sure.
I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an account, written by that one man who has made her what she is. It is a very beautiful and touching narrative ; and I wish I could present it entire.
Her name is Laura Bridgman. " She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a vear and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was sub- ject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her power of endurance ; and life was held by the feeblest tenure : but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms subsided ; and at twenty months old, she was perfectly well.
" Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in
76 BOSTON.
their growth, rapidly developed themselves ; and during the four months of health which she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.
" But suddenly she sickened again ; her disease raged with great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were not ended. The fever raged during seven weeks ; for five months she was kept in bed in a darkened room ; it was a year before she could walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day. It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed ; and, consequently, that her taste was much
blunted.
"It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her apprenticeship of life
and the world.
BOSTON. 77
" But what a situation was hers ! The darkness and the silence of the tomb were around her : no mother's smile called forth her answering smile, no fathers voice taught her to imitate his sounds : — thev, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which dif- fered not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion ; and not even in these respects from the dog and
the cat.
" But the immortal spirit which had been im- planted within her could not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated ; and though most of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the others. As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the room, and then the house ; she became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house ; and her disposi- tion to imitate, led her to repeat everything
78 BOSTON.
herself. She even learned to sew a little, and to knit."
The reader will scarcely need to be told, how- ever, that the opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited ; and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to appear. Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations, must soon have re- duced her to a worse condition than that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped- for aid.
" At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and immediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head ; and the whole system in healthy action. The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, they brought her to the Institution.
" For a while, she was much bewildered ; and
BOSTON. 79
after waiting about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others.
" There was one of two ways to be adopted : either to go on to build up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use : that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters by combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence, of any thing. The former would have been easy, but verv ineffectual ; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual. I determined there- fore to try the latter.
t; The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c. and pasting upon them labels
80 BOSTON".
with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt very carefully, and soon, of course, dis- tinguished that the crooked lines spoon, differed as much from the crooked lines k e y, as the spoon differed from the key in form.
" Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were put into her hands ; and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on the articles. She showed her per- ception of this similarity by laying the label hey upon the key, and the label spoon upon the spoon. She was encouraged here by the natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.
" The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she could handle ; and she very easily learned to place the proper labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She recollected that the label book was placed upon a book, and she repeated the process first from imitation, next from memory, with only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently without the
BOSTON. 81
intellectual perception of any relation between the things.
" After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given to her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by side so as to spell book, key, &c. ; then they were mixed up in a heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them her- self, so as to express the words book, key, &c; and she did so.
" Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated every thing her teacher did ; but now the truth began to flash upon her: her intellect began to work : she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of any thing that was in her own mind, and show it to another mind ; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression : it was no longer a dog, or parrot : it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union with other spirits ! I
VOL. I.
82 BOSTON.
could almost fix upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance ; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome ; and that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain and straightfor- ward, efforts were to be used.
" The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived ; but not so was the process ; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour were passed before it was effected.
" When it was said above, that a sign was made, it was intended to say, that the action was per- formed by her teacher, she feeling his hands, and then imitating the motion.
" The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends ; also a board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set the types ; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt above the surface.
" Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil, or a watch, she would select the
BOSTON. 83
component letters, and arrange them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure.
" She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her vocabulary became extensive ; and then the important step was taken of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the posi- tion of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous appa- ratus of the board and types. She accomplished this speedily and easily, for her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her progress was rapid.
" This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, that the first report of her case was made, in which it is stated that l she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how rapidly, correctly, and eagerly, she goes on with her labours. Her teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers : the child
G 2
84 BOSTON.
grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different letters are formed ; she turns her head a little on one side, like a person listening closely ; her lips are apart ; she seems scarcely to breathe ; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet ; next, she takes her types and arranges her letters ; and last, to make sure that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or whatever the object may be.''
" The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her eager inquiries for the names of every object which she could possibly handle ; in exercising her in the use of the manual alphabet ; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the physical relations of things ; and in proper care of her health.
" At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which the following is an extract.
BOSTOX. 85
" ' It has been ascertained beyond the possibi- lity of doubt, that she cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell, if she have any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beauti- ful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no conception ; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb ; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid plea- sure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds loudect of the group.
" 4 When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or sewing, and will busy herself for hours : if she have no occupation, she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by recall- ing past impressions ; she counts with her fingers,
86 BOSTON.
or spells out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes. In this lonely self-communion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue : if she spell a word wrong with the finders of her risdit hand, she instantly strikes it with her left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation ; if right, then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased. She sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand strikes the left, as if to correct it.
" c During the year she has attained great dex- terity in the use of the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes ; and she spells out the words and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid motions of her fingers.
" c But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with which she reads the words thus written by another ; grasping their hands in
BOSTON. 87
hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind. It is in this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its purpose, than a meeting between them. For if great talent and skill are necessary for two panto- mimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds them both, and the one can hear no sound !
" ' When Laura is walking through a passage way, with her hands spread before her, she knows in- stantly every one she meets, and passes them with a sign of recognition : but if it be a girl of her own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is instantly a bright smile of recognition, and a twining of arms, a grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers ; whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the outposts of one mind to those of the other.
88 E0STOX.
There are questions and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are hissings and partings, just as between little children with all their senses.7 " During this year, and six months after she had left home, her mother came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an inte- resting one.
li The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was playing about the room. Presently Laura ran against her, and at once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to find out if she knew her ; but not succeeding in this, she turned away as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not con- ceal the pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her.
" She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at home, which were recognized by the child at once, who, with much joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she understood the string was from her home.
BOSTON. 89
" The mother now tried to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaintances.
" Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look much interested ; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now pain- ful to behold ; for, although she had feared that she should not be recognized, the painful reality of being treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to bear.
" After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a stranger ; she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became very pale, and then sud- denly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were contending emotions
.90 BOSTON.
more strongly painted upon the human face : at this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.
" After this, the beads were all unheeded ; the playthings which were offered to her were utterly disregarded ; her playmates, for whom but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull her from her mother ; and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obe- dience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful ; and when, after a mo- ment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy.
i( The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection, the intelligence, and the resolu- tion of the child.
BOSTOX. 9 1
" Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused, and felt around, to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively to her mother with the other ; and thus she stood for a moment : then she dropped her mother's hand ; put her handkerchief to her eyes ; and turning round, clung sobbing to the matron ; while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those of her child.
**** ^* v;^ ^* ^*
i1}* ^» rf* *fi «J»
" It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon regarded almost with contempt, a newcomer, when, after a few days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This una- miable part of her character has been more strongly developed during the past }rear.
" She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are intelligent, and can talk
92 BOSTON.
best with her; and she evidently dislikes to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently inclined to do. She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others ; and in various ways she shows her Saxon blood.
" She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the teachers, and those whom she respects ; but this must not be carried too far, or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share, which, if not the lion's, is the greater part ; and if she does not get it, she says, ' My mother icill love me?
" Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads her to actions which must be entirely incom- prehensible to her, and which can give her no other pleasure than the gratification of an internal faculty. She has been known to sit for half an hour, holding a book before her sightless eyes, and moving her lips, as she has observed seeing people do when reading.
BOSTON. 93
" She one day pretended that her doll was sick ; and went through all the motions of tending it, and giving it medicine ; she then put it carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet, laughing all the time most heartily. When I came home, she insisted upon my going to see it, and feel its pulse ; and when I told her to put a blister on its back, she seemed to enjoy it amazingly, and almost screamed with delight.
" Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong ; and when she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of her little friends, she will break off from her task every few moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold.
*' When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and seems quite contented ; and so strong seems to be the natural tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often soli- loquizes in the finger language, slow and tedious as it is. But it is only when alone, that she is quiet : for if she become sensible of the presence of any
94 BOSTON.
one near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with them by signs.
" In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the relations of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her con- tinual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with suffering, her conscientious- ness, truthfulness, and hopefulness."
Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting and instructive history of Laura Bridgman. The name of her great benefactor and friend, who writes it, is Doctor Howe. There are not many persons, I hope and believe, who, after reading these passages, can ever hear that name with indifference.
A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the report from which I have just quoted. It describes her rapid mental growth and improvement during twelve months more, and
BOSTON. 95
brings her little history down to the end of last year. It is very remarkable, that as we dream in words, and carry on imaginary conversations, in which we speak both for ourselves and for the shadows who appear to us in those visions of the night, so she, having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her sleep. And it has been ascertained that when her slumber is broken, and is much dis- turbed by dreams, she expresses her thoughts in an irregular and confused manner on her finders : just as wre should murmur and mutter them indis- tinctly, in the like circumstances.
I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in a fair legible square hand, and ex- pressed in terms which were quite intelligible with- out any explanation. On my saying that I should like to see her write again, the teacher who sat beside her, bade her, in their language, sign her name upon a slip of paper, twice or thrice. In doing so, I observed that she kept her left hand always touching, and following up, her right, in which, of course, she held the pen. No line wTas
96 BOSTON.
indicated by any contrivance, but she wrote straight and freely.
She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of visitors; but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman who accompanied me, she immediately expressed his name upon her teacher's palm. Indeed her sense of touch is now so exquisite, that having been acquainted with a person once, she can recognise him or her after almost any interval. This gentleman had been in her company, I believe, but very seldom, and cer- tainly had not seen her for many months. My hand she rejected at once, as she does that of any man who is a stranger to her. But she retained my wife's with evident pleasure, kissed her, and examined her dress with a girl's curiosity and interest.
She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent playfulness in her intercourse with her teacher. Her delight on recognising a favourite playfellow and companion— herself a blind girl — who silently, and with an equal enjoyment of the
BOSTON'. .97
coming surprise, took a seat beside her, was beau- tiful to witness. It elicited from her at first, as other slight circumstances did twice or thrice during my visit, an uncouth noise which was rather painful to hear. But on her teacher touching her lips, she immediately desisted, and embraced her laugh- ingly and affectionately.
I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of blind boys were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various sports. They all clamoured, as we entered, to the assistant-master, w7ho accompanied us, " Look at me, Mr. Hart ! Please, Mr. Hart, look at me ! " evincing, I thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to their condition, that their little feats of agility should be seen. Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof, entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the arms and chest into play ; which he enjoyed mightily; especially when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it MM44 contact with another boy. Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf, and dumb, and blind.
VOL. I. H
98 BOSTON.
Dr. Howe's account of this pupil's first instruc- tion is so very striking, and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I cannot refrain from a short extract. I may premise that the poor boy's' name is Oliver Caswell ; that he is thirteen years of age ; and that he was in full possession of all his faculties, until three years and four months old. He was then attacked by scarlet fever : in four weeks became deaf ; in a few weeks more, blind ; in six months, dumb. He showed his anxious sense of this last deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when they were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to assure himself that he had them in the right position.
" His thirst for knowledge," says Dr. Howe, " proclaimed itself as soon as he entered the house, by his eager examination of every thing he could feel or smell in his new location. For instance, treading upon the register of a furnace, he instantly stooped down, and began to feel it, and soon discovered the way in which the upper plate
BOSTON. 99
moved upon the lower one ; but this was not enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he applied his tongue first to one then to the other, and seemed to discover that they were of different kinds of metal.
" His signs were expressive : and the strictly natural language, laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c, was perfect.
" Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible ; such as the waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the circular one for a wheel, &c.
" The first object was to break up the use of these signs, and to substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.
" Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced at once with the finger language. Taking therefore, several articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c, and with Laura for an auxiliary, I sat
h2
0*-
f il
100
BOSTON.
M:\
k
m
down, and taking his hand, placed it upon one of them, and then with ray own, made the letters hey. He felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers. In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them, laughing most heartily when he succeeded. Laura was by, in- terested even to agitation ; and the two presented a singular sight : her face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twined in among ours so closely as to follow every motion, but so lightly as not to embarrass them ; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his right held out : at every motion of my fingers his countenance be- tokened keen attention ; there was an expression of anxiety as he tried to imitate the motions ; then a smile came stealing out as he thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment he succeeded, and felt me pat his head,
■
■
paiei!
PR^S 7-2
uj _
E0ST0N.
101
and Laura clap him heartily upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
" He learned more than a half dozen letters in half an hour, and seemed delighted with his suc- cess, at least in gaining approbation. His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him. It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c, as part of the process, without any perception of the relation between the sign and the object.
" When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation. He soon learned to make the letters for key, pen, pin ; and by having the object repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the relation I wished to establish between them. This was evident, because, when I made the letters p i n, or p e n, or c up, he would select the article.
" The perception of this relation was not accom- panied by that radiant flash of intelligence, and
'\
I
100 BOSTON.
down, and taking his hand, placed it upon one of them, and then with my own, made the letters hey. He felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers. In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them, laughing most heartily when he succeeded. Laura was by, in- terested even to agitation ; and the two presented a singular sight : her face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twined in among ours so closely as to follow every motion, but so lightly as not to embarrass them ; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his right held out : at every motion of my fingers his countenance be- tokened keen attention ; there was an expression of anxiety as he tried to imitate the motions ; then a smile came stealing out as he thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment he succeeded, and felt me pat his head,
BOSTON. 101
and Laura clap him heartily upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
" He learned more than a half dozen letters in half an hour, and seemed delighted with his suc- cess, at least in gaining approbation. His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him. It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c, as part of the process, without any perception of the relation between the sign and the object.
" When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation. He soon learned to make the letters for key, pen, pin; and by having the object repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the relation I wished to establish between them. This was evident, because, when I made the letters pin, or pen, or cup, he would select the article.
" The perception of this relation was not accom- panied by that radiant flash of intelligence, and
102 BOSTON.
that glow of joy, which marked the delightful moment when Laura first perceived it. I then placed all the articles on the table, and going away a little distance with the children, placed Oliver's fingers in the positions to spell key, on which Laura went and brought the article : the little fellow seemed to be much amused by this, and looked very attentive and smiling. I then caused him to make the letters bread, and in an instant Laura went and brought him a piece: he smelled at it ; put it to his lips ; cocked up his head with a most knowing look ; seemed to reflect a moment ; and 'then laughed outright, as much as to say, ' Aha ! I understand now how something may be made out of this.1
" It was now clear that he had the capacity and inclination to learn, that he was a proper subject for instruction, and needed only persevering at- tention I therefore put him in the hands of an intelligent teacher, nothing doubting of his rapid progress."
Well may this gentleman call that a delightful
BOSTON. 103
moment, in which some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the darkened mind of Laura Bridgman. Throughout his life, the recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure, unfading happiness; nor will it shine least brightly on the evening of his days of Noble Usefulness.
The affection that exists between these two — the master and the pupil — is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the common occurrences of life. He is occupied now, in devising means of imparting to her, higher knowledge ; and of conveying to her some adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep delight and glad enjoy- ment.
Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not ; ye who are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces that ye may seem unto men to fast ; learn healthy
104} BOSTON.
cheerfulness, and mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind ! Self-elected saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child may teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor hand of hers lie gently on your hearts ; for there may be something in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master whose precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the preachment of per- dition !
As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the attendants came running in to greet its father. For the moment, a child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago. Ah ! how much brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though it had been before, was the scene without, contrasting
BOSTON. 1 05
with the darkness of so many youthful lives within !
At South Boston, as it is called, in a situation excellently adapted for the purpose, several cha- ritable institutions are clustered together. One of these, is the State Hospital for the insane ; admirably conducted on those enlightened prin- ciples of conciliation and kindness, which twenty years a<ro would have been worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with so much success in our own pauper asylum at Han well. k; Evince a desire to show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people," — said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his patients nocking round us unrestrained. Of those who deny or doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if there be such people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof they are the subjects ; for I
106 BOSTON.
should certainly find them out of their senses, on such evidence alone.
Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on either hand. Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other games ; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day to- gether. In one of these rooms, seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of madwomen, black and white, were the physician's wife and another lady, with a couple of children. These ladies were graceful and handsome ; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that even their presence there, had a highly beneficialinfluence on the patients who were grouped about them.
Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so many queer
BOSTON. 107
odds and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a bird's-nest. She was radiant with imaginary jewels ; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spec- tacles; and gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will serve to exemplify the physician's manner of acquiring and retaining the confidence of his patients.
" This," he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the fantastic figure with great politeness — not raising her suspicions by the slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, io me : " This lady is the hostess of this mansion, sir. It belongs to her. Nobody else has anything whatever to do with it. It is a large establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of atten- dants. She lives, you observe, in the very first style. She is kind enough to receive my visits,
108 BOSTON.
and to permit my wife and family to reside here ; for which, it is hardly necessary to say, we are much indebted to her. She is exceedingly courteous, you perceive," on this hint she bowed, condescendingly, " and will permit me to have the pleasure of introducing you : a gentleman from England, Ma'am : newly arrived from England, after a very tempestuous passage : Mr. Dickens, — the lady of the house ! "
We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity and respect, and so went on. The rest of the madwomen seemed to understand the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all the others, except their own), and to be highly amused by it. The nature of their several kinds of insanity was made known to me in the same way, and we left each of them in high good humour. Not only is a thorough confidence established, by these means, between physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent of their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to startle them
BOSTOX. 10.9
by placing tlieir own delusion before them in its most incongruous and ridiculous light.
Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a knife and fork ; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose manner of deal- ing with his charges, I have just described. At every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among them from cutting the throats of the rest ; but the effect of that influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and hand- cuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured since the creation of the world.
In the labour department, every patient is ;ts freely trusted with the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man. In the garden, and on the farm, they work with spades, rakes, and hoes. For amusement, they walk, run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to take the air in carriages provided for the purpose. They have among themselves a sew-
110 BOSTON.
ing society to make clothes for the poor, which holds meetings, passes resolutions, never comes to fisty cuffs or bowie-knives as sane assemblies have been known to do elsewhere ; and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest decorum. The irri- tability, which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh, clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits. They are cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.
Once a week, they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, with all the nurses and attendants, take an active part. Dances and marches are performed alternately, to the enliven- ing strains of a piano ; and now and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency has been pre- viously ascertained) obliges the company with a song: nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or howl ; wherein, I must confess, I should have thought the danger lay. At an early hour they all meet together for these festive purposes ; at eight o'clock refreshments are served ; and at nine they separate.
BOSTON. Ill
Immense politeness and good-breeding are observed throughout. They all take their tone from the Doctor ; and he moves a very Chesterfield among the company. Like other assemblies, these entertainments afford a fruitful topic of conversa- tion among the ladies for some days; and the gen- tlemen are so anxious to shine on these occasions, that they have been sometimes found "practising their steps " in private, to cut a more distinguished figure in the dance.
It is obvious that one great feature of this sys- tem, is the inculcation and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of a decent self- respect. Something of the same spirit pervades all the Institutions at South Boston.
There is the House of Industry. In that branch of it, which is devoted to the reception of old or other- wise helpless paupers, these words are painted on the walls : " Worthy of Notice. Self-Government, Quietude, and Peace, are Blessings." It is not assumed and taken for granted that being there they must be evil-disposed and wicked people,before
] ] 2 BOSTON.
whose vicious eyes it is necessary to flourish threats and harsh restraints. They are met at the very threshold with this mild appeal. All within-doors is very plain and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged with a view to peace and comfort. It costs no more than any other plan of arrangement, but it bespeaks an amount of consideration for those who are reduced to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once upon their gratitude and good behaviour. Instead of being parcelled out in great, long, i ambling wards, where a certain amount of weazen life may mope, and pine, and shiver, all day long, the building is divided into separate rooms, each with its share of light and air. In these, the better kind of paupers live. They have a motive for exertion and becoming pride, in the desire to make these little chambers comfortable and decent. I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its plant or two upon the window- sill, or row of crockery upon the shelf, or small display of coloured prints upon the white-washed
B0ST0X. 113
wall, or, perhaps, its wooden clock behind the door.
The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building ; separate from this, but a part of the same Institution. Some are such little creatures, that the stairs are of lilliputian measure- ment, fitted to their tiny strides. The same con- sideration for their years and weakness is expressed in their very seats, which are perfect curiosities, and look like articles of furniture for a pauper doll's-house. I can imagine the glee of our Poor Law Commissioners at the notion of these seats having arms and backs ; but small spines being of older date than their occupation of the Board- room at Somerset House, I thought even this provision very merciful and kind.
Here again, I was greatly pleased with the in- scriptions on the wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and understood: such as " Love one another11 — " God remembers the smallest creature in his creation : n and straight- forward advice of that nature. The books and
VOL. I. I
114 BOSTON.
tasks of these smallest of scholars, were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish powers. When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls (of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited an English November better. That done, we went to see their sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below. And after observing that the teachers were of a class and character well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants yet.
Connected with the House of Industry, there is also a Hospital, which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds unoccupied. It had one fault, however, which is common to all American interiors : the presence of the eternal, accursed, suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight the purest air under Heaven.
BOSTON. 115
There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood. One is called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected and indi- gent boys who have committed no crime, but who in the ordinary course of things would very soon be purged of that distinction if they were not taken from the hungry streets and sent here. The other is a House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders. They are both under the same roof, but the two classes of bovs never come in contact.
The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much the advantage of the others in point of personal appearance. They were in their school-room when I came upon them, and an- swered correctly, without book, such questions as where was England ; how far was it ; what was its population ; its capital city; its form of govern- ment ; and so forth. They sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his seed : with correspond- ing action at such parts as " 'tis thus he sows,
" he turns him round," " he claps his hands ;
i2
•n
•'
116 BOSTON.
which gave it greater interest for them, and ac- customed them to act together, in an orderly manner. They appeared exceedingly well taught, and not better taught than fed ; for a more chubby-looking, full-waistcoated set of boys, I never saw.
The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great deal, and in this establishment there were many boys of colour. I saw them first at their work (basket-making, and the manufac- ture of palm-leaf hats), afterwards in their school, where they sang a chorus in praise of Liberty: an odd, and, one would think, rather aggravating, theme for prisoners. These boys are divided into four classes, each denoted by a numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm. On the arrival of a new- comer, he is put into the fourth or lowest class, and left, by good behaviour, to work his way up into the first. The design and object of this Insti- tution is to reclaim the youthful criminal by firm but kind and judicious treatment; to make his prison a place of purification and improvement,
BOSTON. 117
not of demoralisation and corruption ; to impress upon him that there is but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever lead him to happi- ness ; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his footsteps have never yet been led that way ; and to lure him back to it if they have strayed : in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and restore him to society a penitent and useful member. The importance of such an establishment, in every point of view, and with reference to every con- sideration of humanity and social policy, requires no comment.
One other establishment closes the catalogue. It is the House of Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly maintained, but where the prisoners have the comfort and mental relief of seeing each other, and of working together. This is the improved system of Prison Discipline which we have imported into England, and which has been in successful operation among us for some years past.
America, as a new and not over-populated coun-
118 BOSTON.
try, has, in all her prisons, the one great advantage, of being enabled to find useful and profitable work for the inmates ; whereas, with us, the prejudice against prison labour is naturally very strong, and almost insurmountable, when honest men, who have not offended against the laws, are frequently doomed to seek employment in vain. Even in the United States, the principle of bringing convict labour and free labour into a competition which must obviously be to the disadvantage of the latter, has already found many opponents, whose number is not likely to diminish with access of years.
For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at the first glance to be better con- ducted than those of America. The treadmill is accompanied with little or no noise ; five hundred men may pick oakum in the same room, without a sound ; and both kinds of labour admit of such keen and vigilant superintendence, as will render even a word of personal communication among the prisoners almost impossible. On the other hand,
BOSTON. 119
the noise of the loom, the forge, the carpenter's hammer, or the stone-mason's saw, greatly favour those opportunities of intercourse — hurried and brief no doubt, but opportunities still — which these several kinds of work, by rendering it necessary for men to be employed very near to each other, and often side by side, without any barrier or partition between them, in their very nature pre- sent. A visitor, too, requires to reason and reflect a little, before the sight of a number of men engaged uin ordinary labour, such as he is accus- tomed to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly as the contemplation of the same persons in the same place and garb would, if they were occupied in some task, marked and degraded everywhere as belonging only to felons in jails. In an American state prison or house of correc- tion, I found it difficult at first to persuade myself that I was really in a jail : a place of ignominious punishment and endurance. And to this hour I very much question whether the humane boast that it is not like one, has its
120 BOSTON.
root in the true wisdom or philosophy of the matter.
I hope I may not be misunderstood on this sub- ject, for it is one in which I take a strong and deep interest. I incline as little to the sickly feeling which makes every canting lie or maudlin speech of a notorious criminal a subject of news- paper report and general sympathy, as I do to those good old customs of the good old times which made England, even so recently as in the reign of the Third King George, in respect of her criminal code and her prison regulations, one of the most bloody-minded and barbarous countries on the earth. If I thought it would do any good to the rising generation, I would cheerfully give my consent to the disinterment of the bones of any genteel highwayman (the more genteel, the more cheerfully), and to their exposure, piece-meal, on any sign-post, gate, or gibbet, that might be deemed a good elevation for the purpose. My reason is as well convinced that these gentry were utterly worthless and debauched villains,
BOSTON. 121
as it is that the laws and jails hardened them in their evil courses, or that their wonderful escapes were effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in those admirable days, had always been felons themselves, and were, to the last, their bosom- friends and pot- companions. At the same time I know, as all men do or should, that the sub- ject of Prison Discipline is one of the highest importance to any community ; and that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other countries on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence, and exalted policy. In contrasting her system with that which we have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own *.
* Apart from profit made by the useful labour of prisoners, which we can never hope to realize to any great extent, and which it is perhaps not expedient for us to try to gain, there are two prisons in London, in all respects equal, and in some decidedly superior, to any I saw or have ever heard or read of in America. One is the Tothill Fields Bridewell, conducted by Lieutenant A. F. Tracey, R.N. ; the other the Middlesex House of Correction, superintended by Mr. Chesterton. This gentleman also holds an appointment in the Public Service. Both are enlight-
122 BOSTON.
The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with tall rough stakes, something after the manner of an enclosure for keeping elephants in, as we see it represented in Eastern prints and pictures. The prisoners wear a parti-coloured dress ; and those who are sen- tenced to hard labour, work at nail-making or stone-cutting. When I was there, the latter class of labourers were employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in course of erection at Boston. They appeared to shape it skilfully and with expe- dition, though there were very few among them (if any) who had not acquired the art within the prison gates.
The women, all in one large room, were em- ployed in making light clothing, for New Orleans and the Southern States. They did their work in silence, like the men ; and like them, were over-
ened and superior men : and it would be as difficult to find persons better qualified for the functions they discharge with firmness, zeal, intelligence, and humanity, as it would be to exceed the perfect order and arrangement of the institutions they govern.
BOSTON. 120
looked by the person contracting for their labour, or by some agent of his appointment. In addition to this, they are every moment liable to be visited by the prison officers appointed for that purpose.
The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so forth, are much upon the plan of those I have seen at home. Their mode of bestowing the prisoners at night (which is of gene- ral adoption) differs from ours, and is both simple and effective. In the centre of a lofty area, lighted by windows in the four walls, are five tiers of cells, one above the other ; each tier having before it a light iron gallery, attainable by stairs of the same construction and material : excepting the lower one, which is on the ground. Behind these, back to back with them and facing the opposite wall, are five corresponding rows of cells, accessible b}' similar means : so that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an officer stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has half their number under his eye at once ; the remaining half being equally under the observation of another
124 BOSTON.
officer on the opposite side ; and all in one great apartment. Unless this watch be corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is impossible for a man to escape ; for even in the event of his forcing the iron door of his cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable), the moment he appears outside, and steps into that one of the five galleries on which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible to the officer below. Each of these cells holds a small truckle-bed, in which one prisoner sleeps ; never more. It is small, of course ; and the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or minute of the night. Every day, the prisoners receive their dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall ; and each man carries his to his sleep- ing cell to eat it, where he is locked up, alone, for that purpose, one hour. The whole of this arrange- ment struck me as being admirable ; and I hope that the next new prison we erect in England may be built on this plan.
BOSTON". 125
I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or fire-arms, or even cudgels, are kept ; nor is it probable that, so long as its present excellent management continues, any weapon, offensive or defensive, will ever be required within its bounds.
Such are the Institutions at South Boston ! In all of them, the unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully instructed in their duties both to God and man ; are surrounded by all rea- sonable means of comfort and happiness that their condition will admit of ; are appealed to, as mem- bers of the great human family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen ; are ruled by the strong Heart, and not by the strong (though immeasurably weaker) Hand. I have described them at some length : firstly, because their worth demanded it ; and secondly, because I mean to take them for a model, and to content myself with saying of others we may come to, whose design and purpose are the same, that in this or that respect they practically fail, or differ.
I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its
126 BOSTON.
execution, but in its just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to ray readers one hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I have described, afforded nie.
To an Englishman, accustomed to the parapher- nalia of Westminster Hall, an American Court of Law is as odd a sight as, I suppose, an English Court of Law would be to an American. Except in the Supreme Court at Washington (where the judges wear a plain black robe), there is no such thing as a wig or gown connected with the admi- nistration of justice. The gentlemen of the bar being barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those functions as in England), are no more removed from their clients than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors are, from theirs. The jury are quite "at home, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances will permit. The witness is so little elevated above,
BOSTON. 127
or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a stranger entering during a pause in the proceed- ings would find it difficult to pick him out from the rest. And if it chanced to be a criminal trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain ; for that gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an old quill with his pen-knife.
I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the courts at Boston. I was much sur- prised at first, too, to observe that the counsel who interrogated the witness under examination at the time, did so sitting. But seeing that he was also occupied in writing down the answers, and remembering that he was alone and had no "junior," I quickly consoled myself with the reflection that law was not quite so expensive an article here, as at home ; and that the absence of sundry formalities which we regard as indispen-
128 BOSTON.
sable, had doubtless a very favourable influence upon the bill of costs.
In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth ; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing national is exhibited for money ; and no public officer is a showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example. I hope we shall continue to do so ; and that in the fulness of time, even deans and chapters may be converted.
In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained in some accident upon a rail- way. The witnesses had been examined, and counsel was addressing the jury. The learned gentleman (like a few of his English brethren) was desperately long-winded, and had a remarkable
BOSTON. 129
capacity of saying the same thing over and over again. His great theme was " Warren the Engine driver," whom he pressed into the service of every sentence he uttered. I listened to him for about a quarter of an hour ; and, coming out of court at the expiration of that time, without the faintest ray of enlightenment as to the merits of the case, felt as if I were at home again.
In the prisoners' cell, waiting to be examined by the magistrate on a charge of theft, was a boy. This lad, instead of being committed to a common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and there taught a trade ; and in the course of time he would be bound apprentice to some respect- able master. Thus, his detection in this offence, instead of being the prelude to a life of infamy and a miserable death, would lead, there was a reason- able hope, to his being reclaimed from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society.
I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous. Strange as it may
VOL. I. K
ISO BOSTON.
seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of pro- tection in the wig and gown — a dismissal of indi- vidual responsibility in dressing for the part — which encourages that insolent bearing and lan- guage, and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth, so frequent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot help doubting whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities and abuses of the old system, may not have gone too far into the opposite extreme ; and whether it is not desirable, especially in the small community of a city like this, where each man knows the other, to surround the administration of justice with some artificial barriers against the " Hail fellow, well met " deportment of everyday life. All the aid it can have in the very high character and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it has, and well deserves to have ; but it may need something more : not to impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the ignorant and heed- less ; a class which includes some prisoners and many witnesses. These institutions were established,
BOSTON. 131
no doubt, upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making the laws, would certainly respect them. But experience has proved this hope to be fallacious ; for no men know better than the Judges of America, that on the occasion of any great popular excitement the law is power- less, and cannot, for the time, assert its own supremacy.
The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness, courtesy, and good breeding. The ladies are unquestionably very beautiful — in face : but there I am compelled to stop. Their educa- tion is much as with us; neither better nor worse. I had heard some very marvellous stories in this respect ; but not believing them, was not disap- pointed. Blue ladies there are, in Boston ; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in most other latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to be so. Evangelical ladies there are, like- wise, whose attachment to the forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are most
exemplary. Ladies who have a passion for attend-
K 2
132 BOSTON.
ing lectures are to be found among all classes and all conditions. In the kind of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the Pulpit has great influence. The peculiar province of the Pulpit in New England (always excepting the Unitarian ministry) would appear to be the denouncement of all innocent and rational amusements. The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, are the only means of excitement excepted ; and to the church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.
Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the way- side, will be voted the most righteous ; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the diffi- culty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true believers certain of going there : though it
BOSTON. 133
would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. It is so at home, and it is so abroad. With regard to the other means of excitement, the Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always new. One lecture treads so quickly on the heels of another, that none are remembered ; and the course of this month may be safely repeated next, with its charm of novelty unbroken, and its interest unabated.
The fruits of the earth have their growth in cor- ruption. Out of the rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in Boston a sect of philoso- phers known as Transcendentalists. On inquiring what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to understand that whatever was un- intelligible would be certainly transcendental. Not deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or, I should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. This gentle- man has written a volume of Essays, in which,
lo4 BOSTON'.
among much that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so), there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold. Trans- cendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has not ?) but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them ; not least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe. And therefore if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be a Transcendentalist.
The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself. I found his chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow, old, water-side streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from its roof. In the gallery opposite to the pulpit were a little choir of male and female singers, a violoncello, and a violin. The preacher already sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, and ornamented behind him with painted drapery of a lively and somewhat theatrical appear- ance. He looked a weather-beaten hard-featured
BOSTON. 135
man, of about six or eight and fifty ; with deep lines graven as it were into his face, dark hair, iind a stern, keen eye. Yet the general character of his countenance was pleasant and agreeable.
The service commenced with a hymn, to which succeeded an extemporary prayer. It had the fault of frequent repetition, incidental to all such prayers ; but it was plain and comprehensive in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy and charity, which is not so commonly a charac- teristic of this form of address to the Deity as it might be. That done he opened his discourse taking for his text a passage from the Songs of Solomon, laid upon the desk before the commence- ment of the service bv some unknown member of
af
the congregation : " Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her Beloved !" He handled this text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all manner of shapes ; but always ingeniously, and with a rude eloquence, well-adapted to the comprehension of his hearers. Indeed if I be not mistaken, he studied their sympathies and
136 BOSTON.
understandings much more than the display of his own powers. His imagery was all drawn from the sea, and from the incidents of a seaman's life ; and was often remarkably good. He spoke to them of " that glorious man, Lord Nelson," and of Collingwood ; and drew nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but brought it to bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp mind to its effect. Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, he had an odd way — compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of Burley — of taking his great quarto bible under his arm and pacing up and down the pulpit with it : looking steadily down, meantime, into the midst of the congrega- tion. Thus, when he applied his text to the first assemblage of his hearers, and pictured the wonder of the church at their presumption in forming a congregation among themselves, he stopped short with his bible under his arm in the manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this manner :
" Who are these — who are they — who are these
BOSTON. 137
fellows I where do they come from \ where are they going to I — Come from ! What's the answer?" — leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with his right hand: " From below !" — starting back again, and looking at the sailors before him : " From below, my brethren. From under the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil one. That 's where you came from ! " — a walk up and down the pulpit : " and where are you going'1 — stopping abruptly : " where are you going 1 Aloft ! " — very softly, and pointing upward : " Aloft ! " —louder: " aloft ! "—louder still: " That's where you are going — with a fair wind, — all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are £ t rest." — Another walk : " That's where you're going to, my friends. That's it. That 's the place. That's the port. That 's the haven. It 's a blessed harbour — still water there, in all changes of the winds and tides ; no driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running out to sea,
138 BOSTON.
there: Peace — Peace — Peace — all peace!" — An- other walk, and patting the bible under his left arm : 6- What I These fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they ? Yes. From the dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death. But do they lean upon anything — do they lean upon nothing, these poor seamen 2"— .-Three raps upon the bible : " Oh yes. — Yes. — They lean upon the arm of their Beloved " — three more raps : " upon the arm of their Beloved " — three more, and a walk : " Pilot, guiding-star, and compass, all in one, to all hands — here it is11— three more : " Here it is. They can do their seaman's duty manfully, and be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger, with this " — two more : " They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go up — up — up !" — raising his hand higher, and higher, at every repetition of the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his head, regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the book triumphantly to his breast,
BOSTON. 139
until he gradually subsided into some other por- tion of his discourse.
I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher's eccentricities than his merits, though taken in connection with his look and manner, and the character of his audience, even this was striking. It is possible, however, that my favour- able impression of him may have been greatly influenced and strengthened, firstly, by his impres- sing upon his hearers that the true observance of religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful de- portment and an exact discharge of the duties of their station, which, indeed, it scrupulously re- quired of them ; and secondly, by his cautioning them not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies. I never heard these two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever heard them touched at all), by any preacher of that kind, before.
Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself acquainted with these things, in settling the course I should take in my future
140 BOSTON.
travels, and in mixing constantly with its society, I am not aware that I have any occasion to prolong this chapter. Such of its social customs as I have not mentioned, however, may be told in a very few words.
The usual dinner-hour is two o^clock. A din- ner party takes place at five ; and at an evening party, they seldom sup later than eleven ; so that it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout, by midnight. I never could find out any differ- ence between a party at Boston and a party in London, saving that at the former place all assemblies are held at more rational hours ; that the conversation may possibly be a little louder and more cheerful; that a guest is usually ex- pected to ascend to the very top of the house to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see, at every dinner, an unusual amount of poultry on the table ; and at every supper, at least twTo mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily.
BOSTON. 141
There arc two theatres in Boston, of good size and construction, but sadly in want of patronage. The few ladies who resort to them, sit, as of right, in the front rows of the boxes.
There is no smoking-room in any hotel, and there was none consequently in ours ; but the bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people stand and smoke, and lounge about, all the evening : dropping in and out as the humour takes them. There too the stranger is initiated into the mys- teries of Gin-sling, Cocktail, Sangaree, Mint Julep, Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doodle, and other rare drinks. The House is full of boarders, both married and single, many of whom sleep upon the premises, and contract by the week for their board and lodging; : the charge for which diminishes as they go nearer the sky to roost. A public table is laid in a very handsome hall for breakfast, and for dinner, and for supper. The party sitting down together to these meals will vary in number from one to two hundred : some- times more. The advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed by an awful gong, which
142 BOSTON.
shakes the very window frames as it reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs nervous foreigners. There is an ordinary for ladies, and an ordinary for gentlemen.
In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly consideration, have been laid for dinner with- out a huge glass dish of cranberries in the middle of the table ; and breakfast would have been no break- fast unless the principal dish were a deformed beef- steak with a great flat bone in the centre, swim- ming in hot butter, and sprinkled with the very blackest of all possible pepper. Our bedroom was spacious and airy, but (like every bedroom on this side of the Atlantic) very bare of furni- ture, having no curtains to the French bedstead or to the window. It had one unusual luxury, however, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted wood, something smaller than an English watch- box : or if this comparison should be insufficient to convey a just idea of its dimensions, they may be estimated from the fact of my having lived for fourteen days and nights in the firm belief that it was a shower-bath.
LOWELL.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY
SYSTEM.
Before leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. I assign a separate chapter to this visit ; not because I am about to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a" thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the same.
I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, for the first time. As these works are pretty much alike all through the States, their general characteristics are easily described.
There are no first and second class carriages as with us ; but there is a gentlemen's car and a ladies' car : the main distinction between which is
VOL. I. L
146
AN AMERICAN RAILROAD,
that in the first, everybody smokes ; and in the second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a nesrro car; which is a great blundering clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of Brobdignag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell.
The cars are like shabby omnibusses, but larger : holding thirty, forty, fifty, people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds two persons. There is a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a door at both ends. In the centre of the carriage there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal ; which is for the most part red-hot. It is insufferably close ; and you see the hot air flut- tering between yourself and any other object you may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke.
AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. 147
In the ladies' car, there are a great many gentlemen who have ladies with them. There are also a great many ladies who have nobody with them : for any lady may travel alone, from one end of the United States to the other, and be certain of the most courteous and considerate treatment everywhere. The conductor or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform. He walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy dictates ; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger ; or enters into con- versation with the passengers about him. A great many newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are read. Everybody talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an Englishman, he expects that that railroad is pretty much like an English railroad. If you say " No," he says " Yes ? " (interrogatively), and asks in what respect they differ. You enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says " Yes \ " (still interrogatively) to each. Then he
L 2
148 AN AMERICAN RAILROAD.
guesses that you don't travel faster in England ; and on your replying that you do, says " Yes 4 1 again (still interrogatively), and, it is quite evident, don't believe it. After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, and partly to the knob on the top of his stick, that " Yankees are reckoned to be considerable of ago-ahead people too;" upon which you say " Yes,r> and then lie says " Yes " again (affirmatively this time) ; and upon your looking out of window, tells you that behind that hill, and some three miles from the next station, there is a clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you have con-eluded to stop. Your answer in the negative naturally leads to more questions in reference to your intended route (always pro- nounced rout) ; and wherever you are going, you invariably learn that you can't get there without immense difficulty and danger, and that all the great sights are somewhere else.
If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger's seat, the gentleman who accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he immediately vacates
AX AMERICAN RAILROAD. 14[)
it with great politeness. Politics are much dis- cussed, so are banks, so is cotton. Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high : the great con- stitutional feature of this institution being, that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of the next one begins ; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong politicians and true lovers of their country : that is to say, to ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety- nine and a quarter.
Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more than one track of rails ; so that the road is very narrow, and the view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same. Mile after mile of stunted trees : some hewn down by the axe, some blown down bv the wind, some half fallen and resting on their neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the swamp, others mouldered away to spongy
150 AN AMERICAN RAILROAD.
chips. The very soil of the earth is made up of minute fragments such as these ; each pool of stagnant water has its crust of vegetable rotten- ness ; on every side there are the boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of decay, decomposition, and neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or pool, broad as many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a name ; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church and schoolhouse ; when whir-r-r-r ! almost before you have seen them, comes the same dark screen : the stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the stag- nant water — all so like the last that you seem to have been transported back again by magic.
The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessnes of there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the
AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. 151
turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal : nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted " When the bell rings, look out for the Locomotive." On it whirls headlong, dives through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and dashes on hap- hazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of the road. There — with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses plunging and rearing, close to the very rails — there — on, on, on — tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars ; scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its wood fire ; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting ; until at last the thirsty monster
152 LOWELL, AND ITS
stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people cluster round, and you have time to breathe again. I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentle- man intimately connected with the management of the factories there ; and gladly putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit, were situated. Although only just of age — for if my recollection serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty years — Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place. Those indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a quaintness and oddity of cha- racter which, to a visitor from the old country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter's day, and nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited there, on the subsiding of the waters after the Deluge. In one place, there was a new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and being yet unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case
FACTORY SYSTEM. 153
without any direction upon it. In another there was a large hotel, whose walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it had exactly the appearance of being built with cards. I was careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled when I saw a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless stamp of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it rattling down. The very river that moves the machinery in the mills (for they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a new character from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and painted wood among which it takes its course ; and to be as light-headed, thoughtless, and brisk a young river, in its murmurings and tumblings, as one would desire to see. One would swear that every fc Bakery," " Grocery,'" and " Bookbindery," and other kind of store, took its shutters down for the first time, and started in business yesterday. The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs upon the sun-blind frames outside the Druggist's, appear to have been just
154 LOWELL, AND ITS
turned out of the United States'* Mint ; and when I saw a baby of some week or ten days old in a woman's arms at a street corner, I found myself unconsciously wondering where it came from : never supposing for an instant that it could have been born in such a young town as that.
There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in A merica a Corporation. I went over several of these ; such as a woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory : examined them in every part ; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary every-day proceedings. I may add that I am well acquainted with our manufac- turing towns in England, and have visited many mills in Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.
I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour was over, and the girls were re- turning to their work ; indeed the stairs of the
FACTORY SYSTEM. 155
mill were thronged with them as ] ascended. They were all well-dressed, but not to my thinking above their condition : for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and ap- pearance, and even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their means. Supposing it confined within reason- able limits, I would always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of self-respect, in any person I employed ; and should no more be de- terred from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning to the well-disposed, founded on his back- slidings on that particular day, which might ema- nate from the rather doubtful authority of a murderer in Newgate.
These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed : and that phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. They had serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not above
156 LOWELL, AND ITS
clogs and pattens. Moreover, there were places in the mill in which they could deposit these things without injury ; and there were conve- niences for washing. They were healthy in ap- pearance, many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of young women : not of degraded brutes of burden. If I had seen in one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected, and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, dull reverse (I have seen that), and should have been still well pleased to look upon her.
The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves. In the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained to shade the glass ; in all, there was as much fresh air, cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would possibly admit of. Out of so large a number of females, many of whom were
FACTORY SYSTEM. 157
only then just verging upon womanhood, it may be reasonably supposed that some were delicate and fragile in appearance : no doubt there were. But I solemnly declare, that from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I cannot recal or separate one young face that gave me a painful impression ; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be matter of necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the power.
They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand. The owners of the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry. Any complaint that is made against them, by the boarders, or by any one else, is fully investigated ; and if good ground of complaint be shown to exist against them, they are removed, and their occupation is handed over to some more deserving person. There are a few children em-
158 LOWELL, AND ITS
ployed in these factories, but not many. The laws of the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year, and require that they be educated during the other three. For this pur- pose there are schools in Lowell ; and there are churches and chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may observe that form of Worship in which they have been educated.
At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and pleasantest ground in the neighbour- hood, stands their hospital, or boarding-house for the sick : it is the best house in those parts, and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence. Like that institution at Boston which I have before described, it is not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable home. The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof; and were the patients, members of his own family, they could not be better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and consideration. The weekly charge
FACTORY SYSTEM. 159
in this establishment for each female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English ; but no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for want of the means of payment. That they do not very often want the means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July 1841 no fewer than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors in the Lowell Savings Bank : the amount of whose joint savings was estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand English pounds.
I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among themselves a periodical called The Lowell Of- fering, " A repository of original articles, written exclusively by females actively employed in the mills," — which is duly printed, published, and sold ;
160 LOWELL, AND ITS
and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.
The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, with one voice, " How very preposterous !" On my deferentially inquiring why, they will answer, " These things are above their station." In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what their station is.
It is their station to work. And they do work. They labour in these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is unquestion- ably work, and pretty tight work too. Per- haps it is above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms. Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of the "station1 of working people, from accus- toming ourselves to the contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be? I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell Offering, startle us
FACTORY SYSTEM. 1 G 1
by their novelty, and rot by their bearing upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
For myself. I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanizing and laudable. I know no station which is ren- dered more endurable to the person in it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for its associate. I know no station which has a right to monopolize the means of mutual instruc- tion, improvement, and rational entertainment ; or which has ever continued to be a station very long, after seeking to do so.
Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the articles having been written by these girls after the arduous labours of the day, that it will com- pare advantageously with a great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in
VOL. I. H
162 LOWELL, AND ITS
them ; that they inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have left at home, breathes through its pages like whole- some village air ; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life. Some persons might object to the papers being signed occa- sionally with rather fine names, but this is an American fashion. One of the provinces of the state legislature of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names into pretty ones, as the children improve upon the tastes of their parents. These changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session.
It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the pur- pose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young ladies, all dressed out with parasols
FACTORY SYSTEM. 163
and silk stockings. But as I am not aware that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden looking-up of all the parasols and silk stockings in the market ; and perhaps the bankruptcy of some speculative New Englander who bought them all up at any price, in expectation of a demand that never came ; I set no great store by the cir- cumstance.
In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained from drawing a comparison between these factories and those of our own land. Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen here ; and there is no manu- facturing population in Lowell, so to speak : for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go home for good.
M 2
164 LOWELL, AND ITS
The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from it, because I deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and reflect upon the difference between this town and those great haunts of desperate misery : to call to mind, if they can in the midst of party strife and squabble, the efforts that must be made to purge them of their suffering and danger: and last, and fore- most, to remember how the precious Time is rushing by.
I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of car. One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at great length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true principles on which books of travel in America should be written by Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep. But glancing all the way out at window from the corners of my eyes, I found abundance of entertainment for the rest of
FACTORY SYSTEM. 165
the ride in watching the effects of the wood fire, which had been invisible in the morning but were now brought out in full relief by the darkness : for we were travelling in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which showered about us like a storm of fiery snow,
WORCESTER TO NEW YORK.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. HARTFORD. NEW HAVEN. TO NEW YORK.
Leaving Boston on the afternoon of Saturday the fifth of February, we proceeded by another railroad to Worcester : a pretty New England town, where we had arranged to remain under the hospitable roof of the Governor of the State, until Monday morning.
These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be villages in Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural America, as their people are of rural Americans. The well-trimmed lawns and green meadows of home are not there ; and the grass, compared with our ornamental plots and pastures, is rank, and rough, and wild : but
170 WORCESTER.
delicate slopes of land, gently-swelling hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams, abound. Every little colony of houses has its church and school -house peeping from among the white roofs and shady trees; every house is the whitest of the white; every Venetian blind the greenest of the green ; every fine day's sky the bluest of the blue. A sharp dry wind and a slight frost had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that their furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite. There was the usual aspect of newness on every object, of course. All the buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little trouble. In the keen evening air, every sharp out- line looked a hundred times sharper than ever. The clean cardboard colonnades had no more per- spective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup, and appeared equally well calculated for use. The razor-like edges of the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled against them, and to send it smarting on its way with a shriller
WORCESTER. 171
cry than before. Those slightly-built wooden dwell- ings behind which the sun was setting with a brilliant lustre, could be so looked through and through, that the idea of any inhabitant being able to hide himself from the public gaze, or to have any secrets from the public eye, was not enter- tainable for a moment. Even where a blazing fire shone through the uncurtained windows of some distant house, it had the air of being newly-lighted, and of lacking warmth ; and instead of awakening thoughts of a snug chamber, bright with faces that first saw the light round that same hearth, and ruddy with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive of the smell of new mortar and damp walls.
So I thought, at least, that evening. Next morning when the sun was shining brightly, and the clear church bells were ringing, and sedate people in their best clothes enlivened the pathway near at hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel. It would
372 HARTFORD.
have been the better for an old church ; better still for some old graves ; but as it was, a whole- some repose and tranquillity pervaded the scene, which after the restless ocean and the hurried city, had a doubly grateful influence on the spirits.
We went on next morning, still by railroad, to Springfield. From that place to Hartford, whither we were bound, is a distance of onlv five- and -twenty miles, but at that time of the year the roads were so bad that the journey would probably have occupied ten or twelve hours. Fortunately, however, the winter having been unusually mild, the Connecticut River was " open," or, in other words, not frozen. The captain of a small steam- boat was going to make his first trip for the season that day (the second February trip, I believe, within the memory of man), and only waited for us to go on board. Accordingly, we went on board, with as little delay as might be. He was as good as his word, and started directly.
It certainly was not called a small steam-boat without reason. I omitted to ask the question,
HARTFORD. 173
but I should think it must have been of about halt' a pony power. Mr. Paap, the celebrated Dwarf,
might have lived and died happily in the cabin, which was fitted with common sash-windows like an ordinary dwelling-house. These windows had bright-red curtains, too, hung on slack strings across the lower panes ; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water accident, and was drifting nobody knew where. But even in this chamber there was a rocking-chair. It would be impossible to get on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair.
I am afraid to tell how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow : to apply the words length and width to such measurement would be a contradiction in terms. But I may state that we all kept the middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip over ; and that the machinery, by some surprising process of con- densation, worked between it and the keel : the whole forming a warm sandwich, about three feet thick.
174 HARTFORD.
It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain anywhere, but in the Highlands of Scotland. The river was full of floating blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching and cracking under us ; and the depth of water, in the course we took to avoid the larger masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current, did not exceed a few inches. Nevertheless, we moved onward, dex- terously ; and being well wrapped up, bade de- fiance to the weather, and enjoyed the journey. The Connecticut River is a fine stream ; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt, beautiful : at all events, I was told so by a young lady in the cabin ; and she should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a quality include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful creature I never looked upon.
After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable
HARTFORD. 175
hotel : except, as usual, in the article of bed- rooms, which, in almost every place we visited, were very conducive to early rising.
We tarried here, four days. The town is beau- tifully situated in a basin of green hills ; the soil is rich, well-wooded, and carefully improved. It is the seat of the local legislature of Connecticut, which sage body enacted, in bygone times, the renowned code of " Blue Laws," in virtue whereof, among other enlightened provisions, any citizen who could be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, was punishable, I believe, with the stocks. Too much of the old Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour ; but its influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less hard in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings. As I never heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer that it never will, here. Indeed, I am accustomed, with reference to great professions and severe faces, to judge of the goods of the other world pretty much as I judge of the goods of this ; and whenever I see a
176 HARTFORD.
dealer in such commodities with too great a display of them in his window, I doubt the quality of the article within.
In Hertford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King Charles was hidden. It is now inclosed in a gentleman's garden. In the State- house is the charter itself. I found the courts of law here, just the same as at Boston ; the public Institutions almost as good. The Insane Asylum is admirably conducted, and so is the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.
I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the Insane Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from the patients, but for the few words which passed between the former, and the Doctor, in reference to the persons under their charge. Of course I limit this remark merely to their looks ; for the conversation of the mad people was mad enough.
There was one little prim old lady, of very smiling and good-humoured appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a long
HARTFORD. 1 77
passage, and with a curtsey of inexpressible con- descension, propounded this unaccountable in- quiry :
" Does Pontefract still nourish, Sir, upon the soil of England V
" He does, Ma'am," I rejoined.
" When you last saw him, Sir, he was — "
" Well, Ma'am," said I, " extremely well. He begged me to present his compliments. I never saw him looking better."
At this, the old lady was very much delighted. After glancing at me for a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was serious in my respectful air, she sidled back some paces ; sidled forward again ; made a sudden skip (at which I precipitately retreated a step or two) ; and said :
" / am an antediluvian, Sir."
I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much from the first. Therefore I said so.
" It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, Sir, to be an antediluvian," said the old lady.
VOL. I. N
178 HARTFORD.
" I should think it was, Ma'am," I rejoined.
The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled gracefully into her own bed-chamber.
In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed ; very much flushed and heated.
" Well ! " said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap : " It's all settled, at last. I have arranged it with queen Victoria."
" Arranged what?" asked the Doctor.
« Why, that business/' passing his hand wearily across his forehead, " about the siege of New York."
" Oh ! " said I, like a man suddenly enlightened. For he looked at me for an answer.
" Yes. Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the British troops. No harm will be done to the others. No harm at all. Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags. That's all they'll have to do. They must hoist flags."
HARTFORD. 179
Even while he was speaking, he seemed, I thought, to have some faint idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these words, he lay down again ; gave a kind of groan ; and covered his hot head with the blankets.
There was another : a young man, whose mad- ness was love and music. After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately did.
By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his bent, I went to the win- dow, which commanded a beautiful prospect, and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
u What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours."
" Poh !"" said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his instrument : " Well enough for such an Institution as this!"
I don't think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
N 2
180 HARTFORD.
" I come here just for a whim,'1 he said coolly. " That's all."
« Oh ! That's all !" said I.
" Yes. That's all. The Doctor "s a smart man. He quite enters into it. It's a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You needn't mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday !"
I assured him that I would consider our inter- view perfectly confidential; and rejoined the Doctor. As we were passing through a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph. I complied, and we parted.
" I think I remember having had a few inter- views like that, with ladies out of doors. I hope she is not mad I"
" Yes."
" On what subject ? Autographs V
" No. She hears voices in the air.1
>"
11
"Well!" thought I, "it would be well if we
HARTFORD. 181
could shut up a few false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the same ; and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two to begin with."
In this place, there is the best Jail for untried offenders in the world. There is also a very well- ordered State prison, arranged upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun. It contained at that time about two hundred pri- soners. A spot was shown me in the sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some vears since in the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a prisoner who had broken from his cell. A woman, too, was pointed out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close prisoner for sixteen years.
" Do you think," I asked of my conductor, " that after so very long an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her liberty V
" Oh dear yes," he answered. "To be sure she has."
182 HARTFORD.
" She lias no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?"
" Well, I don't know :" which, by the bye, is a national answer. " Her friends mistrust her."
" What have they to do with it V I naturally inquired.
" Well, they won't petition.'1
" But if they did, they couldn't get her out, I suppose V
u Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring and wearying for a few years might do it."
" Does that ever do it V
" Why yes, that'll do it sometimes. Political friends '11 do it sometimes. It's pretty often done, one way or another."
I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that night by railroad to New Haven. Upon the way, the guard and I
NEW HA VEX. 183
were formally introduced to each other (as we usually were on such occasions), and exchanged a variety of small-talk. We reached New Haven at about eight o'clock, after a journey of three hours, and put up for the night at the best inn.
New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of its streets (as its alias suf- ficiently imports) are planted with rows of grand old elm-trees ; and the same natural ornaments surround Yale College, an establishment of consi- derable eminence and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect is very like that of an old cathe- dral yard in England ; and when their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque. Even in the winter time, these groups of well- grown trees, clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city, have a very quaint appear- ance : seeming to bring about a kind of compromise between town and country ; as if each had met the
184 NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK.
other half-way, and shaken hands upon it ; which is at once novel and pleasant.
After a night's rest, we rose early, and in good
time went down to the wharf, and oil board the packet New Yorker New York. This was the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen ; and certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat than a huge floating-bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but that the bath- ing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size ; run away from home ; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer. Being in America too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the more probable.
The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours, is, that there is so much of them out of the water : the main- deck being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses ; and the promenade or hurricane- deck being a-top of that again. A part of the
NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK. 185
machinery is always above this deck ; where the connecting-rod, in a strong and lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron top-sawyer. There is seldom any mast or tackle : nothing aloft but two tall black chimneys. The man at the helm is shut up in a little house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck) ; and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually congregate below. Directly you have left the wharf, all the life, and stir, and bustle of a packet cease. You wonder for a long time how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her ; and when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel quite indig- nant with it, as a sullen, cumbrous, ungraceful, unshiplike leviathan : quite forgetting that the vessel you are on board of, is its very counterpart. There is always a clerk's office on the low^er deck, where you pay your fare ; a ladies' cabin ; baggage and stowage rooms ; engineer's room ; and in short a great variety of perplexities which
186 NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK.
render the discovery of the gentlemen's cabin, a matter of some difficulty. It often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this case), and has three or four tiers of berths on each side. When I first descended into the cabin of the New York, it looked, in my unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the Burlington Arcade.
The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not always a very safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene of some unfor- tunate accidents. It was a wet morning, and very misty, and we soon lost sight of land. The day was calm, however, and brightened towards noon. After exhausting (with good help from a friend) the larder, and the stock of bottled beer, I lay down to sleep : being very much tired with the fatigues of yesterday. But I awoke from ni}r nap in time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker's History. We were now in. a narrow channel, with sloping banks on
NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK. 187
either side, besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to the sight by turf and trees. Soon we shot in quick succession, past a lighthouse ; a madhouse (how the lunatics flung up their caps, and roared in sympathy with the headlong engine and the driving tide !); a jail ; and other build- in o;s ; and so emerged into a noble bav, whose waters sparkled in the now cloudless sunshine like Nature's eyes turned up to Heaven.
Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of lazy smoke ; and in the foreground a forest of ships' masts, cheery with flapping sails and waving flags. Crossing from among them to the opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people, coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes : crossed and recrossed by other ferry-boats : all travelling to and fro : and never idle. Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three large ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as
188 NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK.
creatures of a prouder kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad sea. Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it seemed to meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clatter- ing of wheels, tingled in the listening ear. All of which life and stir, coming across the stirring water, caught new life and animation from its free com- panionship ; and, sympathising with its buoyant spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport upon its surface, and hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high about her sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy Port.
NEW YORK.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
NEW YORK.
The beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city as Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics ; except that the houses are not quite so fresh- coloured, the sign-boards are not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so golden, the bricks not quite so red, the stone not quite so white, the blinds and. area railings not quite so green, the knobs and plates upon the street doors, not quite so bright and twinkling. There are many bye-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and positive in dirty ones, as bye-streets in London ; and there is one quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which,
192 NEW YORK.
in respect of filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, or any other part of famed St. Giles's.
The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is Broadway ; a wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery Gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, maybe four miles long. Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the Carlton House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main artery of New York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below, sally forth arin-in-arm, and mingle with the stream ?
Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass ; but the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there ever such a sunny street as this Broadway ! The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet until they shine again ; the red bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry,
NEW YORK. 193
hot kilns ; and the roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched fires. No stint of omnibuses here ! Half a dozen have gone by within as many minutes. Plenty of hack- ney cabs and coaches too ; gigs, phaetons, large- wheeled tilburies, and private carriages — rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. Negro coachmen and white ; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps ; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and linen ; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery. Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped — standing at their heads now — is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of top-boots, which he may tra-
YOL. I. 0
194 NEW YORK.
verse the city half a year without meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress ! We have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols ! what rainbow silks and satins ! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings ! The young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin ; but they cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bear- ing, being, to say the truth, humanity of quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind ye : those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in his hand a crum- pled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors and windows.
Irishmen both ! You might know them, if they were masked, by their long-tailed blue coats and
NEW YORK. 195
bright buttons, and their drab trousers, which they wear like men well used to working dresses, who are easy in no others. It would be hard to keep your model republics going, without the country- men and countrywomen of those two labourers. For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement ! Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to find out what they seek. Let us go down, and help them, for the love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter what it be.
That's well ! We have got at the right address at last, though it is written in strange characters truly, and might have been scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows the use of, than a pen. Their wray lies yonder, but what business takes them there ? They carry savings : to hoard up I No. They are brothers,
those men. One crossed the sea alone, and work-
02
I
I
1
~:jbk
;
Till 1- "'IITl -
n -- . -
_ - _ - ■ " " .- "
: . - - " -
BTTT'T *
"- " ' '-■ "
". - - _.
mar
-
•\.i
.
.;."..:- ll~- ~ "IT
.-•-
*"
I
I
21'
I
"
_
_
1
:
|
— |
|
|
**■" . i^b . — |
- ".ILT |
|
tt/ ~ si ■ |
|
|
' |
196 NEW YORK.
ing very hard for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to bring the other out. That done, they worked together, side by side, content- edly sharing hard labour and hard living for an- other term, and then their sisters came, and then another brother, and, lastly, their old mother. And what now? Why, the poor old crone is restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her bones, she says, among her people in the old grave- yard at home : and so they go to pay her passage back : and God help her and them, and every simple heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days, and have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their fathers.
This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blister- ing in the sun, is Wall Street : the Stock Ex- change and Lombard Street of New York. Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin. Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging about here now, have locked up Money in their strong-boxes, like the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them
NEW YORK. 187
again, have found but withered leaves. Below, here by the water side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, and almost thrust themselves into the windows, lie the noble Ameri- can vessels which have made their Packet Service the finest in the world. They have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets : not perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial cities ; but elsewhere, they have parti- cular haunts, and you must find them out ; here, they pervade the town.
We must cross Broadway again ; gaining some refreshment from the heat, in the sight of the sreat blocks of clean ice which are being carried into shops and bar-rooms ; and the pine-apples and water-melons profusely displayed for sale. Fine streets of spacious houses here, you see ! — Wall Street has furnished and dismantled many of them very often — and here a deep green leafy square. Be sure that is a hospitable house with inmates to be affectionately remembered always, where they have the open door and pretty show of plants
198 NEW YORK.
within, and where the child with laughing eyes is peeping out of window at the little dog below. You wonder what may be the use of this tall flag- staff in the bye street, with something like Liberty's head-dress on its top : so do I. But there is a passion for tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in five minutes, if you have a mind.
Again across Broadway, and so — passing from the many-coloured crowd and glittering shops — into another long main street, the Bowery. A railroad yonder, see, where two stout horses trot along, drawing a score or two of people and a great wooden ark, with ease. The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay. Clothes ready- made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts ; and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble of carts and waggons. These signs which are so plentiful, in shape like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up, " Oysters in every
NEW YORK. 199
Style."' They tempt the hungry most at night, for then dull candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words, and make the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.
What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a me Io drama ! — a famous prison, called The Tombs. Shall we go in \
So. A long narrow lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with four galleries, one above the other, going round it, and communicating by stairs. Between the two sides of each gallery, and in its centre, a bridge, for the greater convenience of crossing. On each of these bridges sits a man : dozing or reading, or talking to an idle companion. On each tier, are two opposite rows of small iron, doors. They look like furnace doors, but are cold and black, as though the fires within had all gone out. Some two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads bent down, are talking to the inmates. The whole is lighted by a skylight, but it is fast closed : and from the
200 NEW YORK.
roof there dangle, limp and drooping, two useless windsails.
A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging.
" Are those black doors the cells ?"
" Yes."
" Are they all full V
" Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that 's a fact, and no two wavs about it."
" Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely V
" Why, we do only put coloured people in 'em. That 's the truth."
" When do the prisoners take exercise?"
" Well, they do without it pretty much."
" Do they never wralk in the yard \ "
" Considerable seldom."
" Sometimes, I suppose V
" Well, it's rare they do. They keep pretty bright without it."
" But suppose a man were here for a twelve- month. I know this is only a prison for criminals
NEW YORK. 201
who are charged with grave offences, while they are awaiting their trial, or are under remand, but the law here, affords criminals many meansof delay. What with motions for new trial, and in arrest of judgment, and what not, a prisoner might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not?"
" Well, I guess he might."
" Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out at that little iron door, for exercise 2"
" He might walk some, perhaps— not much."
" Will you open one of the doors !"
" All, if you like."
The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on its hinges. Let us look in. A small bare cell, into which the light enters through a high chink in the wall. There is a rude means of washing, a table, and a bedstead. Upon the latter, sits a man of sixty ; reading. He looks up for a moment ; gives an impatient dogged shake ; and fixes his eyes upon his book again. As we withdraw our heads, the door
202 NEW YORK.
closes on him, and is fastened as before. This man has murdered his wife, and will probably be hanged.
" How long has he been here ?"
" A month;1
" When will he be tried?"
" Next term."
" When is that?"
" Next month."
" In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even, he has air and exercise at certain periods of the day."
" Possible r
With what stupendous and untranslatable cool- ness he says this, and how loungingly he leads on to the women's side : making, as he goes, a kind of iron castanet of the key and the stair-rail!
Each cell door on this side has a square aper- ture in it. Some of the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps ; others shrink away in shame. — For what offence can that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here ?
NEW YORK. 203
Oh ! that boy ? He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now ; is a witness against his father ; and is detained here for safe-keeping, until the trial : that's all.
But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and nights in. This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is it not ?— What says our conductor 1
" Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and that 's a fact!"
Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away. I have a question to ask him as we go.
" Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?"
" Well, it's the cant name."
"I know it is. Why?"
c< Some suicides happened here, when it was
first built. I expect it come about from that."
" I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the floor of his cell. Don't vou oblige the prisoners to be orderly, and put such things away?"
204 NEW YORK.
" Where should they put 'em!"
" Not on the ground surely. What do you say to hanging them up I"
He stops, and looks round to emphasize his answer :
" Why, I say that 's just it. When they had hooks they would hang themselves, so they're taken out of every cell, and there 's only the marks left where they used to be ! "
The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of terrible performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are brought out to die. The wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground ; the rope about his neck ; and when the sign is given, a weight at its other end comes running down, and swings him up into the air — a corpse.
The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle, the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. From the commu- nity it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad, the thing remains a frightful mystery. Between the
NEW YORK. 205
criminal and them, the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil. It is the curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave. From him it shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all-sufficient to sustain. There are no bold eyes to make him bold ; no ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. All
beyond the pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.
Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.
Once more in Broadway ! Here are the same ladies in bright colours, walking to and fro, in pairs and singly ; yonder the very same light blue para- sol which passed and repassed the hotel- window twenty times while we were sitting there. AVe are going to cross here. Take care of the pig&. Two portly sows are trotting up behind this car- riage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen- hogs have just now turned the corner.
Here is a solitary swine, lounging homeward by himself. He has only one ear ; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course of his city
206 NEW YORK.
rambles. But he gets on very well without it ; and leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his lodgings every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like the mysterious master of Gil Bias. He is a free-and-easv, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance among other pigs of the same cha- racter, whom he rather knows by sight than con- versation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up the news and small-talk of the city, in the shape of cabbage- stalks and offal, and bearing no tails but his own : which is a very short one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have left him hardly enough to swear by. He is in every respect a republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for
NEW YORK. 207
every one makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if he prefer it. He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless by the dogs before-mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, you may see his small eye twinkling on a slaugh- tered friend, whose carcase garnishes a butcher's door-post, but he grunts out " Such is life : all flesh is pork ! " buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles down the gutter : comforting himself with the reflection that there is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any rate.
They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are ; having, for the most part, scanty, brown backs, like the lids of old horse-hair trunks : spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would recognise it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in early life, and become preter- naturally knowing in consequence. Every pig
20S NEW YORK.
knows where he lives, much better than anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their way to the last. Occasion- ally, some youth among them who has over-eaten himself, or has been much worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare case : perfect self-possession and self- reliance, and immovable composure, being their foremost attributes.
The streets and shops are lighted now ; and as the eye travels down the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is reminded of Oxford Street or Piccadilly. Here and there, a flight of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley : Ten-Pins being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins. At other downward flights of steps, are other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars — pleasant retreats, say I : not only by reason of their wonderful cook-
NEW YORK. 209
ery of oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese- plates, (or for thy dear sake, heartiest of Greek Professors !) but because of all kinds of eaters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the swal- lowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds.
But how quiet the streets are ! Are there no itinerant bands ; no wind or stringed instruments I No, not one. By day, are there no Punches, Fantoccinis, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurors, Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs 2 No, not one. Yes, I remember one. One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey — sportive by nature, but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilita- rian school. Beyond that, nothing lively ; no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirling cage.
Are there no amusements I Yes. There is a lec- ture-room across the way, from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be evening service for
VOL. I P
210 NEW YORK.
the ladies thrice a week, or oftener. For the young gentlemen, there is the counting-house, the store, the bar-room : the latter, as you may see through these windows, pretty full. Hark ! to the clicking sound of hammers breaking lumps of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass ! No amusements ? What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possi- ble variety of twist, doing, but amusing themselves ? What are the fifty newspapers, which those pre- cocious urchins are bawling down the street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but amusements? Not vapid waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; dealing in round abuse and blackguard names ; pulling off the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain ; pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw ; imputing to every man in public life the coarsest and the vilest motives ; scaring away from the
NEW YORK. 211
stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every Samari- tan of clear conscience and good deeds ; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. — No amusements !
Let us go on again ; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with stores about its base, like some continental theatre, or the London Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points. But it is needful, first, that we take as our escort these two heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and well-trained officers if you met them in the Great Desert. So true it is, that certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same character. These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in Bow Street.
We have seen no beggars in the streets bv night or day ; but of other kinds of strollers, plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife enough where we are going now.
This is the place : these narrow ways, diverging
to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with
p 2
212 NEW YORK.
dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauch- ery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours ? and why they talk instead of grunting ?
So far, nearly every house is a low tavern ; and on the bar-room walls, are coloured prints of Wash- ington, and Queen Victoria of England, and the American Eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here. And as seamen fre- quent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the dozen : of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits of William, of the ballad, and
NEW YORK. 213
his Black-Eyed Susan ; of Will Watch, the Bold Smuggler ; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like : on which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to boot, rest in as strange com- panionship, as on most of the scenes that are enacted in their wondering presence.
What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us ? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread ? a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man : his elbows on his knees : his forehead hidden in his hands. " What ails that man ! " asks the fore- most officer. " Fever," he sullenly replies, with- out looking up. Conceive the fancies of a fevered brain, in such a place as this !
Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, where neither
214 NEW YORK.
ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice — he knows it well — but comforted by his assurance that he has not come on business, offi- ciously bestirs himself to light a candle. The match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusky rags upon the ground ; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than before, if there can be degrees in such extremes. He stum- bles down the stairs and presently comes back, shading a flaring taper with his hand. Then the mounds of rags are seen to be astir, and rise slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women, waking from their sleep : their white teeth chattering, and their bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and fear, like the countless repetition of. one astonished African face in some strange mirror.
Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as ourselves) into the housetop ; where the bare beams and rafters meet
NEW YORK. 215
over-head, and calm night looks down through the crevices in the roof. Open the door of one of these cramped hutches full of sleeping negroes. Pah ! They have a charcoal fire within ; there is a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round the brazier ; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate. From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark retreats, some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment- hour were near at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead. Where dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodgings.
Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep : underground chambers, where they dance and game ; the walls bedecked with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American Eagles out of number : ruined houses, open to the street, whence, through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show:
216 NEW YOKK.
hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder : all that is loathsome, droop- ing, and decayed is here.
Our leader has his hand upon the latch of " Almac^," and calls to us from the bottom of the steps ; for the assembly-room of the Five- Point fashionables is approached by a descent. Shall we go in ? It is but a moment.
Heyday ! the landlady of Almack's thrives ! A buxom fat mulatto woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with [a hand- kerchief of many colours. Nor is the landlord much behind her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to see us! What will we please to call B for? A dance ? It shall be done directly, sir: " a regular break-down."
The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the board- ing of the small raised orchestra in which they
NEW YORK. 217
sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head-gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long fringed lashes. But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail ; there is new energy in the tambourine ; new laughter in the dancers ; new smiles in the landlady ; new confidence in the landlord ; new brightness in the very candles.
218 NEW YORK.
Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut: snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tam- bourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs — all sorts of legs and no legs — what is this to him 2 And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound ! The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the stifling atmosphere of the houses ; and now, as we emerge into a broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars look bright again. Here are The Tombs once more. The city watch-house is a part of the building. It follows naturally on the sights
NEW YORK. 219
we have just left. Let us see that, and then to bed.
What ! do you thrust your common offenders against the police discipline of the town, into such holes as these ? Do men and women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which encircle that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and offensive stench ! Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in the world ! Look at them, man — you, who see them every night, and keep the keys. Do you see what they are I Do you know how drains are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ, except in being always stagnant I
Well, he don t know. He has had five-and- twenty young women locked up in this very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what handsome faces there were among 'em.
In God's name ! shut the door upon the wretched
220 NEW YORK.
creature who is in it now, and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties I— .Every night. The watch is set at seven in the evening. The magistrate opens his court at five in the morning. That is the earliest hour at which the first prisoner can be released ; and if an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till nine o'clock or ten. — But if any one among them die in the interval, as one man did, not long ago ? Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an hour's time ; as that man was ; and there an end.
What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of wheels, and shouting in the distance ? A fire. And what that deep red light in the opposite direction I Another fire. And what these charred and blackened walls we stand before \ A dwelling where a fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an official report, not long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly accidental,
NEW YORK. 221
and that speculation and enterprise found a field of exertion, even in flames : but be this as it may, there was a fire last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager there will be at least one, to-morrow. So, carrying that with us for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up stairs to bed.
One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the different public institutions on Long Island. One of them is a Lunatic Asylum. The building is handsome ; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase. The whole struc- ture is not yet finished, but it is already one of considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a very large number of patients.
I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of this charity. The different wards might have been cleaner and better ordered ; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had impressed me so favourably elsewhere ; and every-
O09
NEW YOKK.
thing had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair ; the gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails : there they were all, without disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but the empty walls, a woman was locked up alone. She was bent, they told me, on committing suicide. If anything could have strengthened her in her resolution, it would certainly have been the insupportable monotony of such an existence.
The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest limits, and declined to see that portion of the building in which the refractory and violent were under closer restraint. I have no doubt that the gentleman who presided over this establishment at the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done all in his
NEW YORK. 223
power to promote its usefulness : but will it be believed that the miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded humanity \ Will it be believed that the eyes which are to watch over and controul the wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to which our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some wretched side in Politics ? Will it be believed that the governor of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable weathercocks are blown this way or that \ A hundred times in every week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was forced upon my notice ; but I never turned my back upon it with feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I crossed the threshold of this mad-house on Long Island. At a short distance from this building is another
224 NEW YORK.
called the Alms House, that is to say, the work- house of New York. This is a large Institution also : lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a thousand poor. It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted ; was not too clean ; and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably. But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large pauper population to provide for ; and labours, therefore, under peculiar difficulties in this respect. Nor must it be forgotten that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
In the same neighbourhood is the Long Island Farm, where young orphans are nursed and bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well conducted ; and I can the more easilv credit it, from knowing how mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in the Litany
NEW YORK. 225
which remembers all sick persons and young children.
I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to the Long Island Jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the Jail itself.
It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer estab- lishment, on the plan I have already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is unquestionably a very indifferent one. The most is made, however, of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a place can be.
The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quar- ries near at hand. The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended, and the prisoners were in their cells. Imagine these cells, some two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man,
VOL. I. Q
226 NEW YORK.
locked up : this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the grate ; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember) ; and this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head against the bars, like a wild beast. Make the rain pour down, outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove in the midst : hot, and suffoca- ting, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. Add a collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck -baskets, full of half- washed linen — and there is the prison, as it was that day.
The prison for the State at Sing Sing, is, on the other hand, a model jail. That, and Mount Auburn, are the largest and best examples of the silent system.
In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute : an Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and female, black and white, without distinction ; to teach them use- ful trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them wrorthy members of society. Its
NEW YORK. 227
design, it will be seen, is similar to that at Boston ; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable establishment. A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of this noble charity, whether the superintendant had quite sufficient knowledge of the world and worldly characters ; and whether he did not commit a great mistake in treating some young girls, who were to all intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives, women, as though they were little chil- dren ; which certainly had a ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in theirs also. As the Institution, however, is always under the vigilant examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted ; and whether I am right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its deserts and character, which it would be diffi- cult to estimate too highly.
In addition to these establishments, there are, in New York, excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and libraries ; an admirable
Q2
228 NEW YORK.
fire department (as indeed it should be, having constant practice), and charities of every sort and kind. In the suburbs there is a spacious ceme- tery; unfinished yet, but every day improving. The saddest tomb I saw there was " The Strangers' Grave. Dedicated to the different hotels in this city."
There are three theatres. Two of them, the Park and the Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I grieve to write it, generally deserted. The third, the Olympic, is a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and burlesques. It is singularly well-conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserv- ing gentleman, that his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings with merriment every night. 1 had almost forgotten a small summer theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens and open air amusements attached ; but I believe it is not exempt from the general depression under
NEW YORK. 229
which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously called by that name, unfortunately labours.
The country round New York, is surpassingly and exquisitely picturesque. The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat of the warmest. What it would be, without the sea breezes which come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I will not throw myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring.
The tone of the best society in this city, is like like that of Boston; here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always most hospitable. The houses and tables are elegant ; the hours later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater spirit of contention in refer- ence to appearances, and the display of wealth and costly living. The ladies are singularly beautiful.
Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage home in the George Wash- ington packet ship, which was advertised to sail
230 NEW YORK.
in June : that being the month in which I had determined, if prevented by no accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave America.
I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who are dear to me, and to pur- suits that have insensibly grown to be a part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the friends who had accompanied me from this city. I never thought the name of any place, so far away and so lately known, could ever associate itself in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now cluster about it. There are those in this city who would brighten, to me, the darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in Lapland ; and before whose pre- sence even Home grew dim, when they and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every thought and deed ; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and closes up the vista of our lives in age.
PHILADELPHIA.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON.
The journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and two ferries ; and usually occupies between five and six hours. It was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train : and, watching the bright sunset from alittle window near the door by which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance issuing from the windows of the gentlemen's car immediately in front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a number of industrious persons in- side, ripping open feather-beds, and giving the feathers to the wind. At length it occurred to me that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case ; though how any number of passengers
234 PHILADELPHIA, AND
which it was possible for that car to contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower of expectoration, I am still at a loss to under- stand : notwithstanding the experience in all sali- vatory phenomena which I afterwards acquired.
I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in question was ever used as a conversational aperient.
We reached the city, late that night. Looking out of my chamber window, before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a mournful ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold. I attributed this to the sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the morning looked out again, expecting to see its steps and portico thronged with groups of people passing in and out. The door was still
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 235
tight shut, however ; the same cold cheerless air prevailed ; and the building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone have any business to transact within its gloomy walls. I hastened to enquire its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished. It was the Tomb of many fortunes ; the Great Catacomb of investment; the memorable United States Bank.
The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under the depressing effect of which, it yet laboured. It certainly did seem rather dull and out of spirits.
It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath its quakerly influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek short crop, my hands folded them- selves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Mark Lane
236 PHILADELPHIA, AND
over against the Market Place, and of making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me involuntarily.
Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off, everywhere. The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city, are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order. The river is dammed at this point, and forced by its own power into certain high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole city, to the top stories of the houses, is supplied at a very trifling expense.
There are various public institutions. Among them a most excellent Hospital — a quaker esta- blishment, but not sectarian in the great benefits it confers ; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after Franklin ; a handsome Exchange and Post Office; and so forth. In connection with the quaker Hospital, there is a picture by West, which is exhibited for the benefit of the funds of the insti-
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 237
tution. The subject, is, our Saviour healing the sick, and it is, perhaps, as favourable a specimen of the master as can be seen anywhere. Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the reader's taste.
In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like portrait by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.
My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its society, I greatly liked. Treat- ing of its general characteristics, I should be dis- posed to say that it is more provincial than Boston or New York, and that there is, afloat in the fair city, an assumption of taste and criticism, savour- ing rather of those genteel discussions upon the same themes, in connection with Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we read in the Vicar of Wakefield. Near the city, is a most splendid unfinished marble structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased gentleman of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed accord- ing to the original design, will be perhaps the
238 PHILADELPHIA, AND
richest edifice of modern times. But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending them the work has stopped ; so that like many other great undertakings in America, even this ia rather going to be done one of these days, than doing now.
In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern Penitentiary : conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confine- ment. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and
wrong.
In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation ; but I am persuaded that those who devised this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentle- men who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing. I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the im- mense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers ; and in guessing at it myself,
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 239
and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain know- ledge they feel within, I am only the more con- vinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body : and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh ; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear ; therefore I the more de- nounce it, as a secret punishment which slumber- ing humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying " Yes "or " No," I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where the terms of imprisonment were short ; but now, I solemnly de- clare, that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath the open sky by day
240 PHILADELPHIA, AND
or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
I was accompanied to this prison by two gentle- men officially connected with its management, and passed the day in going from cell to cell, and talking with the inmates. Every facility was afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could sug- gest. Nothing was concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information that I sought, was openly and frankly given. The perfect order of the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration of the system, there can be no kind of question.
Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a spacious garden. Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed into a large chamber, from which seven long passages
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 241
radiate. On either side of each, is a long, long row of low cell doors, with a certain number over every- one. Above, a gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are some- what smaller. The possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for the absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day ; and therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and com- municating with, each other.
Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's shuttle, or shoemaker's last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn ; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain
VOL. I. B
242 PHILADELPHIA, AND
dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. He never hears of wife or children ; home or friends ; the life or death of any single creature. He sees the prison-officers, but with that exception he never looks upon a human coun- tenance, or hears a human voice. He is a man buried alive ; to be dug out in the slow round of years ; and in the mean time dead to everything but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.
His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to the officer who delivers him his daily food. There is a number over his cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the prison has one copy, and the moral instructor another : this is the index to his history. Beyond these pages the prison has no record of his existence : and though he live to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last hour, in what part of the building it is situated ; what kind of men there are about him ; whether
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 243
in the long winter nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary- horrors.
Every cell has double doors : the outer one of sturdy oak, the other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his food is handed. He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and paper. His razor, plate, and can, and basin, hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf. Fresh water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure. During the day, his bed- stead turns up against the wall, and leaves more space for him to work in. His loom, or bench, or wheel, is there ; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the seasons as they change, and grows old.
The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work. He had been there, six years, and was to
R 2
244 PHILADELPHIA, AND
remain, I think, three more. He had been con- victed as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after this long imprisonment, denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly dealt by. It was his second offence.
He stopped his work when we went in, took oif his spectacles, and answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with a strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice. He wore a paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it noticed and commended. He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock from some disregarded odds and ends ; and his vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum. Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass be- side it " would play music before long." He had extracted some colours from the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called " The Lady of the Lake."
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 245
He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to wile away the time ; but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, and could have counted the beating of his heart. I forget how it came about, but some allusion was made to his having a wife. He shook his head at the word, turned aside, and covered his face with his hands.
" But you are resigned now ! r said one of the gentlemen after a short pause, during which he had resumed his former manner. He an- swered with a sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, " Oh yes, oh yes ! I am re- signed to it." " And are a better man, you think ? r " Well, I hope so : I'm sure I hope I may be." a And time goes pretty quickly \ }> " Time is very long, gentlemen, within these four walls ! "
He gazed about him — Heaven only knows how wearily ! — as he said these words ; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare as if he had forgotten something. A moment afterwards he
246 PHILADELPHIA, AND
sighed heavily, put on his spectacles, and went about his work again.
In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years1 imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. With colours procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. He had laid out the few feet of ground, behind, with ex- quisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the centre, that looked by the bye like a grave. The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything were most extraordinary; and yet a more dejected, heart-broken, wretched creature, it would be diffi- cult to imagine. I never saw such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. My heart bled for him ; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too painful to witness. I never saw or heard of any kind of misery that im-
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 247
pressed me more than the wretchedness of this man.
In a third cell, was a tall strong black, a burglar, working at his proper trade of making screws and the like. His time was nearly out. He was not only a very dexterous thief, but was notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number of his previous convictions. He entertained us with a long account of his achievements, which he narrated with such infinite relish, that he actually seemed to lick his lips as he told us racy anecdotes of stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had watched as they sat at windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had an eye to their metal even from the other side of the street), and had afterwards robbed. This fellow, upon the slightest encour- agement, would have mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable cant ; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared thai he blessed the day on which he came into that
248 PHILADELPHIA, AND
prison, and that he never would commit another robbery as long as he lived.
There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep rabbits. His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they called to him at the door to come out into the passage. He complied of course, and stood shading his haggard face in the unwonted sunlight of the great window, looking as wan and unearthly as if he had been summoned from the grave. He had a white rabbit in his breast ; and when the little creature, getting down upon the ground, stole back into the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept timidly after it, I thought it would have been very hard to say in what respect the man was the nobler animal of the two.
There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out of seven years : a villanous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with a white face ; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but for the additional penalty, would have gladly
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 249
stabbed me with his shoemaker's knife. There was another German who had entered the jail but yesterday, and who started from his bed when we looked in, and pleaded, in is broken English, very hard for work. There was a poet, who after doing two days' work in every four- and- twenty hours? one for himself and one for the prison, wrote verses about ships (he was by trade a mariner), and " the maddening wine-cup," and his friends at home. There were very many of them. Some reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very pale. Some two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were very sick ; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an accomplished surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise. Sitting upon the stairs, engaged in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy. " Is there no refuge for young criminals in Philadelphia, then?" said I. "Yes, but only for white chil- dren."" Noble aristocracy in crime !
There was a sailor who had been there upwards
250 PHILADELPHIA, AND
of eleven years, and who in a few months'' time would be free. Eleven years of solitary confine- ment !
" I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out." What does he say I Nothing. Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh upon his fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and then, to those bare walls which have seen his head turn grey? It is a way he has sometimes.
Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at those hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and bone ? It is his humour : nothing more.
It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going out ; that he is not glad the time is drawing near ; that he did look forward to it once, but that was very long ago ; that he has lost all care for everything. It is his humour to be a helpless, crushed, and broken man. And, Heaven be his witness that he has his humour thoroughly gratified !
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 251
There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at the same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor. In the silence and soli- tude of their lives, they had grown to be quite beautiful. Their looks were very sad, and might have moved the sternest visitor to tears, but not to that kind of sorrow which the contemplation of the men, awakens. One was a young girl ; not twenty, as I recollect ; whose snow-white room was hung with the work of some former prisoner, and upon whose downcast face the sun in all its splendour shone down through the high chink in the wall, where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was visible. She was very penitent and quiet ; had come to be resigned, she said (and I believe her) ; and had a mind at peace. " In a word, you are happy here I r said one of my companions. She struggled — she did struggle very hard — to answer, Yes : but raising her eyes, and meeting that glimpse of freedom over-head, she burst into tears, and said, " She tried to be ; she uttered no complaint ; but it was natural that she should
252 PHILADELPHIA, AND
sometimes long to go out of that one cell : she could not help that" she sobbed, poor thing !
I went from cell to cell that day ; and every face I saw. or word I heard, or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its painfulness. But let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant, glance of a prison on the same plan which I afterwards saw at Pittsburgh.
When I had gone over that, in the same man- ner, I asked the governor if he had any person in his charge who was shortly going out. He had one, he said, whose time was up next day ; but he had only been a prisoner two years.
Two years ! I looked back through two years in my own life — out of jail, prosperous, happy, sur- rounded by blessings, comforts, and good fortune — and thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two years passed in solitary captivity would have been. I have the face of this man, who was going to be released next day, before me now. It is almost more memorable in its happi- ness than the other faces in their misery. How
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 253
easy and how natural it was for him to say that the system was a good one ; and that the time went "pretty quick — considering;" and that when a man once felt he had offended the law, and must satisfy it, " he got along, somehow :' and so forth !
" What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter ? " I asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me in the passage.
" Oh ! That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for walking, as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he would thank me very much to have them mended, ready."
Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest of his clothes, two years before !
I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled very much.
254 PHILADELPHIA, AND
■>
" Well, it's not so much a trembling,1' was the answer — " though they do quiver — as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They can't sign their names to the book ; sometimes can't even hold the pen ; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they are ; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other : not knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're so bad : — but they clear off in course of time."
As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and feelings natural to their condition. I imagined the hood just taken off, and the scene of their captivity dis- closed to them in all its dismal monotony.
At first, the man is stunned. His confinement
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 255
is a hideous vision ; and his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and lies there aban- doned to despair. By degrees the insupportable solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work. " Give me some work to do, or I shall go
raving mad !
•n
He has it ; and by fits and starts applies him- self to labour ; but every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall.
Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he starts up, wondering whether any other man is near ; whether there is another cell like that on either side of him : and listens keenly.
256 PHILADELPHIA, AND
There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that. He remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming here him- self, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners could not hear each other, though the officers could hear them. Where is the nearest man — upon the right, or on the left \ or is there one in both directions ? Where is he sitting now — with his face to the light ? or is he walking to and fro ? How is he dressed ? Has he been here long I Is he much worn away ? Is he very white and spectre-like ? Does he think of his neighbour too?
Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he conjures up a figure with its back towards him, and imagines it moving about in this next cell. He has no idea of the face, but he is certain of the dark form of a stooping man. In the cell upon the other side, he puts another figure, whose face is hidden from him also. Day after day, and often when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks of these two men,
ITS SOLITARY PRISON". 257
until he is almost distracted. He never changes them. There they are always as he first imagined them — an old man on the right ; a younger man upon the left — whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a mystery that makes him tremble.
The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a funeral ; and slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the cell have some- thing dreadful in them : that their colour is horrible : that their smooth surface chills his blood : that there is one hateful corner which torments him. Every morning when he wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him. The blessed light of day itself peeps in, an ugly phan- tom face, through the unchangeable crevice which is his prison window.
By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell until they beset him at all times ; invade his rest, make his dreams hideous, and his nights dreadful. At first, he took a strange
VOL. I. S
258 PHILADELPHIA, AND
dislike to it : feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to something of corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and racked his head with pains. Then he began to fear it, then to dream of it, and of men whispering its name and point- ing to it. Then he could not bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his back upon it. Now, it is every night the lurking-place of a ghost : a shadow : — a silent something, horrible to see, but whether bird, or beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell.
When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard, without. When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell. When night. comes, there stands the phantom in the corner. If he have the courage to stand in its place, and drive it out (he had once : being desperate), it broods upon his bed. In the twilight, and always at the same hour, a voice calls to him by name ; as the darkness thick- ens, his Loom begins to live ; and even that, his comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till day- break.
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 259
Again, oy slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one by one : returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer intervals, and in less alarming shapes. He has talked upon religious matters with the gentleman who visits him, and has read his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it up, as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly companionship. He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or his wife, but is sure that they are dead or have deserted him. He is easily moved to tears ; is gentle, sub- missive, and broken-spirited. Occasionally, the old agony comes back : a very little thing will revive it ; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in the air ; but it does not last long, now : for the world without, has come to be the vision^ and this solitary life, the sad reality.
If his term of imprisonment be short — I mean comparatively, for short it cannot be — the last half year is almost worse than all ; for then he thinks the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the
ruins, or that he is doomed to die within the walls,
s2
260 PHILADELPHIA, AND
or that he will be detained on some false charge and sentenced for another term : or that some- thing, no matter what, must happen to prevent his going at large. And this is natural, and impossi- ble to be reasoned against, because, after his long separation from human life, and his great suffer- ing, any event will appear to him more probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty and his fellow-creatures.
If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of release, bewilders and confuses him. His broken heart may flutter for a moment, when he thinks of the world outside, and what it might have been to him in all those lonely years, but that is all. The cell-door has been closed too long on all its hopes and cares. Better to have hanged him in the beginning than bring him to this pass, and send him forth to mingle with his kind, who are his kind no more.
On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same expression sat. I know not what to liken it to. It had something of that
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 261
strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all been secretly terrified. In every little chamber that I entered, and at every grate through which I looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance. It lives in my memory, with the fascination of a remarkable picture. Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, with one among them newly released from this solitary suffering, and I would point him out.
The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanizes and refines. Whether this be, because of their better nature, which is elicited in solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of greater patience and longer suffering, I do not know ; but so it is. That the punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel and as wrong in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely add.
My firm conviction is, that independent of the mental anguish it occasions — an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all imagination of it must
262 PHILADELPHIA, AND
fall far short of the reality — it wears the mind into a morbid state, which renders it unfit for the rough contact and busy action of the world. It is my fixed opinion that those who have undergone this punishment, must pass into society again morally unhealthy and diseased. There are many instances on record, of men who have chosen, or have been condemned, to lives of perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one, even among sages of strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has not become apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy hallucination. What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and doubt, and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the earth, making creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven !
Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed, unknown. But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very often urged. All men"who have made diseases of the mind, their study, know perfectly well that such
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 263
extreme depression and despair as will change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and yet stop short of self-destruction. This is a common case.
That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily faculties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the crimi- nals who had been there long, were deaf. They, who were in the habit of seeing these men con- stantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea, which they regarded as groundless and fanciful. And yet the very first prisoner to whom they ap- pealed— one of their own selection — confirmed my impression (which was unknown to him) instantly, and said, with a genuine air it was im- possible to doubt, that he couldn't think how it happened, but he was growing very dull of hearing.
That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst man least, there is no doubt. In
264 PHILADELPHIA, AND
its superior efficiency as a means of reformation, compared with that other code of regulations which allows the prisoners to work in company without communicating together, I have not the smallest faith. All the instances of reformation that were mentioned to me, were of a kind that might have been — and I have no doubt whatever, in my own mind, would have been — equally well brought about by the Silent System. With regard to such men as the negro burglar and the English thief, even the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their conversion.
It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in itself a sufficient argument against this system. But when we recollect, in addition, how very cruel and severe it is, and that a solitary life is always liable to peculiar and distinct objections of a most deplorable nature, which have arisen here;
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 265
and call to mind, moreover, that the choice is not between this system, and a bad or ill-considered one, but between it and another which has worked well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent ; there is surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of punishment at- tended by so little hope or promise, and fraught, beyond dispute, with such a host of evils.
As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a curious story, arising out of the same theme, which was related to me, on the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen concerned.
At one of the periodical meetings of the inspec- tors of this prison, a working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board, and earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement. On being asked what motive could possibly prompt him to make this strange demand, he answered that he had an irresistible propensity to get drunk ; that he was constantly indulging it, to his great misery and ruin ; that he had no power of
266 PHILADELPHIA, AND
resistance ; that he wished to be put beyond the reach of temptation ; and that he could think of no better way than this. It was pointed out to him, in reply, that the prison was for criminals who had been tried and sentenced by the law, and could not be made available for any such fanciful purposes ; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxi- cating drinks, as he surely might if he would ; and received other very good advice, with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result of his application.
He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, " He will certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any more. Let us shut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get rid of him.'" So they made him sign a statement which would prevent his ever sustaining an action for false im- prisonment, to the effect that his incarceration was voluntary, and of his own seeking ; they requested him to take notice that the officer in attendance
ITS SOLITARY PRISON. 267
had orders to release him at any hour of the day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose ; but desired him to understand, that once going out, he would not be admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he still remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and shut up in one of the cells.
In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of liquor standing untasted on a table before him — in this cell, in solitary confine- ment, and working every day at his trade of shoe- making, this man remained nearly two years. His health beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the surgeon recommended that he should work occasionally in the garden ; and as he liked the notion very much, he went about this new occupation with great cheerfulness.
He was digging here, one summer day, very in- dustriously, when the wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing, beyond, the well- remembered dusty road and sun-burnt fields. The way was as free to him as to any man living, but
268 PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON.
he no sooner raised his head and caught sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the involun- tary instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade, scampered off as fast as his legs would carry him, and never once looked back.
WASHINGTON.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE. AND THE
president's HOUSE.
We left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o'clock one very cold morning, and turned our faces towards "Washington.
In the course of this day's journey, as on subsequent occasions, we encountered some Eng- lishmen (small farmers perhaps, or country pub- licans at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling on their own affairs. Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle one in the public conveyances of the States, these are often the most intolerable and the most insufferable companions. United to every disagreeable cha- racteristic that the worst kind of American tra-
272 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
vellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their approach, and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon the decent old restraints of home) they surpass any native specimens that came within my range of observation : and I often grew so patriotic when I saw and heard them, that I would cheerfuliv have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have given any other country in the whole world, the honour of claiming them for its children.
As Washington may be called the head quar- ters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 2?3
the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his ; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to dis- colour the stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or " plugs," as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger, who fol- lows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame), that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The
VOL. I. T
274 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.
On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-sticks ; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some four paces apart ; took out their tobacco- boxes ; and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter of an hour's time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain ; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re- refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but booking attentively at one of the expectoraters, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me at this discovery ; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his suppressed
AND THE PRESIDENT^ HOUSE. 275
agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on for hours.
We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below, where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in England, and where there was certainly greater politeness exhi- bited than at most of our stage-coach banquets. At about nine o'clock we arrived at the railroad station, and went on by the cars. At noon we turned out again, to cross a wide river in another steamboat ; landed at a continuation of the rail- road on the opposite shore ; and went on by other cars ; in which, in the course of the next hour or so, we crossed, by wooden bridges, each a mile in length, two creeks, called respectively Great and Little Gunpowder. The water in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of the year.
These bridges are of wood, have no parapet,
t2
276 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE
and are only just wide enough for the passage of the trains ; which, in the event of the smallest accident, would inevitably be plunged into the river. They are startling contrivances, and are most agreeable when passed.
We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this ; but it is slavery ~; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach.
After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our seats in the cars for Washington. Being rather early, those men and boys who hap- pened to have nothing particular to do, and were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the carriage in which I sat ; let down all
AND THE PRESIDENTS HOUSE. 277
the windows ; thrust in their heads and shoulders ; hooked themselves on conveniently, by their elbows ; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed figure. I never gained so much uncompromising information with reference to my own nose and eyes, the various impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions. Some gentlemen were only- satisfied by exercising their sense of touch ; and the boys (who are surprisingly precocious in Ame- rica) were seldom satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and over again. Many a budding president has walked into my room with his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole hours : occasion- ally refreshing himself with a tweak at his nose, or a draught from the water-jug ; or by walking to the windows and inviting other boys in the street
below, to come up and do likewise : crying, " Here he is ! " " Come on ! " " Bring all
278 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
your brothers ! v with other hospitable entreaties of that nature.
We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and com- manding eminence. Arrived at the hotel, I saw no more of the place that night ; being very tired, and glad to get to bed.
Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and back, and look out. Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under my eye.
Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pen- tonville, preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and dwellings, occupied there (but not in Washington) by furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of birds. Burn the whole down ; build it up again in wood and plaster ; widen it a little ; throw in part of St. John's Wood ; put green blinds outside all the
AND THE PRESIDExVTS HOUSE. 279
private houses, with a red curtain and a white one in every window ; plough up all the roads ; plant a great deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought not to be ; erect three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the more entirely out of everybody's way the better; call one the Post Office, one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury ; make it scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of wind and dust ; leave a brick-field without the bricks, in all central places where a street may naturally be expected : and that's Washington.
The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting on the street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which hangs a great triangle. Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to the number of the house in which his presence is required : and as all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever come, this enlivening engine is in full
280 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
performance the whole day through. Clothes are drying in this same yard; female slaves, with cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, are running to and fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with dishes in their hands ; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of loose bricks in the centre of the little square ; a pig is turning up his stomach to the sun, and grunting "that's comfortable !"; and neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which is tingling madly all the time.
I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long, straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself. Standing anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space, like something meteoric that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-
AND THE PRESIDENT S HOUSE. 281
sided, one-eyed kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flag-staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger than a tea-chest. Under the window, is a small stand of coaches, whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our door, and talking idly together. The three most obtrusive houses near at hand, are the three meanest. On one — a shop, which never has anything in the window, and never has the door open — is painted in large characters, " The City Lunch." At another, which looks like the backway to somewhere else, but is an independent building in itself, oysters are procurable in every style. At the third, which is a very, very little tailor's shop, pants are fixed to order : or, in other words, pantaloons are made to measure. And that is our street in Washington.
It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions ; for it is only on taking a bird's-eye view of it from the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend
2S2 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
the vast designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues, that begin in no- thing, and lead nowhere ; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants ; public buildings that need but a public to be complete ; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament are its leading features. One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses gone out of town for ever with their masters. To the admirers of cities it is a Barmecide Feast ; a pleasant field for the imagination to rove in ; a monument raised to a deceased project, with not even a legible inscription to record its departed greatness.
Such as it is, it is likely to remain. It was ori- ginally chosen for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting jealousies and interests of the different States ; and \er}K pro- bably, too, as being remote from mobs : a con- sideration not to be slighted, even in America. It has no trade or commerce of its own : having little or no population beyond the President and his
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 283
establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there during the session ; the Govern- ment clerks and officers employed in the various departments ; the keepers of the hotels and boarding-houses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables. It is very unhealthy. Few people would live in Washington, I take it, who were not obliged to reside there ; and the tides of emigra- tion and speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely to flow at any time to- wards such dull and sluggish water.
The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two Houses of Assemblv. But there is, besides, in the centre of the building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninety- six high, whose circular wall is divided into com- partments, ornamented by historical pictures. Four of these have for their subjects prominent events in the revolutionary struggle. They were painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a member of Washington's staff at the time of their occur-
CD
rence ; from which circumstance they derive a
284 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
peculiar interest of their own. In this same hall Mr. Greenough's large statue of Washington has been lately placed. It has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather • strained and violent for its subject. I could wish, however, to have seen it in a better light than it can ever be viewed in, where it stands.
There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol ; and from a balcony in front, the bird's-eye view, of which I have just spoken, may be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the adjacent country. In one of the ornamented por- tions of the building, there is a figure of Justice ; whereunto the Guide Book says, " the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the opposite extreme." Poor Justice ! she has been made to wear much stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the Capitol. Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since they were fashioned, and
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 285
that the public sentiment of the country did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just now.
The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of semi -circular shape, sup- ported by handsome pillars. One part of the gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert. The chair is canopied, and raised considerably above the floor of the House ; and every member has an easy chair and a writ- ing desk to himself: which is denounced by some people out of doors as a most unfortunate and in- judicious arrangement, tending to long sittings and prosaic speeches. It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need hardly add, take place in the day ; and the parliamentary forms are modelled on those of the old country.
286 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether I had not been very much impressed by the heads of the lawmakers at Wash- ington • meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was expressed : and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with indignant consternation by answering " No, that I didn't remember being at all overcome." As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this subject in as few words as possible.
In the first place — it may be from some imper- fect development of my organ of veneration — I do not remember having ever fainted away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have never been impelled (no matter which party
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 287
won) to damage my hat by throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by shout- ing forth any reference to our Glorious Constitu- tion, to the noble purity of our independent voters, or the unimpeachable integrity of our independent members. Having withstood such strong attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold and insensible temperament, amounting to icyness, in such matters ; and therefore my im- pressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this free confession may seem to demand.
Did I see in this public body, an assemblage of men, bound together in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discus- sions, as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are given, and their own character, and the character of their countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world ?
It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired
288 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
man, a lasting honour to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are but so many grains of dust — it was but a week, since this old man had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has for its accursed merchandize men and women, and their unborn children. Yes. And publicly exhibited in the same city all the while ; gilded, framed and glazed ; hung up for general admiration ; shown to strangers not with shame, but pride ; its face not turned towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned ; is the Unanimous Declaration of The Thirteen United States of America, which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal ; and are endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness !
It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and heard a man, one of themselves,
AND THE PRESIDENT^ HOUSE. 289
with oaths which beggars in their drink reject, threaten to cut another's throat from ear to ear. There he sat, among them ; not crushed by the general feeling of the assembly, but as good a man as any.
There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing his duty to those who sent him there ; for claiming in a Republic the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making known their prayer ; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong censure passed upon him by the rest. His was a grave offence indeed ; for years before, he had risen up and said, tt A gang of male and female slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cattle, linked to each other by iron fetters, are passing now along the open street beneath the windows of your Temple of Equality ! Look!" But there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of Happiness, and they go variously armed. It is the Inalienable Right of some among them, to take the field after their Happiness, equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks,
VOL. I. U
290 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
and iron collar, and to shout their view halloa ! (always in praise of Liberty), to the music of clanking chains and bloody stripes.
Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget their breeding ? On every side. Every session had its anecdotes of that kind, and the actors were all there.
Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who applying themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and vices of the old, puri- fied the avenues to Public Life, paved the dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common Good, and had no party but their Country ?
I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. Despicable trickery at elections ; under-handed tamperings with public officers ; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves,
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 291
whose claim to be considered, is, that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon's teeth of yore, in every- thing but sharpness ; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences : such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of the crowded hall.
Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement : the true, honest, patriotic heart of America I Here and there, were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views, unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they
u 2
292 "WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
who in other countries would, from their intelli- gence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that degradation. That there are, among the representatives of the people in both Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians who are known in Europe, have been already de- scribed, and I see no reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of ab- staining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient to add. that to the most favourable accounts that have been written of them, I more than fully and most heartily subscribe ; and that personal intercourse and free communication have bred within me, not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased admiration and respect. They are striking men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied accomplishment, Indians in lire of eye and gesture, Americans in strong and generous impulse ; and they as well represent the
AXD THE PRESIDENTS HOUSE. 298
honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the distinguished gentleman who is now its minister at the British Court sustains its highest character abroad.
I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in Washington. On my initiatory visit to the House of Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair ; but the chair won, The second time I went, the member who was speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child would in quarrelling with another, and added, "that he would make honourable gentle- men opposite, sing out a little more on the other side of their mouths presently." But interruptions are rare ; the speaker being usually heard in silence. There are more quarrels than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record ; but farm-yard imitations have not as yet been imported from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The feature in oratory which appears to be the most practised, and most relished, is the
294 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh words ; and the inquiry out of doors is not, " What did he say ?" but, cc How long did he speak ? r These, however, are but enlargements of a principle which prevails elsewhere.
The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are handsomely carpeted ; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improve- ments on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor ; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.
It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see so many honourable members with swelled faces ; and it is scarcely less remark-
AND THE PRESIDENT^ HOUSE. 29-5
able to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient "plug" with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place.
I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we have heard so much in England. Several sren- tlemen called upon me who, in the course of con- versation, frequently missed the spittoon at h\e paces ; and one (but he was certainly short- sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open win- dow, at three. On another occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell short of the fire-place, six distinct
296 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
times. I am disposed to think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that object ; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.
The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example of American enterprise and ingenuity ; for the immense number of models it contains, are the accumulated inventions of only five years : the whole of the previous collection having been destroyed by fire. The elegant struc- ture in which they are arranged, is one of design rather than execution, for there is but one side erected out of four, though the works are stopped. The Post Office, is a very compact, and very beau- tiful building. In one of the departments, among a collection of rare and curious articles, are depo- sited the presents which have been made from time to time to the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic : gifts which by the law they are not permitted to retain. I con-
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 297
fess that I looked upon this as a very painful exhi- bition, and one by no means nattering to the national standard of honestv and honour. That can scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly-mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl ; and surely the Nation who reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very mean and paltry suspicions.
At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College ; delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of seeing, well managed. Many persons who are not members of the Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these institu- tions, and of the advantageous opportunities they afford for the education of their children. The heights in this neighbourhood, above the Potomac River, are very picturesque ; and are free, I should conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washing-
298 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
ton. The air, at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the city it was burning hot.
The President's mansion is more like an English club-house, both within and without, than any other kind of establishment with which I can com- pare it. The ornamental ground about it has been laid out in garden walks ; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye ; though they have that uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, which is far from favourable to the display of such beauties.
My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival, when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the President.
We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with their hats on, and their hands in their pockets) were doing very leisurely. Some of these had ladies with them, to whom they were
AND THE PRESIDENTS HOUSE. 2.99
showing the premises ; others were lounging on the chairs and sofas ; others, in a perfect state of exhaustion from listlessness, were yawning drearily. The greater portion of this assemblage were rather asserting their supremacy than doing anything else, as they had no particular business there, that anybody knew of. A few were closely eyeing the moveables, as if to make quite sure that the Presi- dent (who was far from popular) had not made away with any of the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.
After glancing at these loungers ; who were scattered over a pretty drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful prospect of the river and the adjacent country ; and who were sauntering too, about a larger state room called the Eastern Drawing-room ; we went up stairs into another chamber, where were certain visitors, waiting for audiences. At sight of my conductor, a black in plain clothes and yellow slip- pers who was gliding noiselessly about, and whis- pering messages in the ears of the more impatient,
300 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
made a sign of recognition, and glided of? to announce him.
We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with a great bare wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring. But there were no such means of beguiling the time in this apart- ment, which was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting room in one of our public establishments, or any physician's dining-room during his hours of consultation at home.
There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room. One, a tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west ; sunburnt and swarthy ; with a brown-white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting between his legs ; who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his mouth, as if he had made up his mind " to fix " the President on what he had to say, and wouldn't bate him a grain. Another, a Kentucky farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands under his
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 301
coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the floor with his heel, as though he had Time's head under his shoe, and were literally "killing11 him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious-looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how it was getting on. A fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did nothing but spit. And indeed all these gen- tlemen were so very persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak more genteelly, an ample amount of " compensation : " which is the Ame- rican word for salary, in the case of all public servants.
We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black messenger returned, and con- ducted us into another of smaller dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with
302 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
papers, sat the President himself. He looked somewhat worn and anxious, and well he might : being at war with everybody — but the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singu- larly well.
Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court, admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some days before that to which it referred, I only returned to this house once. It was on the occasion of one of those general assemblies which are held on certain nights between the hours of nine and twelve o' clock, and are called, rather oddly, Levees.
I went, with my wife, at about ten. There was a pretty dense crowd of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could make out, there
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. S03
were no very clear regulations for the taking up or setting down of company. There were certainly no policemen to soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their bridles or nourishing truncheons in their eyes ; and I am ready to make oath that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently on the head, or poked acutely in their backs or stomachs ; or brought to a stand-still by any such gentle means, and then taken into custody for not moving on. But there was no confusion or disorder. Our carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any blustering, swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance; and we dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive.
The suite of rooms on the ground-floor, were
lighted up ; and a military band was playing in the hall. In the smaller drawing-room, the centre of a circle of company, were the President and his daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the mansion : and a very interesting, graceful, and
304 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE.
accomplished lady too. One gentleman who stood among this group, appeared to take upon himself the functions of a master of the ceremonies. I saw no other officers or attendants, and none were needed.
The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the other chambers on the ground- floor, were crowded to excess. The company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it compre- hended persons of very many grades and classes ; nor was there any great display of costly attire : indeed some of the costumes may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough. But the decorum and propriety of behaviour which pre- vailed, were unbroken by any rude or disagreeable incident ; and every man, even among the mis- cellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any orders or tickets to look on, ap- peared to feel that he was a part of the Institu- tion, and was responsible for its preserving a becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.
AND THE PRESIDENTS HOUSE. 305
That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts, and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great abilities shed new charms and associations upon the homes of their countrymen, and elevate their character in other lands, was most earnestly testi- fied by their reception of Washington Irving, my dear friend, who had recently been appointed Minister at the court of Spain, and who was among them that night, in his new character, for the first and last time before going abroad. I sincerely believe that in all the madness of American politics, few public men would have been so earnestly, de- votedly, and affectionately caressed, as this most charming writer : and I have seldom respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng, when I saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest impulse round the man of quiet pursuits : proud in his promotion as reflect- ing back upon their country : and grateful to him
VOL. I. X
306 WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE,
with their whole hearts for the store of graceful
fancies he had poured out among them. Long
may he dispense such treasures with unsparing
hand ; and long may they remember him as worthily !
The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington, was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel ; for the railroad dis- tances we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older towns, are on that great continent looked upon as nothing.
I had at first intended going South — to Charleston. But when I came to consider the length of time which this journey would occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at Washington had been often very trying ; and weighed moreover, in my own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing it, in the time I had to spare, stripped
AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 307
of the disguises in which it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host of facts already heaped together on the subject ; I began to listen to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in England, when I little thought of ever being here ; and to dream again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the wilds and forests of the west.
The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was, according to custom, sufficiently cheerless : my companion being threat- ened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can remember or would catalogue if I could ; but of which it will be sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steam-boats and breakings down in coaches were among the least. But, having a western route sketched out for me by the best and kindest authority to which I could have resorted, and putting no great faith in these dis- couragements, I soon determined on my plan of action.
308 WASHINGTON.
This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia ; and then to turn, and shape our course for the Far West ; whither I beseech the reader's company, in a new volume.
END OF VOL. T.
london: bradbury and evans, printers, u'hitefriars.
\B
*><
*S
0
1
W
&
i-^fl^H-j.
1
"
*TsB
*#^
iV
■1
JK
■
■ •.*wHii
■
^m
JT H
M
■
1*
f
/
y
X'
«
fl
\
mms
W
■to sir
!M
ffl
gHh
^H
ftie$&
flwi
HOGffiff
MKHwiv £
■KfiliJtiF
■S.i