A VISIT
TO
THE UNITED STATES
LONDON : PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET
WHITE AND BLACK
THE OUTCOME OF A VISIT TO
THE UNITED STATES
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL, M.P.
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1879
PREFACE.
I HAVE long thought that a man has not seen the world till, besides following the beaten tracks in the countries of Europe and Western Asia, which have all drawn from the same sources, he has seen and realised both the great civilisation of the Old World which exists in China, owing nothing to our sources, and the new departure in Western civilisation which has taken place in a New World, in America. While I was in India I was able to make a short run round to China. The circumstances of a hard-working life have not permitted me to fulfil my desire to visit America till I accomplished it this last autumn. Besides the wish to see America as others have seen it, I had also a special desire, for reasons which I explain, to learn something of the present position of ' the nigger question ' — a subject on which very little has been written in this country, and in regard to which I had failed to get much clear information of a recent date. For that reason I gave special atten tion to some of the Southern States, viz., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
During my tour I kept rough notes, but only as
209
vi PREFACE.
an aide-memoire to myself, and not in a state intended for publication. After my return I had occasion to visit my constituents in the Kirkcaldy Burghs, and I varied the monotony of our ordinary political subjects by telling them something of what I had seen in America. To go through a group of Scotch burghs one has to make a good many speeches ; and so it happened that on several occasions I went over ground connected with or suggested by my American expe riences. I also wrote an article on ' Black and White in the Southern States,' which the Editor of the * Fortnightly Review ' was kind enough to publish. Several of my friends have been so good as to say that they have been interested by it, and some of them have added, ' It is only a pity that you did not carry the subject a little farther.' Thus encouraged, I have thought that some might be glad to see the evidence on which my conclusions were founded, as contained in my notes. The fact is, too, that though we have plenty of books about the Far West and life in the Rocky Mountains, and so on, there seem to be very few regarding the more accessible parts of the United States. I certainly had great difficulty in finding such books to guide me in my travels, and was obliged to take my information in a great degree from that of Mr. Anthony Trollope, written almost a quarter of a century back. A Member of Parliament, Mr. Hussey Vivian, who recently visited America, and who is a very competent observer, has published a book of a very interesting character; but it so happens that his specialities are different from mine.
PREFACE. Vll
He tells much about mines and metals, and other things, of which I have no knowledge.
It has occurred to me, then, that there might be room for such a book as I now oifer, containing much of what I have picked up during my tour in the United States. I fancy that my notes may perhaps be useful, if only as a sort of guide and handbook to others con templating a similar tour ; and that those interested in the position of the coloured population, and the political and industrial questions arising out of it, may find a good deal which has not yet been given to the public.
It will be seen that I made a very rapid run through the Northern and some of the Western States, and saw something of the interior of Illinois and the farmers of that country ; and then, after visiting Pennsylva nia, Baltimore, and Washington, made a more careful study of the condition of things in the four Southern States which I have already mentioned.
In addition to the Black question I have been much interested in the cultivation and handling of cotton, which I had also seen in India and Egypt ; and in the Southern cotton mills, which now rival the North in the production of the coarser goods, just as the mills in our cotton-producing possessions rival those of Lancashire. There seems to be no doubt that both in America and Egypt the yield of cotton to the acre is much larger than in India. The bale of which I speak is about 450 Ibs.
My tour was so far cut short that I was not able to make a little stay in New York and Philadelphia
viii PREFACE.
in the winter season, as I had hoped ; and I have not had an opportunity of going into the social and poli tical affairs of New England, which I should have much liked. That and a great deal more remains for another tour, if I should ever be able to accomplish it.
I have worked up and supplemented the general views which I presented in the Kirkcaldy Burghs, and submit the whole as ' A Bird's-eye Yiew of the United States.' Then I have been permitted to re- publish my article on ' Black and White,' and have prefaced it with some remarks on our own manage ment of coloured races in our American and African colonies. I have put into some shape those parts of my Journal which I thought might bear publica tion. During the return voyage I had made notes of the Constitutions of some of the States ; and, as a specimen of the most improved and modern State Constitutions, I have appended the principal parts of the Constitutions of some States, especially Illinois.
I left a blank side in my Journal, on which I have sometimes subsequently noted up later experiences and corrections, and I have thought it better to amalgamate these with the rest, rather than to put them separately as notes ; but the effect is to create some anachronisms, as it were ; so I have not entered the precise dates, but have followed generally the order of time, place, and subjects. At the same time a journal must necessarily contain something of an olla podrida of various and sometimes incongruous subjects a good deal mixed together. If it be re marked that on some subjects several repetitions are
PREFACE, IX
to be found, I reply that this is the evidence on which my conclusions are founded, and that proof of this kind necessarily depends on the cumulative testimony of various witnesses.
Things march rapidly, and while I write the Black question seems to have assumed a new phase, creat ing great interest in it, owing to the movement of large numbers of that race from Mississippi and Louis iana, seeking to escape from tyranny and ill-usage, and to find new homes in Kansas — a State where I have mentioned that the negroes seem to be well treated, and in the back parts of which a good many of them are, I have heard, successfully established as independent small farmers. There was an outbreak of yellow fever, and I did not visit Mississippi and Louis iana ; but I have several times mentioned the former State, as that in which the practice of ' bull-dozing,' or bullying the negroes, has most prevailed. There were also severe election contests in parts of Louis iana, accompanied by much violence ; and some cases of very unjustifiable lynchings of Negroes were reported during my visit. To these things, no doubt, the movement is due. I have also men tioned the case of a county in Georgia, in which the negroes, being dissatisfied with their treatment, formed a league among themselves to abandon that county and leave their persecutors without labour. That, I take it, is exactly what has been done on a larger scale in the States of the Lower Mississippi. It is a form of strike as a counter- move against ill-treat ment; and under the circumstances the move may be a
X PREFACE.
bold and effective measure. There is nothing so
o
likely to bring the landowners to a sense of what they owe the negro population as to make them feel the want of it. The only fear is, that these poor people are rushing into an independence for which they have not the means ; but I gather from the latest accounts that the movement is rather striking in its sudden and concentrated form, than one which involves a very great population. The numbers are said to have been somewhat exaggerated. I think it will probably be found that it is only the population of particular counties or districts, where there has been special ill-usage, who have emigrated in mass. If the efforts now being made to obtain assistance for them in the North should be successful, and they should be enabled to locate themselves in a temperate region in Southern Kansas, the effect may be beneficial on the whole. At the same time I have expressed a strong belief that, in the Southern States, whites and blacks are interdependent — neither can do without the other. I think they themselves have found this to be so ; and generally speaking industrial questions are not the cause of serious dissension.
It is the struggle for political power, and the question whether the coloured people are to be allowed to vote freely, which has caused all the trouble. The greater the trouble the more necessity for settling the question whether real effect is to be given to the 15th Article of Amendment to the United States Con stitution, providing that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or colour.
PREFACE. xi
It is notorious that in the late elections the free exer cise of that vote has been abridged and destroyed by violence and fraud in several Congressional districts. These disputed elections must be decided by the present Congress. I cannot but think that it would be good policy on the part of Northern Democrats honestly to give up the few seats which have been won by the South by means which cannot possibly be defended ; and that it is nothing but the most evident prudence on the part of Southern Democrats to accept that solution and be content with the great majority and complete control of their States, which they have attained, without insisting on an absolutely solid South, to which they have no just right, if elec tion be free.
A solution of this kind would involve an even balancing of parties, which would plainly point to compromise ; and if there is to be compromise surely the best plan would be to let the President of com promise, Mr. Hayes, sit quietly for another term. Mr. Hayes pleases neither party, and it is the fashion to run him down and call him weak. Yet he is the only man who has shown some independent will to act for the benefit of his country outside the tram mels of party. I cannot but think that the Civil Service and other reforms that he has attempted to initiate are well worthy of a trial. No doubt if the ' man on horseback ' must come back — if the South must be kept down by a firm hand, Grant is the man to do it. Whatever his other qualities, he knows the policy he is to carry out, and can be depended on
xii PREFACE.
to do it firmly without flinching. But if things are to be settled by conciliation, and North and South are to come together on friendly terms for a new departure, then I venture to think that Mr. Hayes is an able and good man, whose personal character, manner, and surroundings well fit him to carry out such a policy. But to make such a policy possible it is absolutely necessary that the South should honestly accept the 15th Amendment.
GEORGE CAMPBELL.
May 10, 1879.
CONTENTS.
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
PAGE
Inducements to Visit America .
General Features of the Country . . . 5
The Climate .... .10
^ The Races composing the Population . . ..12
The Principal Products of the Soil . .18
Characteristics of the American People . . . . . 21
Language . . . .22
Hotels and Food . . . 23
Railway Travelling . . . . . . .26
Social Arrangements . . . . . . . 27
Manners . . .29
The Cities . . . 32
The Country Districts . ... 34
The Free School System 35
Commercial Morality ....... 37
Protection and Reciprocity . . , 38
The Drink Question . . . .45
Religion .... . . 51
Political System 57
Home Rule in the States 71
The Position of Canada 77
Taxation in the States 79
Land System . 84
The Currency Question ... .... 89
Opportunities for Emigration and Investment . . .97 Feeling towards England 109
xiv CONTENTS.
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
PAOK
The System prevailing in our Colonies . . . ..Ill Treatment of Natives in Africa . ... 120
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
^Objects of my Inquiry ... . . 120
1 The Character and Capacity of the Negro . .128
< The Negroes as a Labouring Population . . 140
The Political Situation in the South . .162
[The Caste Question 194
SOME OF THE CONTENTS OF MY JOURNAL.
The Voyage and First Impressions 203
New York 205
The Elevated Railway 208
The New York Country 209
A Scamper North and West 211
Boston 213
The Massachusetts Country . . . . .214
The Mohawk Valley 215
Niagara 216
Canada . . 217
Chicago 220
Chicago to St. Louis 223
St. Louis . . ... 224
Kansas 226
^rThe Blacks in the West 228
The Missouri and Mississippi . . . 230
The Interior of Illinois 231
The Western Farmers 233
Indiana and Ohio 238
Pennsylvania ........ 240
Pittsburgh 241
Interior of Pennsylvania . . . . . . 243
Democratic Meeting ...... 244
Pennsylvauiaii Farming . . .... 246
Philadelphia . 247
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Republican Meeting .... . . 248
Pennsylvanian Industries . . . . . .250
Philadelphian Society . . . 252
The Courts and the Judges . .254
Some Pennsylvanian Ideas . . . . . 255
Baltimore .256
)te-The Blacks in Maryland, &c . . . 257
The Hopkins University . . . 261
The Baltimore People . . , 262
A Democratic view of Politics . . . . ,263
Washington . . 265
)£ Conversation with the President . . .266
Appearance of the City . . . 270
Some Opinions on several Subjects . . . .271
Some of the Public Offices 274
The Revenue System 276
The Weather Department ... . . 278
General Sherman . . . , . . .280 Law and Lawyers . . . . . . . . 281
Virginia .......... 283
$fc- The Blacks at Hampton 284
Norfolk .... .287
Petersburg ... 289
Free Trade Views . 291
Richmond 292
Education 293
The Tobacco Manufacture 294
A Visit Jbo the Country 295
The Governor of Virginia . . . . . . 296
Virginian Views of Things 298
North Carolina 302
Raleigh, Capital of the State 304
Gaelic-speaking Americans . . . . . . 305
Cotton Culture 306
Condition of the Negroes . . . . . . 307
Political Parties 310
Agricultural Geography . . . . 312 Education ....... .313
The Farmers . . 314
a
xvi CONTENTS.
PAOK
Some Carolinian Acquaintances . . . 315
The Constitution and Legislation . 317
Durhams and Tobacco Manufacture . . . . 320
A Southern Cotton Mill . .321
Salisbury and the people there . ... 323
South Carolina .... .325
To Columbia, the Capital 326
Wade-Hampton, the Governor ... . 327
^-The Election 329
Education .... .332
^Position of the Negroes 333
The Tenure of Land ... .335
Charleston ... . . . . . . . 336
^he Low-country Negroes 337
The Rice Country 338
The Sea Islands 339
Some Representative Men . . . . . . 340
Visits to the Country .•?... 342
^fJIow the Election was Won . . . . . . 345
The Exodus to Liberia 347
South Carolina Legislation . . . . . . 348
A Visit to the Rice Districts 349
The Phosphate Works 351
The County of Beaufort 352
#The Effect of Black Rule 355
An American ' Ryotwar' Settlement . . . .359
w Georgia 362
Augusta and the Cotton Mills 363
Journey to Atlanta . . . . . . . 365
A Southern View of Things . . . . .366
Atlanta, the Capital 369
The Georgian Legislature 370
Some Georgian Acquaintances . . . . . 371
The Liquor Traffic ....... 376
:5KViews about the Nigger . . . . . 377
Some Statistics . . . . . . . 379
ore Talk with Georgians . . . . . 381
Democratic Orator . . . . . . .386
The Election of Judges ....... 387
Manufactures and Trade .... 388
CONTENTS. xvil
PAGE
The Georgian Farmers . ... 389
>4The Independents ....... 390
To Calhotm — a Farm in the Country . . . . 392
ft The White Farmers ....... 393
on — more White Farmers and Black . . . 394
The Return Journey . . . . . . .397
A Cattle Country ........ 398
Washington again . . . . . . .399
To New York . . . . 400
Railway Affairs . . . . . . . .401
Some Views of North and South ..... 402
A New York Market ....... 403
New York Politics and Taxation ..... 404
The Voyage Home ....... 405
STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
The Constitution of Massachusetts ..... 407
The Constitution of Virginia ...... 408
The Constitution of Illinois . . . .413
A BIED'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES
BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF
A SERIES OF ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN SCOTLAND IN THE BEGINNING OF FEBRUARY 1879
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
OF
THE UNITED STATES:
THE SUBSTANCE OF A SERIES Of ADDRESSES.
I HAVE a strong belief that all of us ought to know the Americans better than we do. They are really and truly our kin. This is not a mere phrase. When one goes among them one finds that they are very little removed from us after all, and the com munity of language makes intimacy very easy. An intimate acquaintance and friendship with them must be most beneficial to both parties, in order to cultivate the arts of peace and material progress, anfl. to avert the possibility of misunderstandings which have led, and mights-even yet lead to war between two sister countries, than which, in these modern days of destruction, nothing can be more awful or more terrible ; but a risk to which we are always exposed as long as misunderstandings- 'are possible. It seems to me very unfortunate that most of the popular English writers who have described the Americans have caricatured them ; and that is so not only as regards the writers of the past who have suffered
B 2
4 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
from American finance or otherwise, but even the popular writer Anthony Trollope, who is still among us, and who some years ago gave us a description of the Americans in his very vivid and popular manner, seems to me to have done them the greatest injustice. He seems to make the worst of everything ; most of their ways and institutions he condemns to, I think, an unfair degree ; and you may imagine the spirit in which he wrote, when I mention that writing in the latter part of the great civil war he condemns, in language the most scathing, all who would do any thing so mad and foolish as to emancipate the slaves. The only wonder to me is that after all that has passed the feeling of the Americans towards us is so good as it in fact is. They really have a very kindly feeling on their part ; and if there is misunderstanding I think it is more due to ignorance and prejudice on the part of many people in England, though I hope not in Kirkcaldy, which has so much and so benefi cial business with America. It is certainly the case that the Americans who come to Europe do not feel themselves at their ease in England, and consequently it happens — a very lamentable fact, I think — that, almost invariably, after spending a few days in the country and seeing Windsor, Stratford-on-Avon, and Abbotsford, they go abroad to the Continent of Europe and spend their time and money there. I think this should be cured. We should welcome them more than we do ; and I would very much urge on all of you who can make it out to go and see for yourselves in America what kind of people
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 5
they are. You would very soon find that you are not among foreigners there, but among a people with whom you could very readily make yourselves at home.
The facilities for getting to America are now very great, and the expense not large. The Atlantic no doubt is not the calmest of seas, but stout-hearted people don't mind that. The voyage is now reduced to eight days, and the steamers are admirable and very numerous. For those who are prepared to travel in an independent way, without servants or special luxuries, the cost of travelling in America is not excessive, and the comforts are considerable. Whatever may be said of the hotels in other respects, they are very convenient for the passing traveller, and the kindness of American friends to whom one is introduced is unbounded.
For people who require private rooms and accommodation for servants, and who cannot rough it so far as to get about by the aid of tramways and public conveyances only, travelling in America is much more difficult and expensive, since the American establishments do not afford the same private accom modation jis English hotels, or if they do charge for it excessively, and the hack carriages are enormously dear. This must be borne in mind if ladies are of the party.
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY.
I will try to give you some little account of the country and the people ; and first as regards the
6 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
objects immediately apparent to the eye — the com mon botany and zoology of the country, I was sur prised to find not nearly so strange as I expected. One has heard so much of the extremely new character of the trees and animals of Australasia, and other distant countries — of trees without leaves, and animals that walk chiefly by the aid of their tails — that I had expected in America also, so long an undiscovered continent, to find numerous strange appearances. It really is not so at all. The vegeta tion is curiously like our own. Firs and oaks, and other trees, look very much like those in Europe, and the animals too are not violently unlike. There are partridges and birds like grouse, and American rabbits not so unlike ours, and other creatures very familiar to us. But there is this peculiarity, that, although almost all plants and animals are like those with us they are never identical. They are always similar, but never the same species ; and perhaps it is due to the peculiarities of climate that European species seem never to have superseded those of America. For instance, while the European rabbit has overrun Australia and Xew Zealand, it is un known in America, and the small American rabbit — something between the rabbit and the hare in its habits — still holds its place. I am told that in reality there is a greater difference between the natural productions of the country east and west of the Rocky Mountains than there is between Europe and the Eastern States. I did not myself go so far as the Rocky Mountains ; but till we reach the western
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 7
part of the American continent, I may say of the States in general, that they are not so mountainous or so hilly as Great Britain. The most decided hills that one sees are close to the eastern ports, but beyond that there is scarcely anything that can be called a mountain. What is called a mountain in American language is sometimes a very little hill indeed. On the other hand, one is struck by the immense quantity of wood all over the country, not less in the Southern States than in the North. In fact, the Southern States are especially woody, and it is the quantity of wood that in all the old States makes the extension of cultivation somewhat slow and difficult. The prevailing tree in the south is a pine, which very much resembles our Scotch fir ; in the north, hardwood trees are more prevalent. In truth, not a tenth part of the older States is yet really cleared and cultivated. There is yet every where room for immense development. The rainfall is generally most beneficently arranged, and the ge neral character of the land is one of much fertility. In this respect, however, I do not think that it has upon the -whole, or taken on an average, an advan tage over England and the lowlands of Scotland. True, some western lands are of extraordinary fertility, but there is a great deal that is only moderately fertile, and that is the case in regard to most of the Eastern States. When we compare the country on the whole with England, I think it may be said that perhaps it is about on a par — the average of the soil is as good, perhaps a little better.
8 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF TIIE UNITED STATES.
In some respects the climate is brighter, but the winters are certainly more severe, and the extremes of climate lead to an enormous growth of weeds, which makes agriculture in some respects more difficult than with us. True, in the west there are what are called prairie States, great parts of which are free from natural • wood ; but it is an entire delusion to suppose that magnificent prairies with, magnificent natural grass are easily available to the settler. I travelled considerably west of the Missouri in search of such a prairie, and never found one. The ground is all taken up and enclosed, and the natural prairie grass — never very good — fails as soon as cattle are turned upon it in large numbers. Hence in Illinois and such States, the farmers are obliged to resort to artificial grass, just as we do in this part of Scotland.
On the whole, then, taking the country mile for mile and acre for acre, I can say that it is about equal to but not superior to England ; but then there is this vast difference, that it is not one England, but forty Englands. Some people seem to have been offended by Mr. Gladstone's recent article, when he said that the United States, if they kept together, must certainly surpass us. It seems to me that Mr. Gladstone only spoke a truth which must be self- evident, without attributing to the American people any great superiority over ourselves, at all events over Scotchmen. We are a people a little over 30,000,000, who have no means of extension in our own country. We are, as it were, like a hive of bees
I
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 9
which is constantly sending forth swarms to establish other hives elsewhere, but does not itself admit of extension ; whereas the Americans are already up wards of 40,000,000, perhaps nearly 45,000,000 of people who are continually extending themselves every day ; they have not one hive but forty hives, and these only very partially occupied ; and not only do they send their swarms into their own hives, but they are continually receiving new swarms from us and from others. It follows, as a matter of course, that under such circumstances the forty hives must surpass the one hive in population and production, if only they keep together. And we may be very comfort able at home without grudging them their extension. In truth, what the Americans suffer from at present is too much land. They would have better settled what they have if they had less of it. At "one time it was supposed that soon after passing the Missouri they had reached the natural limit in that direction, and that the country was then bounded by a great rainless tract, marked in the map as the great American desert ; but it has been discovered that this is quite a mistake, that the country called desert is not desert at all, but very capable of excellent cultivation, and especially good for raising wheat and cattle. The most rapidly developing States in the west are those situated in that tract marked as desert in the map. In fact, that is the great feature of recent American extension, and from these there comes a large portion of the wheat and the beef which to-day renders your food so much cheaper
10 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
than it has been. Wheat is a plant which thrives in a dry climate, and great tracts in the far west are now found to be suitable to it, while even where the land is too dry or steep for wheat, good grazing is still found on the slopes and in the valleys of the Kocky Mountains.
THE CLIMATE.
The Americans are accustomed rather to boast of their climate, and to compare the brightness of their skies with our foggy atmosphere ; but on the other hand there is no doubt of this, that they suffer from extremes of heat and cold more than we do. The heat in summer is excessive in New York. For a few weeks in the height of summer I am told that it is not an uncommon thing for the thermometer to stand at 110°, and to be almost as high at night as in the daytime. And then the cold in winter is very severe, and though kept out of houses by stoves — not the most wholesome things in the world — much interferes with agricultural and other opera tions. It is generally believed that the effect of this climate has been to make the American race perhaps keener and brighter, but not so healthy and rosy as our people are. The difference in the women espe cially has long been noticed. Still I am bound to say I saw a great many men in America who looked very robust and well, and might have passed for Scotchmen ; and that even some of the ladies are now becoming pretty beefy, as it has been irreverently
THE CLIMATE. 11
expressed. I say this without detracting from the reputation for a somewhat delicate -looking beauty which is well deserved by so many of them. The great advantage for practical purposes of the American climate is the favourable distribution of the rainfall. The rain seems never to fail, and it generally comes just when it is most wanted. I believe it is almost entirely due to the fortunate distribution of the rainfall that the Southern States so completely beat countries where labour is infinitely cheaper in the production of cotton. The valley of the Mississipi has throughout a very full and good supply of rain at the right season, and throughout the Union, there seems to be less trouble from bad weather at harvest time than with us. Many crops, maize especially, stand out for long till it is convenient to reap them. In California 1 believe the wheat is left standing for weeks without injury. I should tell you here that in what I say of America, I usually do not refer to the Californian countries beyond the mountains. I did not go there ; but I found that if I remarked anything that was wanting in America they always said, ' Ah, -you would get that in California.' I have no doubt from what I learned that California really has a different climate — not so hot in summer, nor so cold in winter, but more like that of Southern Europe, as shown by its fruits and other productions. I think one of the most extraordinary things I know, as showing the difference between the energies of different races, is that the Spaniards were actually possessed of California for hundreds of years, and
12 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
never discovered that it was worth anything at all, whereas the Americans no sooner got it than they made it one of the finest countries in the world. At the same time I should say this by way of caution, that under the old Spanish grants of land all California has been monopolised, and it is not owned by settlers, as the other parts of the States. The man who goes there must expect to be a labourer rather than an owner of land.
THE RACES COMPOSING THE POPULATION.
And now I will tell you something about the origin and breed, if I may use the expression, of the people of America. The foundation of the people — that upon which their language and manners are based — is almost entirely English, derived in fact from the southern counties of England, from which the early settlers came. Indeed, I am inclined to think that many of the peculiarities in language and other respects, which we now call American, are really old English, or rather old south of England pecu liarities. We Scotch have not put a special Scotch impress on any part of the United States, as we have in Ireland and other parts of the world. In Canada only does one hear very largely the Scottish tongue and find especially Scottish settlements. But although none of the United States are specially Scotch there is a very large and very valuable infusion of Scotch blood throughout all of them. I found that an immense number of the best and most prominent men
RACES COMPOSING THE POPULATION. 13
wherever I went claimed Scotch descent, or at least a share of Scottish blood. Then there is another allied breed which is very prominent in almost every part of the United States — one of the finest races of the world — of which we have reason to be proud and may well think second only to ourselves. I mean the Northern Irish, universally called in America Scotch-Irish, expressing by that term people of Scotch origin who had settled in Ireland. They have emigrated to America in large numbers, and are among the best farmers and the best men in every way. There is, as you know, a very large Southern- Irish element in the States, mostly comparatively recent emigrants, of the Catholic religion. A very great deal has been said against these Irish in the States. I confess I had rather been led to believe that they were a rowdy and not very prosperous set. I have been agreeably surprised by what I learned of them in America. It is true they have not very much risen to the higher places, in fact seem com paratively seldom to rise as compared with Scotch or Scotch-Irish, except as politicians ; but they are admir able labourers, and it is almost a proverb in the States to say that a good workman does as much as an Irishman. The railways and other great works of the States are almost dependent upon Irish labour. And in the cotton mills of the Northern States, which now so severely rival Lancashire, I am told that the Irish girls work better and are generally preferred to Americans and Canadians who work with them in the mills. Although the Irish have not shown that
14 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
aptitude as pioneers in the settlement of land which we might have expected of men so accustomed to small farms in Ireland, and do not successfully push west as do Scotchmen or Germans, and although like other Americans they may not always be very saving, I understand that they are not altogether without these good qualities, and that a very large portion of the North-Eastern States, from which the pushing and ad venturous Yankees have gone forth to occupy the West, have been filled up as they leave by Irishmen taking their places. It would be a very curious thing if Pu ritan New England became a Roman Catholic Irish colony, while New England goes West to better itself. Although the language and everything else in the States is English, there is, as you are probably aware, a very large proportion of European foreigners, who have become naturalised and are becoming Anglicised there. The old Dutch of New York are not very numerous. But one is apt to be misled regarding the Dutch, for it is the American habit to call all Germans Dutch, probably the German word deutsch having become naturalised. The Germans are a numerous and most valuable element in the United States. Perhaps, taking them all in all, they are as good colonists as any of the races which come from these islands. For if they are not so bright and so pushing they are more hard-working, and saving, and more economical ; in fact, they are quite model colonists. They settle down on the land and work with a thriftiness and perseverance which no Scotch men could beat — the women working as well as the
RACES COMPOSING THE POPULATION. 15
men ; and whether in the east or in the west you always find Germans among the best and most numerous of the small farmers. That is their special vocation. They are also very numerous among small shopkeepers and traders. German Jews are now becoming very prominent in the States. Of late years there has been a great emigration of people from the Scandinavian countries : Swedes and Nor wegians, and people from Finland and some parts of Russia. They confine themselves to the extreme Northern States, pushing on to the far north-west ; but they are admirable settlers, and a great source of increase and improvement to the States to which they go. In several parts of the United States there is a considerable old French element which contributes in many respects to the brightness of the population and to certain branches of enterprise and industry.
The native Indians have never come to any good ; I ana afraid they have never been very well managed in the States, not so well as in Canada ; at all events they are gradually pushed off the soil ; only a few still remain as pensioners, and they cannot be ac counted as ji considerable element in the population. On the other hand, the negro race, imported as slaves, is now very numerous and very prominent, forming about half the population of many of the Southern States. We have heard a great many prophecies of the terrible things which would happen when these poor helpless children were set free. Mr. Anthony Trollope, whom I have mentioned, is one of the most lugubrious of the prophets. They were to
16 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
die out or be sent back to Africa, or to be a perpetual incubus to the white people among whom they lived. I have been agreeably surprised to find how all this has been falsified. Far from dying out they are now prospering and increasing. They produce that immense crop of cotton, larger far than any produced in slave times, which supplies the mills of the whole world. They are capital workers at rail ways and other works in the southern climates not fitted for white men. They do almost as much work as Irishmen. I was told that many of them are becoming small independent farmers ; and al together instead of being a burden they are becoming an important class of American citizens. They are already zealous Christians. They have adopted the ways and habits of the white men. They have the rights of citizens, and are rapidly being educated.
I have alluded to the New Englanders of the North-Eastern States, and said that very many of them have pushed further west. It is in consequence of this emigration that the great North -Western States are very distinctly marked by a New England or Yankee character. Undoubtedly the least fertile portion of the United States is New England. The only wonder is how the first settlers should ever have settled there ; but having taken root there they were rewarded for their industry by the acquisition of the great countries to the north-west. The State of New York is a great State ; but its agricultural citizens have abundant room within their own State ; and it is rather the City of New York than the State
RACES COMPOSING THE POPULATION. 17
that is so prominent in American politics and com merce. That city is, in fact, situated in a position extraordinarily favourable to commerce, and has far outdone all rivals. It has a magnificent harbour, with a tide just enough to keep it clean and sweet, and not so much as to render necessary dry docks and other elaborate appliances which we require. Ships of the largest burden lie alongside the shore for miles, and have facilities such as are not found in our harbours. Then in the latitude of New York there is a natural cleft in the Alleghany Mountains — the only cleft which exists from the Gulf of Mexico to Northern Canada. Through that cleft there is a splendid waterway, the Hudson Eiver, and railways have been carried alongside of it. Thus it is that New York has a natural advantage which no other port possesses. In the country districts of the New York State, as in the city, there are still considerable remains of the old Dutch element, but nearly Angli cised ; the other settlers on the land of all classes, both British and foreign, constitute a very large and prosperous population of small farmers. Pennsylva nia, again, is a very great State, originally founded by English Quakers, but in which the German ele ment is now very large. It is, perhaps, the most advanced State in the Union, in regard to its manu factures and the character of its agriculture. Penn sylvania, too, has very largely colonised the Western States. Virginia is an old State, but not so prosper ous. I ani afraid most of the Englishmen who have taken up land there have not made a particularly
18 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
good thing of it, except those in the hilly country to the west, where splendid cattle are produced. But Virginia is, as it were, the mother of the Southern States. From Virginia people have very largely gone southwards to colonise the higher and cooler parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and the other Southern States ; so that in these States, while, as I have said, about half the population are negroes, the other half are very decent and respectable white people, principally small farmers. There has not been much white immigration there of late years, but in the last century a good many Scotchmen went there, especially Highlanders.
THE PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL.
If you look at the map you will see the great varieties of latitude and of physical configuration which enable the United States to produce so many things, and so largely to supply the world with food and the materials for clothing. Round the Southern seaboard, from North Carolina to Texas, and up the Mississippi to Arkansas and Missouri, we have a belt of States producing by far the largest portion of the cotton-supply of Europe. On the lowlands of the Carolinas and Georgia rice of fine quality is grown ; and near the mouths of the Mississippi there are great sugar plantations ; but these latter articles only thrive under protection, and are not exported. There has lately been a good deal of talk and fuss about the production of sugar from maize-stalks and sorghum,
THE PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL. 19
a Chinese millet. Many farmers cultivate patches of the latter ; but so far as I could learn, this sugar is not likely to come to much — only a sort of molasses for domestic use is ordinarily obtained.
The American tobacco is principally grown in the Central States ; still to a large extent in Arirginia, but even more in Kentucky and Tennessee, and farther west, and now a good deal in Pennsylvania also.
There is some very fine grazing ground in the Central States, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Yirginia. The blue grass of Kentucky is famous ; though it is not blue at all, but green, and very like our common natural grass. In the South aa East- Indian grass, known as ' Dhoop,' or Sun-grass, has been introduced, and proves very productive as a permanent grass. In most of the Northern States timothy grass, rye grass, and clover are largely sown ; and in some parts further south lucerne is a produc tive crop.
Efforts are being made to reintroduce silk in the South, but it has been tried before, and I doubt if it will come to much. The tea-plant grows very well, but it requires too much labour to be a practical culture in the States. There is too much frost for coffee. The Southerners are trying to grow Bengal jute, but nothing has come of these experiments yet. They used to cultivate indigo, but it has quite gone out; Bengal has beaten them in that. And they have not attempted to rival our Indian opium. Attempts are made to produce wine, but I think it is only in California that vineyards are very successful.
c 2
20 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
In the Northern States, little as one would expect it, the most valuable product of all is hay, chiefly grown from artificial grass. That shows how much is done for the rearing of flocks. Maize, or Indian corn, is an immense production all over the country. Of this also much is used to feed animals. After that comes wheat, the production of which has made wheat cheap in our markets, and the cultivation of which is so much increasing that it may be confidently predicted that, unless we have any unhappy quarrel with the United States, which God forbid, bread never can again be dear in this, country; for the means of communication are im proving every day. The production of barley is not large, but there is a great abundance of oats. Wheat is produced both in the North-Western States, where snow covers it in winter, and much further south, where the winters are mild. In the intermediate zone maize prevails.
I trust cheap meat is about to be secured to us in addition to cheap bread. Already bacon is produced in America at an extraordinarily low rate, and the people of a large number of the States are now devoting immense attention to the production of beef. It is not only that great herds come from the western grazing grounds of Colorado and Texas, but in the settled agricultural countries people are more and more giving themselves to cattle-breeding. They import very carefully the finest bulls, and are raising the character of their cattle every day. Nothing im pressed me so much throughout my tour as the
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 21
great extent of country, North and South, East and West, in which the farmers are going into cattle- breeding for our market with enthusiasm — one hears the talk of beeves everywhere, and the cattle trade is ready to assume enormous proportions. You are aware, too, that extraordinary efforts are being made, day by day, to find improved means of bringing the American meat to your doors. An immense number of fine steamers are fitting up for the trade in live cattle, which is growing by leaps and bounds as never trade grew before. I cannot but have some sympathy with our farmers, who are, I am afraid, having rather hard times ; but still they have con siderable advantages in many respects, and must more and more devote themselves to supplying us with milk and butter, to finishing off the education of foreign cattle, to turning their farms into a sort of market -gardens of high culture. And, without touch ing upon political subjects, I must venture to hope that our Government will not be led into any re striction upon the importation of cattle, which would have the effect of keeping very dear the butcher's -meat consumed i>y the people of this country.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
I now proceed to tell you something of the characteristics of the American people — I mean the real American, born and bred in the country, as distinguished from the foreign element, of which there is so much. In some things, no doubt,
22 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
are peculiarities which make them unlike us ; but in very many other things they are like us. And it seems to me that, after getting over the first surface differences, the likenesses are much more numerous and much more prominent than the unlikenesses. We have heard of their popular ' Yankeeisms,' which are supposed to give us a fair specimen of the American people ; but what I found when I went there was, that the peculiarities of language and other wise which had been held out to us as ' Yankeeisms ' really almost exhaust all that there is of American peculiarity. These l Yankeeisms ' of our literature are not specimens of what is behind, but are in themselves nearly the whole of the features in which the people differ from us. In their general style, in their manners, and in their language they are in a very marked degree British, and not foreign.
In regard to language especially I was really surprised to find how little difference there is, and how much their idioms and everything else are thoroughly English. It is a curious thing, but it seems to me that the only people who talk very American indeed are the higher class of people, and especially the ladies — the sort of fine ladies one sees in foreign hotels on the Continent of Europe. Perhaps the truth is that these people are the oldest Americans, who have brought down most completely the provincial peculiarities which they carried with them from certain parts of Old England or established among themselves in the early days of American settlement. It may well be that these have been
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 23
handed down among the richer classes, whereas among the lower classes, intermixed so much as they have been with new arrivals, the language has assumed a sort of cosmopolitan English character. I found that in many parts of the States the common labouring man used language which I could not dis tinguish from that of a tolerably educated man of the same class in these islands. I might have been in doubt what county he came from, but if he did not happen to use a few peculiar American phrases I should not have known that he was not a Britisher. It was not only that my ear became accustomed to the American intonation, for I constantly found, again, that when I met ladies of the more well-to-do classes the ' Yankee ' peculiarities came out as pro minently as ever. Of the body of the people I think it may be said that their language is English — a little better than that used in any county of England.
The hotels are certainly a very peculiar American institution. Mr. Anthony Trollope hits them off very well. Although he does make the worst of things, I_am not prepared to say that there is not much truth in his description of the hotels. I have said that they are extremely convenient for the passing traveller ; but as residences in the way many Americans use them I do not know that I should care for them. It struck me as curious, in regard to hotels and some other things, that, inventive and progressive as the Americans are, there is in these things a sort of dead level of uniformity about them.
24 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
Wherever you go in all these vast States the hotels are almost all on the same plan. So are the railway carriages, and so are some other things. There does not exist either the cosy, comfortable English hotel or the foreign cafe. There is nothing in New York or anywhere else, so far as I saw, like the Boulevards in Continental cities. But there is everywhere the uni versal American hotel, the lower hall of which is a kind of place of assembly for all the world, or at all events all the male world. That public life in the hotel hall is what the American men seem to like best. The reading-rooms and other public apartments are not very comfortable ; but the barber's shop attached to every American hotel is luxurious. I do agree witli Mr. Trollope in denouncing as the most horrible place in the world the ladies' room, which is always the stiffest, barest, and most uncomfortably gorgeous place that it is possible to conceive — not a book or a newspaper or a domestic comfort of any kind — a place into which a stranger can hardly dare to enter, unless he be a man of iron nerves; and if he does enter cannot make himself comfortable in any sort of way. It seems very strange that, with the ex perience of Continental travelling which the Americans have, after seeing the nice, comfortable drawing-rooms in Swiss and other hotels, they won't condescend to introduce something of the kind into their own. Then in their mode of feeding the Americans are certainly peculiar, and. their ways are quite different from our ways. You never see such a thing as an English joint or an English dish put upon the table.
CHAKACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 25
Nor, on the other hand, have you well-cooked dishes handed round in the French style. They have a style of their own, which is, that your meal is served in a large number of curious oval little dishes, which are put before you all mixed up together, without the smallest regard to time or tide, or hotness, or coldness, or anything else; and especially you have to this day what Mr. Trollope vividly describes, a waiter who stands over you as a sort of taskmaster, and makes you eat your meal, not at your convenience but at his. I do think it is a very great pity that the founders of the American Republic did not introduce a little Scotch cookery among their early institutions. I am very happy to say that more recent reforms have introduced one excellent Scotch food which we are too much inclined to discard ourselves. I mean oat meal porridge. They generally give cream with it — a very commendable arrangement. In truth, I could have eaten oatmeal porridge in the States with great satisfaction, if I had not felt insulted by the constant practice there of calling it ' Irish oatmeal.' The Americans themselves seem to have a partiality to live upon qysters, which are there produced in enor mous quantity, and I believe of excellent quality, for I do not eat them myself. Their beef is generally good, but not always well cooked; the mutton not good. They have a most delightful variety of different kinds of bread, not only of wheat but of maize, corn, buckwheat, and other things. They drink a very great deal of tea and coffee, and a great deal of excellent milk ; but what is unpardonable,
26 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
considering the excellent dairy facilities which they have, the butter is always salt and bad. When I speak of tea or coffee, however, I should say that coffee is the principal drink of the States, and is generally very well made. Tea is comparatively quite rare, and is almost always very badly made. I shall notice separately in connection with the drink ques tion the, to us, extraordinary absence of wine and other liquors from their meals.
The railway carriages are another American insti tution whicli are quite different from ours. They are very long and heavy conveyances, with entrances only from the ends, and seats ranged along each side. There seems to be no objection on principle to a variety of classes. On all the chief railways of the Northern States there are drawing-room cars, which practically take the place of first-class carriages. But the ordinary American railway carriage, which is the only car riage without distinction of class on a large proportion of railways, is such that it may be generally said that all are second-class. In these travelling in America is somewhat cheaper than travelling first-class in this country ; and so far as my experience goes there is generally an entire absence of any rough and rowdy element, such as some have supposed must result from an amalgamation of classes. I am inclined to think the people who most suffer from the American system are those who travel third-class in this country. For them there is no cheap third-class, and consequently for them travelling is much dearer than in this country. There seem to be no railway porters in
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 27
America. People manage themselves and take care of themselves, and the railways run through the middle of streets and towns without any fencing. I asked, l Are people not constantly run down and killed ? ' The answer I got was, c They sometimes are ; but they learn to take care of themselves.' For travelling at night there are the Pulman cars, or other cars in the style of the Pulman. But here, too, it struck me, there was a too extreme uniformity and great absence of variety. The cars are very gorgeous and not very comfortable — sometimes very crowded and much overheated. The great steamers which run on protected waters and rivers are, I think, the most comfortable institutions in the way of travelling that exist in America or in any other country.
If you want to have an idea of the general state of society which exists in America I would put it to you in this way — if in this country you were to kill off all the country gentlemen, with all their wives and fami lies, and make the farmers the owners of the land which they till, you would have something which you could hardly distinguish from America. American towns are very much like English towns. The social arrange ments of Kirkcaldy are very like the social arrange ments of an American country town. But there is this great difference, in the outward aspect, that in an Ame rican town of this size you would have very large and very broad streets, lined with trees; and very nice villa- like houses, probably on the whole better than our houses. In that respect the American town is a better
28 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
and a nicer place than our towns— in dry weather, at any rate. But when it conies to rain, as the streets are all unpaved, they are exceedingly muddy. I have said that the country gentlemen element is alto gether wanting ; but the plutocrats, the money people, are quite as strong in America as in this country — perhaps stronger ; that is socially, and in everything not regulated by the first principles of the American Constitution and system — these they cannot get over. In all other matters the plutocrats, it seems to me, rule the country even more than they do here. The rich people rule the press, and the press rules the country. I am afraid that is a good deal the case in most parts of the civilised world.
There is a popular idea that the Americans are so civilised that they object to marriage, and that for in crease of the population the Americans must depend, not upon themselves, but upon the foreigners. I believe that this is quite a libel. The peculiar sects of which we hear so much are but a drop among the population. I myself saw none of them, but I did see a great many people who did not belong to these peculiar sects, and my decided impression is that the Americans marry earlier and trust to their wits to support a family more than we do ; that they have large and rapid families, just such as we have ; and there is not the least danger that the American population will die out. In nothing, I think, does Mr. Trollope so much libel the Americans as in the most odious character which he attributes to the average middle-class woman of America. He seems
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 29
to depict her as a kind of hideous Jezebel who in vades tramway-cars and other public places, turns men out of their seats in the most audacious and unfeeling manner, and asserts women's rights with the most entire disregard to the rights of unhappy males. Perhaps Mr. Trollope's denunciations have had some effect in wrorking a reform, but all I can say is that I saw nothing whatever of the kind. Where a car is crowded men will generally give seats to- women, just as they do on the Metropolitan Railway in London, but I never saw anything more than this. On the contrary, it seemed to me that the more purely American of the American women — those who are not accustomed to spend money in an ostentatious way in Europe, and to over-dress and over-peacock there — are very nice people indeed. It is the ( Daisy Millers,' and the Daisy Millers' mammas, who to some extent have given the American women a bad name. See them at home, and they seem to me among the nicest of their sex. The American girls are certainly more independent than our girls are. They think it a reproach if they cannot be trusted to go with a young man either to a church or a theatre. I won't say whether that is better or worse than our system; but I do admire the independence of the American girls in helping themselves by useful employments. In this respect I hope many of our girls are following their example. Ladies of a class who would not like to go out as school teachers and telegraph clerks among us do so quite freely in America, I think the last school I was in before I came to Kirkcaldy was a
30 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
black school for little negro children in the Southern States, taught by a young white Northern lady, whom we should think almost superior to that sort of work. I am sure our women have much to learn from the American women in the matter of helping others and helping themselves.
As to the men, I liked their style and manners. Generally speaking, there was comparatively little of the Yankee about them. I heard a story of my friend Mr. Holmes, the Member for Paisley, who made a tour in the United States, and when he got to Chicago he was very anxious to see a typical American, with his slouched hat, big boots, belt with revolver stuck in it, and so on. He could not find one for a long time. At last he found a man who exactly came up to his ideas ; and entering into con versation with him, he said, l Have you been long here ? ' ' Xa,' was the answer, ' Tarn jist a month frae GrlascaV Perhaps the men too have been some what affected by English criticism. At all events, it is now the case that in their conduct they are exceedingly quiet and orderly, and only spit to a moderate extent. In fact, as regards smoking and everything of that kind, the American rules are much more strict than ours. Mr. Trollope denounces the lower class of American men as rude and barbarous in the extreme. For my part, I can say I found them quite the contrary. Whenever I had occasion to talk to any of them I was generally impressed with their civility, intelligence, and education. One thing particularly struck me, and that was the quiet and
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 31
orderly character of their political meetings, I may almost say the dullness of them, for I think they were somewhat too quiet. They never interrupt a speaker, but always let him say out his say without the smallest hindrance, however distasteful his ideas may be to some of them. When I said that some times they are very orderly, to the point of dullness, I might illustrate that by telling you of an American politician whom I met. He had been up attending a political meeting at a country town. I said, l How did you get on?' 'Oh,' he replied, 'exceedingly well ; I gave them three solid hours of it, and they were as quiet as if they had been in church.' Upon the whole, my impression of the Americans is this, that in point of energy and enterprise they are ra ther above the average Britisher, but not above the average Scotchman — about, I may say, equal to an average Scotchman. They are certainly very pushing and go-ahead people ; but then if they make a great deal of money they also spend it very quickly — there is no doubt that they are inclined to be extra
vagant.
Everyone who goes to America is very much struck by the respect for law which prevails there. They are, in fact, an extremely law-abiding people ; and since their great war, having learned by ex perience how horrible war is, they have come through great trials and difficulties with wonderful avoidance of irritation and injurious conflict. I know no people in the world who accept defeat in so thoroughly good-humoured a way ; and in this respect
32 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
I think that the tone and temper of the people of the Southern States is very highly to be praised.
There is an idea prevalent in this country that in regard to many questions of social science, the management of prisons and such like matters, the Americans have gone far ahead of ourselves. I did not go very minutely into these matters, for I had not time, but so far as I could learn I failed to find that they are much ahead of us. I heard quite as many complaints of prison management in America as ever I did in this country, and I doubt very much whether their sanitary and other improvements are greatly superior to ours. I am inclined to believe that Edinburgh and Glasgow have done quite as much in the way of social science progress as any American town.
I was specially interested in the condition of the Southern States, and I spent a good deal of my time there. They have no doubt suffered from war in a pecuniary way as well as by losing all the flower of the population ; but they have a good heart, and are doing well. This subject, however, is a special one, which I shall probably take occasion to explain in another shape, for it is scarcely possible to do so now,
I do not know that there is anything very special in the larger American cities, except the trees in the streets which I have mentioned, and the strictly rectan gular character in their arrangement which leads to the numbering of the streets in the way you have often heard. There is one institution in New York which struck me as very successful, and that is the elevated
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 33
railways just opened. Instead of destroying the narrower streets, full of traffic, by laying tramways in them, they leave the streets for the ordinary traffic, and carry the railway on elevated girders above the heads of the people and the carts. That seems to be successfully done in New York, and I hope to see it done in London also. The Elevated Railway is quite a new institution in New York — only started in the last few months ; but throughout all the towns the
tramwav-car is a most universal and successful insti-
•/
tution. The whole population use the tram-cars ; in most places there are comparatively few private car riages, and cabs are always dear.
My complaint of the American cities is that they are too big — that is to say, too many people come to the towns who had much better go and work in the country. I was almost tempted to say that, among the Americans, for every man who really works with his hands there seem to be two who seek to live by speculating upon him — espe cially by insuring his life — that seems to be the great business now to which retired generals, go vernors, and other great men devote themselves. It seemed to me that Washington is the pleasantest and best of American cities. Mr. Trollope describes it in very horrible terms, but it has certainly been very much improved since those days, and appeared to me to be a charming place. Boston, as you may have heard, is a delightfully English -looking place. Chicago and those new cities seem to have been overdone and to be much too large.
D
34 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF^ THE UNITED STATES.
It is always very easy to see the cities of America ; everybody expects you to see the cities ; but it is much more difficult to see the country. E ail ways there are in abundance, and wherever there is a railway you can go, but there is an extreme want of good roads. The Americans seem to have skipped over that stage in human progress and to have gone direct from no roads to railways. If you want to hire a trap to drive ten miles into the country you will find it scarcely possible to get such a thing. But the Americans themselves have, for country use, most admirable private vehicles — infinitely lighter than our carriages, quite as lasting, and every way superior ; and I cannot imagine why we don't take a leaf out of their book in this respect. Whenever you are with friends they are always ready to drive you over the country with their fast-trotting horses and light buggies — admirable both horses and buggies are. That is the only way in which you can see America. To my view no man has seen America who merely goes from town to town, and does not see the country in the way I have described, for the real backbone of the population of America consists of the small farmers who cover the country. The American Government have been exceedingly wise in the provisions which they have made against land-jobbing. Land is not appropriated in immense blocks by the early settlers, as in most of our colonies. The amount which each man is allowed to take up is restricted to that which he can beneficially farm; and under the homestead law every man who settles in the country is entitled
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 35
to a farm of this kind. I believe it is upon, this system that the true greatness of America is founded.
Much, too, is due to the system of free education which has prevailed in the common schools of the North for the last two Or three generations. Not only is this so in New England, but the New Englanders, taking their ideas to the West, have developed the system still more completely in the Western States. For instance, in Illinois it is re quired by law that there should be a school every two miles at least. A certain proportion of the land in every township is always set apart for the maintenance of schools. The State maintains not only primary schools but also high schools in number sufficient to meet the demand for higher instruction ; and even, in some places, agricultural colleges and such special institutions. The universities and col leges for general education of the highest class of all are the only institutions not included in the general system of free public instruction ; but there are many excellent universities, some of which have large endowments, while some have received some public aid under local arrangements. In addition to endowments the cost of public education is met, first, by a rate upon land, and, second, by a poll-tax upon the people. By these means sufficient funds are provided in the Northern States ; but in the South the funds are very deficient, though the system has been more or less introduced there also. There are a good many grumblers in America, as there are with us — a good many people who complain of the highness of
D 2
36 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
the rates, and who say that they should not be taxed to teach a labourer's daughter to play upon the piano. Now, about the piano I won't say whether I agree with them — perhaps I am rather heretical on musical subjects ; but I am impressed with the belief, not only that we should make education as cheap and free as possible to the poorer classes, but also that the public may fairly do something for the middle and higher education, both in view of the fact that the middle classes pay largely to the education rates, and that a ladder may be provided by which the poor may mount upwards. In America the children of the well-to-do classes, merchants and professional men and such like, habitually attend the public schools, girls as well as boys ; indeed, the higher schools are much more used by girls than by boys, for the boys go early into business, while the girls continue their education. I did not find the character of the higher education to be so much reformed as I should have expected. There is still a good deal of Latin and Greek taught ; and there is not so universal a system of in struction in the useful sciences as I looked for ; but much is done in special colleges, and improvements are being effected which, no doubt, will soon become general.
Meantime I think it may be said that the Ame ricans owe their great success in certain branches of mechanical manufacture to their own ingenuity and energy, rather than to any public system of technical instruction. They certainly are marvel lously clever as inventors. They have a patent
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 37
law, and consider it to be much better than ours. They examine and test patents before they are passed, and have a great patent show at Washington. I am not qualified to tell you anything of their manu facturing processes, and indeed was not on this oc casion long enough in the North-Eastern States and cities to see much of these things ; but they are readily accessible to any of you who choose to go there. The Americans certainly show immense energy in all mercantile and manufacturing operations, and leave no stone unturned to develop the resources of the country.
I have often been asked, ' How about American rascality ? Are people there worse than our direct ors? ' I can only say that I think they are about the same. The fact is that American law is entirely founded on English law, and the safeguards against new-fashioned rascality offered by a law designed only to meet a rascality which is not new-fashioned are about as great in America as in this country — as great, I think, but not greater. There is a great deal of mercantile rascality there as well as here ; but I have heard it said that some people are rather jealous of the directors of the Glasgow Bank for having done a ' bigger thing' than they have done. As is the case with us, a great many fraudulent people escape the punishment which they merit ; and there have been some great scandals, not only in joint-stock affairs but in municipal affairs. I think, however, that we must not judge of the American people by what has taken place in the New York Municipality ; that is,
38 B1ED*S-EYE VIEW OF TIIE UNITED STATES.
I believe, exceptional. Most of their towns are as well managed as ours. My impression is that when they do take fraudulent people in hand they are more thorough in their proceedings than we some times are, and that a more adequate punishment is sometimes dealt out.
PROTECTION AND RECIPROCITY.
In these days of commercial distress and pro phecies of down-going you will probably expect me to say a word about free trade and reciprocity and such like matters; for whereas in this country we have been for a good many years the upholders of free trade, in America I have been among a people who have become the strenuous upholders of protectionist doctrines. They protect everything and everybody, and if there are any objectors they silence them by giving them protection too ; so that the protection of one thing- leads to a dozen others. I am no expert in commercial matters, and cannot pretend to sit in judgment where doctors disagree. I am, also, no rabid i political eco nomist,' if I may so express it. I do not treat the dogmas of political economists as if they were emana tions from on high; and I also am not one of those people who think that when Englishmen differ from the rest of the world Englishmen must necessarily be in the right. I cannot say whether there are any circumstances in which a certain amount of protection really might be beneficial, in the sense in which a glass cover is beneficial in certain stages of a growing
PROTECTION AND RECIPROCITY. 39
plant; but of this I am sure, that if there are any such uses of protection, very great abuses, much exceeding the uses, speedily supervene. It is hard to persuade people in America that they have not greatly benefited by protection. They point to the exten sion and improvement of their manufactures. I never admitted that that was due to protection ; but that there has been a vast improvement in America within the last few years no man can doubt. On the other hand, one sees at every turn great evils resulting from the abuse of protection — one of the most prominent I can mention being the American shipping trade, which has been absolutely annihilated by protection. Only yesterday I read an account of the carrying trade in China, which, when I was round there a few years ago, was very largely carried in American ships ; but now American shipping has almost dis appeared from that trade, because the Americans will neither allow the materials for shipbuilding to be imported without an enormous duty being placed upon them, nor will they allow an American citizen to bring a ready-made ship from the Clyde.
Some of the protectionist duties are quite useless, as they act in an almost prohibitory way on things not produced in America. And some seem of a wantonly injurious character, as, for instance, a very high duty on quinine, so much wanted as a remedy for the prevalent ' fever and chills ' of America. I think no one denies that the details of the tariff should be reformed.
Then I have no doubt that the system of protection
40 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
followed in the United States does in many ways enhance the cost of living, both directly, by enhancing the price of commodities, and indirectly, by pandering to that disposition to prefer high gains and lavish expenditure to moderate gains and careful expendi ture, which is the bane of the country. Our people are open to the reproach, often levelled against them, that if they make more they spend more and save less than the people of some other countries ; but in this respect the Americans, or at any rate large classes of Americans, much exceed them. The cry there is always for great profits and high wages, but economy of living is not studied. One notices in the smallest things how much more the distributors are allowed to appropriate than with us. You can't buy a two-cent paper in the street for less than five cents; and in a country where apples are so abundant that you may almost pick them up for nothing they are retailed in the towns dearer than in London.
Not only is the system of protection popularised by its universality, but no doubt people get used to, and do not fully realise, any indirect impost. The excuse for the Indian salt duty of 2,000 per cent, is that people get accustomed to it. So it is that the Americans hardly realise the burdens which they bear. They argue that theirs is not a narrow protection, since their country is so large and contains so many States, with varying climates, peoples, and industries, that there is within the limits of the Union abundantly active competition, affording ample stimu lus to progress. They rely on the recent enormous
PROTECTION AND RECIPKOCITY. 41
improvement of their manufactures as showing the success of their system. When one comes to parti culars, too, it is somewhat difficult to make out a strong case against them. The daily wants of the ordinary population are food, houses, clothing, and such luxuries as tea and coffee, spirits and tobacco. Now, food and the materials for houses are certainly cheaper in America than with us ; the taxes on alcoholic drinks and tobacco are lighter than ours ; tea and coffee are free. Even as regards clothing I was so constantly assured as to be almost persuaded that their cotton goods — especially what are called ' domestics ' — are as cheap as and better than ours ; and though woollen goods are dearer, they say that the lower class of woollens, made all over the States from native wool, and a class of mixed goods, much used by the Southern and Western populations, are not materially dearer. It is in the better description of clothing used by the upper classes, the finer woollens and -silks, and all ladies' clothing, that there is an enormous difference — the cost of these in America is nearly double, and people who go to Europe almost pay the expenses of the trip by saving in the stock of personal clothes they bring from thence and get through the Custom House free of duty. As regards linens the Americans are behind, and I hope even protection will not enable them to dispense with Kirkcaldy goods. Iron and steel are a good deal dearer than in England ; but when we throw in the cost of carriage, &c., the difference is not so great. It seems to be conceded that the classes employed in
42 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
this branch of industry in the States have already suf fered so much from bad times, and are so dangerous, that it would not be possible to establish free trade in the iron trade till times are more prosperous. The Americans certainly possess magnificent coalfields and immense deposits of iron, and they are advancing greatly in the manufacture. I am afraid our iron masters will never obtain that market again. The anthracite coal, of which we have heard so much, is confined to certain very limited localities in one part of Pennsylvania; but throughout vast tracts in Pennsylvania and other Eastern States, and again in the AYestern States, the fields of soft coal are almost unlimited.
There is no denying that in some departments the ingenuity of the Americans has enabled them to rival us in foreign markets to some degree, notwith standing the greater dearness of some of their materials. I believe it is the fact that they have been exporting railway engines, not only to Russia, but to our own Australian colonies ; their agricultural implements are now sent all over the world ; and even their watches are exported to the Continent of Europe — to countries hitherto supplied by the Swiss. On the other hand, our Sheffield goods, such as knives and scissors, cannot be rivalled in America, arid hold their own there in spite of protection.
There is little hope that the Americans will soon adopt free trade principles, unless, indeed, they con tinue their present rapid improvement in manufactures so far as to become a large exporting people. Then
PROTECTION AND RECIPROCITY. 43
no doubt it will suit their book, and they will become free traders. Their idea is to raise their enterprise in the hothouse atmosphere of protection at home until it gets so large and strong that they may knock away the glass and let it spread over the outer world. Whether they will accomplish that, time only will show ; but I am quite sure that the people of this country should not give in to them. Though free traders as such now hardly exist in America, there is in some parts of the country a feeling that a tariff more designed for revenue might be the means of relieving the several States of the internal revenue system of which they complain as being both ex pensive and harassing. I heard a Virginian complain that the tobacco duty raised on the manufacture there makes the internal taxation of the State heavier than that of other and richer States; and the Southern highlanders of the Alleghanies say that they would get on very well if it were not for the i whisky block ade,' which interferes with their honest industry in that article. It is likely enough that the tariff may be modified to get rid of some useless and injurious re strictions, "and to increase the customs revenue to some degree, but free trade there will not be for the present. There still remains the reciprocity question. It is said, and I myself have no doubt it is true, that if all nations would accept free trade, and all barriers were broken down, it would be best for all parties ; but then, some people add, since almost all other nations do impose heavy protective duties, 'Would it not be well for us to impose moderate duties, such,
44 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
at all events, as to equal the taxes which are paid by our own manufacturers, the workmen who live in this country and produce their goods at home ? ' Here also I will not pretend to decide upon grounds of political economy ; but I put this practical question to you, ' if you admit that doctrine, what goods would you tax on their import into this country ? ' I don't myself see what you could tax. We export manufactures, and we import food and the raw materials for manufacture ; and because America taxes your manufactures would you tax the food of the people — the wheat, the beef, and the bacon which come from America ? It is im possible ; the people would not submit to anything of the kind. Then, would you tax the raw materials of your manufactures ? You know very well that that would be cutting your own throat. And so I bring it to this, what would you tax ? There might be a few luxuries which it might be right enough to tax, but practically there is no great trade which you could tax ; and it is on that ground I say that reci procity is a mere theory, and not a practical question. Then some people recommend restriction of production as the remedy. That seems to me also to be a most suicidal system. True, in times of prosperity and excessive trade it may be well to say to capitalists, ' Take care ; don't overdo it ; don't try to make more money than the trade will justify ; don't run up wages to a point at which they cannot be maintained.' But when you come to hard times and bad trade it seems to me that capitalists will be ready enough to contract; and as contraction of production means
THE DRINK QUESTION. 45
contraction of employment for the workpeople, it is the worst possible thing for them. I have seen a good deal of many countries, and I am quite convinced of this, that the only chance of our maintaining our su premacy is, that we should do that which we have done in the past, namely, make our goods as many, as cheap, and as durable as possible, and try to under sell all foreign countries in what we may call the neutral markets of the world ; that is, the countries which do not manufacture for themselves. There are still quite enough of them to maintain our trade, and we may still live, if we can occupy them and beat the protectionists. We shall have to look sharp to do even this. The Americans have not yet very seriously rivalled us in foreign markets, but they have begun to do it to a small extent ; and we shall not keep them out unless we can undersell them, and undersell them without deteriorating the quality of British goods. We must produce good articles in enormous quan tities, and cheaper than anyone else, if we are to remain ahead of the rest of the world.
THE DRINK QUESTION.
Of all the questions affecting the low- Teuton coun tries I think none is really so important as the drink question, and I paid a good deal of attention to it when I was in America. I was not in Maine, and did not go into the well-worn question of the Maine Liquor Law ; but I noticed the ordinary practice in the States through which I travelled, and found it pretty uniform.
46 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
The first thing that I noticed in travelling was the remarkable feature in the American meals, that people drink no alcoholic liquors at all ; it seems to be contrary to their habits, and I may almost say to good morals and good manners, to do so — in public at least. In a great American hotel, where you meet hundreds of people, you will probably not see one who takes anything stronger than tea and coffee with his meals ; or if you do he is a foreigner. They drink a great deal of milk and such innocent things, but neither beer, nor wine, nor spirits. Wine is very dear, and that may be one reason why it is not seen.
I know it is said, ' Ah, that is all very well, but the men go and drink afterwards . at the bars.' Some of them do so, but I am bound to say that I was exceedingly surprised to find how little frequented these bars are. If you want first-class American drinks you must go to the cafes on the Boulevards of Paris — for you won't get them in America. That is my experience. In some parts of the country it is a common form of civility to invite a friend or a stranger to ' take a drink ' and to treat him at the bar ; and there are some men's evening parties at which wine is in troduced, but one does not see much of this kind of thing.
Among the people at large the public and evi dent drinking is, I think, less than with us, and if a good deal is consumed it is done in a more decent kind of way. I have not been able to compare the statistics exactly with respect to the amount of drink consumed. A great deal of whisky, no doubt, is
THE DRINK QUESTION. 47
drunk ; but the revenue derived from alcoholic liquors is not so large as in this country, and it cer tainly is the case that one sees much less drunken ness. I am told that this is very much due to the climate. People say that whereas in Scotland some Scotchmen with strong constitutions drink a good deal of whisky all their lives and die in their beds at eighty — not many of them, I believe — a man cannot possibly do that kind of thing in America. He would be killed in a very short time. Thus neces sity begets a certain moderation. I am told that there is nowhere in America the state of things said to prevail in some English places, where a large pro portion of some classes are so drunk upon a Sunday that they take Monday to recover, and don't return to work till Tuesday. However, I hope that is an exaggeration. There is a Sunday-closing law almost everywhere, with no exception for bond fide travellers or anyone else. It is more or less strictly observed by the natives, and certainly a stranger can get nothing. I was myself reformed in consequence in a very fortunate manner. I used to think a little whisky-and-water good to make me sleep ; but not being able to get it on Sundays, and finding that I slept quite as well, I did without it on other days too, to my great benefit.
I fear the drink question is not one which can be very effectually dealt with by law in the present state of feeling. We must always have greater reliance upon moral and social means. One result of what I have seen and experienced in America is to make me believe
48 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
that it is much better to go in for total abstinence than temperance. It seems to me that drink is like gambling, it is very easy to abstain altogether ; abstinence does no harm, and very soon one does not feel the want of it. But if you drink in modera tion it is like gambling in moderation — you are very apt to go on. Some people are not much tempted to excess, but some constitutions are tempted, and they do go on to excess. The Americans have found out this, and no doubt it is for this reason that it has become so much the practice of the better classes among them to abstain altogether. I must say, then, that my advice to those in this country who are sincerely anxious to cure their less restrained fellow-countrymen of bad habits is, that they should rather show an example of abstinence than simply preach temperance to their neighbours and try to cur tail the public-houses. People never do have very much influence who do not practise what they preach. My strong belief is that if the well-to-do classes, the moral, religious, and evangelical classes, were to ba nish wine from their tables and take to milk, they might with much greater advantage and effect try to put down the public-houses of the poorer classes. Then, as regards legislation on the subject, a man who becomes convinced of that which he had believed before becomes very thoroughly convinced indeed, and that is pretty much the case with me on this drink question. I have been always inclined to suspect that the matter should be dealt with in a way which has not many advocates in this country, and I
THE DRINK QUESTION. 49
have been agreeably surprised to find that in America the practice is actually that to which my own opinion inclined. I believe that it is a very great mistake to deal with the matter simply by limiting the number of public-houses, because the result is to create a monopoly and vested interest in those public- houses which remain. I should say that in this matter there has been a kind of alliance between those who serve God and those who serve Mammon — between the good people who wish to put down public - houses and the public -house keepers who do not wish any more houses to compete with them. Thus the worshippers of God and the worshippers of Mammon, being united, have been so strong that they have carried everything before them, and the result is that a great monopoly interest has been created. Now, I entirely admit that in rural places where there never has been a public-house it is a very great evil that one should be set up, and that there should be some local power of veto on it ; but, on the other hand, I believe that if you have half a dozen public-houses in a street, no reason exists why two or three more should not be allowed, if, in the way of free trade, they are established. On the contrary, it is the existence of a valuable monopoly on the part of the restricted number of houses which makes practically impos sible any public action whatever — whether the pro hibition of sales, the Gothenburg system, or anything else. I think the first step towards any great measure of reform is to make the trade free, paradox as that may seem ; for when you have abolished monopolies
E
50 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
and vested rights which have no right to be, you are then free to act in the public interest. This is the view taken by the Americans. The laws of different States are different — I cannot answer for all — but I inquired in several, and in none of them did I find that there was that disgraceful and demoralising con test for licenses which takes place to such an excessive degree in England, and to some degree in Scotland too. In places where the sale is permitted at all there is no privilege, all the citizens being treated equally ; the manufacture is taxed, the sale is taxed, licenses to sell are very heavily taxed ; but any man of good character, who submits to the rules and keeps the rules, gets the license under a regular system, without making it a matter of canvassing, or argu mentation by lawyers. On the other hand, in certain localities the sale of spirituous liquors is prohibited, not merely the retail in public houses, but all sales whatever ; and that seems to me a much more logical
' O
process. I never could reconcile myself to closing the poor man's club and leaving open the shops where the better classes or any other class may sup ply themselves with liquor to consume at home ; nor could I see any reason for giving one grocer a license and prohibiting another. If you prohibit at all, I think you should prohibit all. The Americans have not got Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Permissive Bill. I could not ascertain very exactly the reason for the course which they take, but hi many different States they follow the same course, which is this — that when there is a very strong wish to prohibit the sale of
THE DRINK QUESTION. 51
liquors in any particular locality a bill for that pur pose is brought in and passed by the local State Legislature. I presume that, being so treated, the question does not absolutely turn upon a mere local majority, but if there are objectors they have an opportunity of being heard, after which the Home Rule Parliament of the particular State decides as it thinks best ; and it is undoubtedly the case that in almost every State in which I inquired a number of such bills are passed, and under them the sale of liquors is prohibited in considerable localities. Some times, but not very often, the bill takes the shape of giving an option to the particular locality to be deter mined by vote. My own opinion tends very much to prohibition, though I feel that the world generally is not ripe for it yet. I should, however, be very glad to see an experiment made in particular localities which are pretty well united in wishing for it. On that ground I would gladly see some measure em bodying the principle of vesting a power somewhere to stop the sale of liquors in particular localities when the general sense of the population desires it ; although Ldo not know that I would let a mere majority impose such a measure on a large and reluctant minority.
RELIGION.
I had expected to find America overrun by new fangled ideas in religion, but it did not appear to be so. By far the larger portion of the people adhere
E 2
52 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
to the good old -fashioned Churches, or perhaps in many eases I should say to an old-fashioned Congrega tional system, for there seems to be a great disposition to Congregationalism in the United States. The Epis copalians are hut a small minority. The most impor tant sects are the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Bap tists; but it seems to me that in America there is much inclination among religious sects which do not differ in essentials to come together on common ground. The Young Men's Christian Associations — which are, I believe, unsectarian — are widely spread in the coun try, and do excellent work. The number of Irish who go to America is so great that, added to a num ber of Southern Germans, they make a considerable Catholic population. But I do not think that that re ligion is suited to the genius of the people of America, white or black. The Catholics do not make progress. The blacks do not at all accept them. In their own way these blacks are an exceedingly religious Christian people ; but it strikes me as a sad thing that the black and the white Churches are now entirely separated from one another. The blacks have now everywhere set up black preachers, who do not preach at all badly. Their congregations sing exceedingly well, and they are more in earnest than most white people.
Although, as I have said, one sees very little of the very new-fangled religions, there are a good many divisions and subdivisions of the old sects in different parts of the country. In the great hotels in the cities of the interior one sees a board with a list of the various Churches, and they are certainly
RELIGION. 53
pretty numerous. However, one recognises most of them. The only prevalent sect (especially in the West) which struck me as novel was one called simply * Christians,' or sometimes ' Campbellites,' having been founded by a Campbell. They claim to be unsec- tarian Christians. I thought I should like to belong to that persuasion.
I was anxious to know how people get on in Ame rica without an Established Church — whether they are the worse for that want. We have all been a good deal exercised on that subject. I have had much difficulty in making up my mind on it. I have had an old affection for the Scotch Establishment which I cannot very easily surrender. It is not that I have had any high-flying ideas about the union of Church and State and the advantage of clothing the Church in purple and fine linen, and making her a ruler of men ; I believe that nothing could be more contrary to the Spirit of Christianity, nothing worse for the Church or worse for the State than that; and if I had any doubt about that, what I have seen on the Con tinent of Europe has quite solved all those doubts. But I have" thought, and I think still, that if we were all of one religion it might be much better to combine to maintain a common minister paid by rates — and teinds or tithes are nothing but an old form of rates — -just as we find it better to maintain a common school by rates — rather than allow ministers to depend upon the bounty of their congregations, and especially of the richer among their congregations. We in Scotland seem to have satisfied ourselves that this
54 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
is the best and most economical system in regard to schools.
Now, formerly, in America, the people took very much the view which I have indicated — the original New Englanders did establish their ministers in the way which I have mentioned ; they did not leave their support to individual zeal, but, being generally in each settlement of one persuasion, they rated them selves for the purpose ; and in truth that was exactly what was done by the early Reformers in Scotland. That was a system which was very successful for a very long period ; and if circumstances had not changed I think no one would have sought to change it. But circumstances have changed — have
o o
changed in America, and have changed in Scotland ;
O o 7
and, owing to the progress of modern thought and modern freedom, it has come to pass that the people in New England are not all of one sect of religion, and the people of Scotland are not all of one sect. There is a division among the people on religious sub jects, and that division is not unattended with con siderable jealousy and rivalry, and, I am afraid I must say, sometimes some bad feeling. Now, in America as soon as it was found that people were no longer unanimous, but that there was considerable division, the course they took was to abolish all State aid to all Churches, and to let every sect make their own arrangements with regard to their religious establish ments. I have watched this subject with very great interest. In order to ascertain how this system worked I made it my duty to see whether the
RELIGION. 55
interests of religion suffered, or whether any other evils had attended the free system in America. I was entirely satisfied that religion had in no degree suffered ; on the contrary, the people of America are to the full as religious as any people in the world — as religious as the people of Scotland, and that is saying a great deal. Not only is this so in the old settled States of New England, New York, and Penn sylvania, but I found — I confess somewhat to my sur prise — that it is so also in the Western and Southern States. We have an idea that in the West people are rather rough, and I had half-expected to find that after a certain point they had left a good deal of their religion behind them, but it really is not so. In St. Louis and Kansas, in the West, and Carolina and Georgia, in the South, they are very decorous and religious people, with abundance of churches. The only drawback is that, as with us, there are some times three or four different churches, when one would suffice, if people would only all agree to go to it ; but as they don't agree I don't see that any great harm comes from their having separate churches — though I am not without hope that, as liberal feelings progress, they may agree, and unite on the original simple principles of Christianity, getting rid of theo logical dogmas and difficulties.
Well, then, if religion does not suffer in America for want of Establishments, I am quite sure that peace and good-will greatly benefit. I was immensely struck by the entire elimination of religion from politics in that country, and the absolute want of
56 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
any inclination to hate one's neighbour on account of religion. Every man does as to him seems best, and no other man hates him, worries him, or avoids his society on that account. Politically and socially America is not divided by religious cliques. Politics have no streak of religion in them ; a man lives as he likes, without being troubled by his neighbour ; and dies as he likes, without his neighbour inquiring to what persuasion he belonged. I confess, then, I now feel that I should like to see religion separated from politics. I should be glad to see that done in this country, when it can be done without creating an amount of disturbance and bad blood, which would make the cure worse than the disease. But I also feel this, that the existing Establishment in Scotland is the least offensive religious establishment in the world, and is not an overwhelming evil. I can perfectly well sleep in my bed with the knowledge that the Church of Scotland still exists. I daresay the day is not very far distant when the thing may be done without the great change and great evils which some people seem to apprehend. I met a dig nitary of the English Church in Canada — a Church which was disestablished by our countryman, Lord Elgin — and, I said to him, ' How do you get on in your disestablished character?' 'Well/ he said, 'we did not like it at all at first ; we thought ourselves very ill-used ; but now we have come to like it, and are quite convinced that it is best. Formerly there was great jealousy and dislike of us on account of our position ; now all that has passed away. Everyone
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 57
is most friendly. We were disestablished on liberal terms ; we have done the best we can for ourselves, and we get on very well indeed.'
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES.
I cannot properly explain to you in a few words the political system of the United States, nor can I quite compare the Congress with our Parliament. The functions of the two bodies are really quite different. As I have already said, the United States are not one country, but forty countries, and the civil, criminal, and domestic laws of all sorts do not apper tain to the central authority, but to the separate States, each having its own laws. Till one visits the country perhaps one hardly realises how completely this is the case. Neither in regard to marriage and inheritance, or the punishment of crimes, or the management of railways, or anything else, is there any general law whatever ; the laws of each State are made by the separate Legislature of that State. Consequently, the Congress of the United States, hav ing nothing to do with these things, is confined to the few functions which the Constitution vests in it, and which are, in fact, mainly financial ; for it is necessary to raise a sufficient revenue to support the army and navy, and diplomatic service, and to pay the interest of the debt. The necessity of raising a customs re venue involves the question of the Tariff and the whole question of free trade or protection, which thus conies before Congress. The coinage and currency are
58 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
common to all the States, and are managed by Con gress, which has also established common patent and copyright laws. It has power to establish a general bankruptcy law, and did pass a temporary law of the kind after the war, but it has expired, and there is none now. The Post-office is almost the only institution beyond these which is common to all the States. I should mention, however, that, in connection with foreign commerce and the customs revenue, the United States undertake the charge of the principal harbours and the great rivers, and the expenditure connected with them — a circumstance which gives rise to a good deal of rivalry of local interests, and to considerable opportunities for exercising influence by means of the public purse.
The revenue of the United States is mainly de rived from three sources : the sea-customs and two great internal taxes, that on spirituous liquors and that on tobacco.
The laws of all the States, except the old French colony of Louisiana, are based on the common law of England, to which reference is constantly made, although a great and varying body of statute law has been built up over it in the various States. Still very much of the old English system remains, and one is surprised to find old English institutions, which have been swept away, modified, or threat ened in England, still surviving in most of the States. The reason is that some of the oldest of the English legal institutions and maxims, such as the grand jury, trial by jury in all cases indiscriminately,
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 59
(civil as well as criminal), unanimity of the jury, the non -ex animation of the accused, and such like, have been preserved in the American Constitutions, which are considered to be much more sacred than ordi nary laws. The United States have a written Con stitution, and each State has its Constitution. The State Constitutions have been revised and changed pretty often by special Conventions empowered to do so, but that of the United States has been very little changed — in fact, never revised, only added to at rare intervals ; and as all the subordinate Constitutions must fit into that of the United States, a certain amount of sameness and continuity of old maxims is preserved. These Constitutions, too, make the situa tion different from ours ; for the Constitutions are, as it were, above the laws, and the judges, having the power to interpret the Constitutions, may and often do declare laws illegal ; so that Congress and the State Assemblies are not so omnipotent as our Parliament. Although no State laws nor even those of Con gress can violate the United States Constitution, each State is recognised as a sovereign power, and does not admit that any judicial tribunal can enforce judgments against it. For instance, by the United States Constitution no law can be passed impairing the obligation of contracts, and any attempt to tam per by law with State debts is at once set aside ; but when, as is now the case in some States, the people find themselves unable to pay, the Legislature simply fails to make provision for payment, and there are no means of enforcing claims.
60 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
I think a great many people in this country have the idea that the Americans have generally reduced their law to regular codes, but this is quite a mistake. Something has been done in that direction in New York and, I rather think, something in Louisiana ; but, generally speaking, the laws are just as in England — common law plus the statutes. But there is a very useful system of digesting the laws common in America. Every few years the statute law is revised and reprinted by some competent man, and after examination the volume is passed by the Legis lature and issued by authority. These very useful volumes are called Revised Codes, but they are only collections of unrepealed laws. There is the Revised Code of the L^nited States and the Revised Code of almost every State. These volumes are certainly a great convenience — almost a necessity where people, having far-extended dealings or the management of great enterprises, have to do with a number of States with different laws. I very much wish our law could be put in as popular a form. We particularly want that in Scotland, for the Scotch law seems to be a sealed book to everyone but a lawyer.
Before going farther I will mention a few points, common both to the general Government and to the particular States, in which the American political system differs from ours.
The Americans have no Ministries dependent on Parliament, and going in and out as they possess or lose the confidence of Parliament. Great executive power is vested in the President of the
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 61
United States and in the Governors of the particular States, who are elected by the people (directly or indirectly), for fixed terms of four or two years, and hold office for their term, whether they agree with their Legislature or whether they do not. The Ministers (if not similarly elected, as they are in most States) are the nominees of the President or Governor, cannot sit in the Legislature, and are altogether free from Parliamentary control. Thus the Executive is not the creature of Parliament, but an altogether independent power. True, both powers are derived from the same sources, but then it often happens that an Executive elected at one date and in one way is opposed to a legislative majority elected at another date. There are always two Houses of the Legislature. As in the United States so in each State there is a Senate as well as an Assembly. The latter in some degree corres ponds to our House of Commons, but the Senate is very different from our House of Lords. The State Senate is elected by the people, the United States Senators by the Legislative body of each State ; the members of the Senate hold office for longer periods — for four or six years — and besides an equal power in the Legislature have a considerable control over the Executive in regard to high appoint ments and some other matters. Thus the position of a Senator is one of much power and dignity, and is much sought after. I understand that the place of a United States Senator elected for six years (and eligible for re-election), with a considerable salary
62 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
and a good deal of power and patronage, is generally preferred to that of Governor of a State.
Every State determines for itself the question of the franchise and the qualification of electors. Universal suffrage is no part of the Constitution of the United States, and in fact, till a comparatively recent date, was by no means the general rule. It is only provided that the members of the United States Congress shall be returned by the same constituency as the most popular branch of the Legislature of the State returning the members. In practice, however, man hood suffrage has come to be the common rule, the only exception which I noticed being in Massachusetts, where there is still an educational franchise. No man can vote unless he can read and write, and when I was there the Irishmen were being 1 coached up ' to enable them to vote for General Butler.
Woman suffrage does not find much favour in America ; there is nothing of the kind in any of the old settled States, and, so far as I could gather, any agitators for it were even less successful than with us. In some of the far-Western Territories, however, something of the kind has been tried, and I came across an enthusiastic gentleman from the Territory of Wyoming, up in the Eocky Mountains, where, it seems, all political distinctions between the sexes have been abolished, and women are eligible to all public offices. He wanted to convert the other States to that system, and told of a case in which a husband and wife went to the poll against one another as rival
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 63
candidates without the slightest disturbance of their domestic harmony and good feeling. I confess, however, that I was not convinced of the advantage of the system, nor are the American people. They show by their practice that women may have many privileges, and even usefully practise many pro fessions, without seeking political power, or at all events without obtaining it.
You have all heard of the caucus system which prevails in America in regard to elections ; that is, before going to the poll each party decides within itself who is to be its candidate. In fact, this system seems to have become almost universal. Everywhere there are what are called the i primary ' elections — i.e., the unofficial elections within the party, before the real election — and these primary elections are often conducted with at least as much heat and bit terness as the real election, sometimes much more so. There are various modes of arranging the caucus : sometimes the primary election is in the form of a ballot by the voters of the party to elect the candidate direct, but generally they elect de legates, who meet in caucus and elect the candi dates ; and it is among these caucus delegates that jobbery and trickery is said often to prevail, the more as, these elections being unknown to the law, abuses cannot be controlled by the law and the Courts. People are generally very much alive to the evils of their own system, and I certainly heard in America more abuse of the caucus system than praise of it. It was said that the best man was often ousted in the
64 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
caucus by a system of jobbery and underhand ma nagement, and that many independent men much preferred an appeal to the constituencies direct. I confess I was not able in my short visit to get to the bottom of the subject or to make up my mind about it.
A general election took place while I was in America, and I noticed that in several States there were a good many l Independent ' candidates, who set at defiance the caucuses and went in against their nominees ; and they not unfrequently won. This was the more practicable, because at present parties in America are in a very peculiar position. There are, as with us, two parties who have long existed under different names, and have for a good many years been known as Republicans and Democrats. But I failed to identify these two parties with our Liberals and Conservatives. At one time they were a good deal ranged on the question of Centralisation versus State-rights, the Republicans representing what we might call the Imperialist party, and the Demo crats the State-rights party ; now that question has been fought out and settled (as regards the claims of the Southern States and the institution of slavery), and it has nearly ceased to have practical importance. It so happens that on the questions of the present day — the Tariff, the Currency, and some others — each of the regular parties is divided within itself, and it seems inevitable that there must be a new deal. It will, I should say, be a very good thing if it is so, for in some things the system of
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 65
party government is carried much further than with us, especially as regards appointments to offices which we call permanent and treat as such. A custom has sprung up in modern times of turning out all the officials when there is a change in the Executive Government, and putting in the men of the incoming party. And to this has been added a horrible sys tem of raising a regular tax by a tariff levied on the salaries of all officials, towards defraying the election expenses of the party; for -I am sorry to say that the practice of spending money on elections is growing rapidly — following our evil example. The subordinate office-holders under this system become the principal election agents, and political struggles become to a great degree a contest between rival factions of placemen and would-be placemen to a much greater degree than with us. The greatness of this evil is felt and acknowledged. But there is an extreme difficulty in getting rid of it when once introduced, because, one party having put in all their own men, it would require superhuman virtue in the other party to leave them permanently in possession. The thing- can only be settled by a compromise, which the present President is anxious to effect, and a new deal of parties will be the best opportunity for it. At present parties in Congress are so evenly balanced that it is very difficult to put the placeman question out of sight.
The same division of parties is carried into many of the State elections, and into some of the municipal elec tions in the great cities. But I was happy to observe
F
66 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
that in other States the divisions are on other questions and other lines than the mere struggle between Re publicans and Democrats, and I hope that this is a sign that a better state of things may be arrived at.
I specially remarked two things as giving to American legislators a character different from our members of Parliament.
First, they are all paid. This payment chiefly affects the members of Congress. They receive a handsome salary of 1,000/. per annum each — members of the Senate and Assembly equally — for their attendance during a portion of the year ; so that each Congressman is a regular salaried placeman. The members of the State Legislatures, on the other hand, only receive a moderate daily allowance for their expenses during the time of their actual at tendance, which in very many States is only once in two years ; and they can hardly make much by the transaction ; so that they are not placemen in the same sense, and not so much professional politicians.
Second, it is a very important practical feature in the situation that in most cases American Legislatures do not meet, like our Parliament, in a great social and commercial capital, where the great and grand and rich gather together for other purposes, and where fashionable swells and millionaire plutocrats are equally ready to add M.P. to their names, in one phase of their lives, and to migrate, in another, to a higher if not better place in the Upper House. As you know, the United States Congress meets at Washington, which is in no sense a commercial city,
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 67
and had no social attractions, but was founded as a political centre only. Considerable amenities have lately been created there, but it can never be a capital in the sense of any great European capital, and people go there neither for pleasure nor for private business, but for political business only. So it is in most of the States. The Legislatures meet in rural towns, in a central position, not in the commercial capitals — for instance, the Legislature of New York at Albany, that of Pennsylvania at Harrisburg, that of Illinois at Springfield, and so on. Boston is the only great city that came under my observation in which a State Legislature meets. Richmond, in Virginia, has now grown into a considerable town, but is scarcely a great city; and in most other States very secondary places have been selected. Consequently a man who goes to a United States Legislature goes either for love of country or for love of place and power, not for social privileges ; and when he does go he goes to work, not to give to legislation the time he can spare from other avocations.
It is this character and position of the members that renders possible the feature which most dis tinguishes the working of the American Legislatures from our own, viz., that most of the work is done in great committees, which practically amount to the House sitting simultaneously in several separate divisions at the same time. All the members having come in as working men of business, and having nothing else to do, are able to devote themselves regularly and systematically to work of this kind in
68 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
a way that would not be possible to many of our much -occupied or lightly -occupied members, who can only give to legislation occasional parts of evenings, or, if they do sit on special committees, attend or stay away as they please.
The work which with us is done by the whole House being in America threshed out and settled in these committees, is in most cases accepted by the House at large Avithout much further discussion. This is especially the case in the State Legislatures, the maj ority of which meet, as I have said, only once in two years, and the sitting of which is generally limited by the Constitution to a moderate period — sometimes as little as fifty or sixty days, and generally not more than three or four months. Yet it seemed to me, looking over the volumes of the legislation of each session in several different States, that they get through quite as much legislation as our Parliament, and my impression of the system is altogether favour able.
The word ' politician ' is used in a bad sense in America, as applied to people who make politics a profession, and are skilled hi the arts of ' wire-pulling ' and such practices. In this country you certainly do not offend a man, or even a woman, if you say, ' I believe you are a great politician ? ' But if you say that in the States, the person you address fires up and assures you he is nothing of the kind. I think this use of the word is what has given rise to the idea, so prevalent in this country, that none of the best men in the States will have anything to do with politics,
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 69
and leave that to inferior persons ; but it seemed to ine that the fact is not really so. It may be true as regards a good many plutocrats in New York and elsewhere, who can make more money in the great cities than by serving their country in out-of-the-way places; and in New York (only, I think, in that city) there is springing up a class who live on realised wealth, and whose young men affect the jennesse doree — drive four-in-hands, and so on. But it seemed to me that the great majority of the best Americans, while disclaiming the character of ' politicians ' in the American sense, take quite as much interest in politics as Englishmen do. Indeed, so far from the mass of educated people abstaining from politics, it is proverbial that there is an extraordinary craving for office ; that is, principally local office. All offices are elective, and elections are continually going on. The salaries are not large, but it is generally said that as soon as a boy ceases to play at marbles he begins to aspire to office. No doubt, for reasons which I have already given, a good many men such as would in this country accept a seat in Parliament cannot or will not ge into Congress at Washington ; but many other good men of business, such as do not here get into Parliament, there get into Congress or into the State Legislatures. Lawyers are more numerous and prominent in the American Legislatures than with us, but the better class of American lawyers are generally able and good men ; and there being little of a con centrated bar or legal head- quarters at Washington, the provincial lawyers are probably of a higher class
70 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
than are usually found in our provinces. I am in clined, then, to believe that there is a great amount of ability in the United States legislative bodies; but no doubt there is with this ability a great infusion of the i politician ' element and character. Comparing the personnel and working system of Congress with our Parliament, I should judge in a general way (for I had no opportunity of watching the actual working of Congress) that there are advantages and disad vantages on either side. The American Congress men are, probably, on the average more able men. Being paid men, bound to work, they do work harder, and by their system of committees work more effec tually ; but they are not more honest, and are, on the contrary, more open to the imputation of jobbery and wire-pulling. I think that the American mode of electing the Executive authority and making it independent of Congress is inferior to our Ministerial system, and the political character of the appointments to subordinate civil posts is an evil of a very grave character. On the other hand, I am inclined to sup pose that the great principles handed down by the founders of the Republic, and embalmed in the Con stitution, have really given a high tone, a continuity of purpose, and a national dignity to the political system, in whatsoever hands it may be. American statesmen steer by permanent sailing directions, as it were ; and in this respect their work contrasts favourably with our hand-to-mouth haphazard sort of want of system. Their successful efforts to reduce their public debt stand in favourable contrast to oar
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 71
puny reductions ; and in regard to such questions as the public land, local government, and others which could be named, there has been for generations a con tinuity of policy which we may well envy. This it is, I think, which preserves the character of American society, and prevents the plutocrat of to-day from becoming the aristocrat of to-morrow.
Apart from the general Government of the United States, I had a special interest in, and paid particular attention to, the State 'Governments and system of local administration, constituting what I may call Home Rule in America. I was the more anxious to see the character of this Home Rule, because I am entirely convinced that the work of the British Par liament is more and more overpassing the working power of the machinery ; that things are rapidly coming to a serious block, if not a dead-lock, and that something must be done. The number of sub jects with which Parliament deals has immensely increased, while the working power has not increased, but has, on the contrary, considerably decreased, on account of Irish questions and other causes. There has long been most undeniable ground of complaint that our Scotch business is not done — or, so far as done, is done in the small hours of the morning — in a way that is scarcely fair. I wanted to know, then, if such things are better done in America. While what I have said of the general administration of the United States compared with ours goes to show that after all there is but a balancing of pros and cons, on the other hand, as regards this Home Rule
72 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
I am bound to say that the result of very careful inquiry has been to convince me that the Americans have a very great advantage over us. It seemed to me that the State Legislatures are most useful institutions and that, through them, a very large amount of work is done, to the great benefit and satisfaction of their citizens, very much which with us is left undone altogether being there got through without hitch or difficulty. The members of these local Legislatures appear to be very respectable citizens. They are men sent up from among the people of the States, acting before and within the cognisance of their own fellow- countrymen. Their laws are not always and alto gether of the highest style of jurisprudence, but they are 'practical and useful, and if anything does not work well it is easily set right. They have an especial advantage in dealing with those local and minor matters which we class under the head of private bill legislation, and which with us is done in a very expensive and somewhat uncertain and un satisfactory way.
I had an opportunity of seeing and carefully noting the proceedings of one of the State Legislatures — not one of the most important States in the Union, but still a large State, and perhaps the best of the Southern States — and I was much pleased by what I saw. I have already mentioned several of the peculiarities of the American Legislatures which are common both to Congress and to the State Assemblies, and I understand that in its forms and procedure the State
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 73
Legislature which I saw very much resembled the Congress, and may be taken as a minor edition of it. The origin of the procedure is evidently English, but the practice has now much varied from ours, not only in the system of committees which I have mentioned, but also in the use of the previous question, or cloture, and in other ways. They have rules regarding the length of speeches and such matters which very much abbreviate the proceedings when it is the general wish that a decision should be arrived at. The members of the Legislature seemed to be very sound, good, practical men, the senators being in every way equal to the men who might fill such a situation in most other countries with which I am acquainted ; while the Assembly, containing, besides a good many men of a high class, some rather rough farmers and such practical men, was apparently very well qualified to deal with the work before it. All seemed to go into their work with a will, and to get through it in a rapid, practical manner. Their speeches were short and to the point, and there was very little declaim ing. As a stranger I was received with very great courtesy, and was most obligingly put in the way of seeing and understanding what was going on. I shall always retain a very pleasant recollection of that experience of an American Home Eule Legis lature in actual operation and doing its ordinary daily work.
You may well imagine what an American State Legislature is like if you suppose that here in Scotland, instead of altogether uniting our Legislature with that
74 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
of England, we had only sent delegates to London to deal with matters of Imperial concern, and had re tained a Scotch Parliament at Edinburgh, to make all our Scotch laws and control a Scotch adminis tration. Scotland is just about the size and popu lation of a good American State, say Pennsylvania or Ohio. I think the Americans have very well hit off about the right size for their States and Home Rule Legislatures — they are so large as to be free from the imputation of a petty parish -vestry kind of character, and at the same time not so large as to be unmanage able and incapable of dealing with details and local matters.
I am inclined to suppose that, looking back into history, it is really the case that all successful re publican governments, as in Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States, have consisted of small states joined together in union, and not of great central ised states. My own impression is that in England and France we have attempted to centralise too much ; and on that account, if we were to begin again, I should probably be much in favour of sepa rate Legislatures for the different parts of the empire. It would be much more difficult to institute any thing of the kind now. Xo doubt the country is hardly prepared for it. The Irish do not seem at all agreed what they want in this respect. I wonder they have never proposed to take as their model one of the States of the American Union; but if they did, and got something of the kind, I am afraid that they would fight among themselves. Ireland would have to be
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES. 75
divided into at least two States. Instead of another Heptarchy, we must probably be content with dividing Parliament into Grand Committees, or some such scheme, when we get an Administration inclined to deal radically with the matter, and not merely to nibble at its fringes. If this were done, one grand committee might take up Scotch business, another North Irish, another South Irish, another Welsh, and two or three more the several departments of English and Imperial business.
All American States are divided into counties, the counties being generally numerous and smaller than ours — often as many as 100 counties in a State ; but there are no representative bodies in the counties ; they are only judicial and administrative divisions ; and the chief interest is the periodical elections of the judges, magistrates, and county officers.
Then in New England and other Northern States we have the well-known division of the whole country into townships, corresponding to French and German communes or Indian village communities ; these have been well described by De Tocqueville. It must not be supposed, however, that this institution is universal in America ; it was wholly wanting in the Southern States, where there was only a loose sort of English parish system ; and recent efforts of Northerners in power in the South to introduce the township system there have not been successful. In the North the system is still in full vigour, and by all accounts answers admirably, both for administrative purposes and for the political education of the people.
76 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
The townships have certain officers with certain func tions, but they do not delegate their powers to town councils or any representative body. Every impor tant matter is decided by the citizens at large in public meeting assembled, much as in ancient Greece. Besides the popular and pleasant character of the institution it supplies a system of rural administra tion on a small scale which is much wanted in this country.
As respects the government of towns and groat cities things seemed to be in most cases about on a par with this country. I have before alluded to the great abuses in New York, a municipality of immense size, and full of half-settled foreigners, and which is not to be taken as a fair specimen of American ma nagement. On the whole people are probably more enterprising and go-ahead in American towns, and per contra oftener come to grief ; but in other respects I believe the administration is in most cases pretty well conducted. Ambitious enterprises and improve ments have in some cases led to very heavy local taxation in the towns, from which you would do well to take warning. It is dangerous to pile up too much upon posterity in order to obtain present improve ments : there are often two sides to these things, and they must be well considered. The speculative charac ter of men and things in America and the temptations offered by successful ventures and sudden rises are such that defalcations of town treasurers and such-like mis fortunes are certainly more common than they are with us, I am glad to say ; and these scandals have tended
POSITION OF CANADA. 77
to give us a bad idea of American honesty ; though, as- I have already said, I do not think that in the main there is much more rascality than in other countries. Certainly the outward appearance of the towns, espe cially the second-rate country towns, gives one the idea of successful management.
THE POSITION OF CANADA.
I only passed through a part of Canada, and had no opportunity of studying Canadian institutions on the spot ; but I heard a good deal about Canada, not only from Canadians whom I met, but also from many people in the States, who seem much impressed with the well-doing of Canada, and what is called the loyalty to the English connection. In truth, I believe that this connection really is extremely beneficial to the Canadians. There has sprung up among them a considerable feeling of, I will not call it jealousy and antagonism, but at least of rivalry and emulation, to wards the United States ; and being a smaller people in close contact throughout a very long and little- separated border with a greater people, with whom difficult questions not unfrequently arise (e.g., the existing fishery question), they naturally set much store on English alliance and support. Moreover, their Government does seem to combine to a great degree the advantages of the American and the English systems. The Dominion Union of Canadian States is based on an effective Home Rule system very similar to that of the United States; but the Canadians havey
78 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
I think, an advantage in the adoption of our system of ministerial responsibility as compared with the American mode of appointing the executive autho rities. That, however, has not saved them from some financial scandals and abuses, and from a Protective system much less excusable than that of the Ame ricans, inasmuch as their own production is much narrower and less varied, and by their protective system they wound in the tenderest point the Power to which they look for support. It is a decided ad vantage to the Canadians that, while absolutely and entirely independent so far as their own Legislature and Government is concerned, and owning no allegiance whatever to the British Parliament, they are saved the agitation and difficulties of the American elections for
o
President, by the appointment of a British Governor- General, always a selected and impartial man, taking- no part in their politics, but a useful arbitrator and mediator in case of difficulty. The Governor-General is, in fact, a very cheap constitutional king, not subject to the accidents of heredity, but always a picked man — like a perpetual Leopold of Belgium, for instance. Canada, not having participated in the American war, is not subject to so heavy a taxation as that which the war has brought on the United States ; but then the Americans have by that war settled their political system, and find themselves on their own continent a united people, without an equal or, in point of population and power, a rival ; whereas in the presence of so much greater a Power the troubles of the Canadians may have yet to come.
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Altogether I am not at all surprised that the Canadians are thoroughly loyal to the British con nection — it suits them admirably. But it should be understood that they only own loyalty and allegiance to the British Crown, not by any means to the British Parliament and the British people. We need not flatter ourselves that Canada any more belongs to us than Hanover did when it was subject to the British Crown. My only doubt is, whether the connection is beneficial to us. I cannot quite see what we, the people and taxpayers of Great Britain, get for the political and military responsibilities which it imposes on us. I observe that, in opening the Canadian Parliament the other day, Lord Lome says, in his official Speech from the Throne : ' By the readjustment of the tariff, with a view to increasing the revenue and developing and encouraging the industries of Canada, you will, I trust, be able to restore the equilibrium, and aid in removing the commercial and financial de pression? That means that the British Governor- General sent from this country, is compelled by his position to recommend in so many words, protection for protection's sake — a policy which, right or wrong, is utterly opposed to the universal and most strong feeling of this country. I confess that I think that it is somewhat humiliating to us to continue the connection on these terms.
TAXATION.
There is a good deal of disposition among us to suppose that the Americans suffer from a very heavy
80 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
taxation. I hardly think this is so, except in particular localities. Of course the burden left by the war was enormous — that has disturbed everything, and made it necessary for a people formerly about the most lightly taxed in the w^orld to submit to considerable taxation — the more as that taxation has been imposed, not only to pay the interest of the debt, but to pay off the capital. But, after all, the general taxation levied by the United States is not extremely onerous — not so much so as that which we raise, and much less than that raised in France and other countries. I have already mentioned what it consists of — an excise more moderate than our excise and tobacco duties, and a customs revenue which is only very burdensome be cause it involves protection, and consequent enhance ment of prices of a good many articles. The exemption of tea and coffee from all duty is a notable concession by the Americans to the l free-breakfast-table ' view of life. No doubt the United States' taxation excludes provision for the local courts of justice and some other things which are provided by the States' Governments ; but the cost of those Governments, (other than that incurred for railways and canals) is not large ; on the contrary, they are very economi cally administered ; and the State tax is generally not heavy, except in some of the Southern States. A good many charges are thrown on the counties, as is the case with us. But the county rates are also as a rule not very heavy. Nor are those of rural townships and villages or small towns excessive. It is only, I think, in some of the large cities, such as New York
TAXATION IN THE STATES. 81
and Chicago, that the rate is very heavy, amounting sometimes to as much as 2i to 3 per cent, on capital value, all charges — State, county, and city — included ; in fact, to six or eight shillings in the pound of the rental — a rate which naturally very much enhances the cost of living and doing business in those cities. On the other hand, we must remember that in some of our towns all our rates added together come to a good many shillings in the pound ; and if to these be added a large part of our Excise, stamp revenue, Imperial income-tax and house-tax, and other items not paid in America, it may be doubted whether, even in the cities, an American contributes more, in proportion to his means, to the public administration of one kind and another than an Englishman does ; while it may be affirmed that out of those cities he contributes less. But, in addition to the prominence given to the taxation of some of the large cities of which foreigners see most, what, I think, makes Americans cry out and foreigners think them oppressed by taxation is, that almost all taxation of all kinds below that of the United States is in the form of a direct tax on pro perty. Tlrus the Americans have less indirect taxa tion and as much, or perhaps more, direct taxation on the whole than we have ; and as direct taxation is always more felt, their burdens are more evident and conspicuous, and have been especially felt at a time when property has been universally depreciated, both by the after-effects of the war and by the com mercial depression, while taxation has been increased to meet debts and pay for great works undertaken in
G
82 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
prosperous times. In the Southern States particularly, property has been very greatly depreciated, for the slaves were in themselves an immensely valuable pro perty, and the land, though as well cultivated as before, does not yet sell for high prices. There the taxation is often much complained of, and State debts are in a good many cases not met.
By the constitutions of almost all the States all taxation must be imposed on all property equally, and consequently the direct taxation, State, county, and local, all takes the single form of a tax on property, both real and personal. There is, as a rule, no tax on incomes as distinguished from property ; the capital value of the property must be returned, and then the taxes are a percentage on that. A war income-tax was at one time imposed by the United States, but that has been given up, and there is now no such tax, except in some of the Southern States which are in financial difficulties.
There is no doubt that all real property is effec tively taxed, but the question is how far personal property is fully reached. I gather that the assess ment is carried out with very various degrees of thoroughness. I was not able to go into the mat ter exhaustively, but I understood that there is more or less evasion. Considering the enormous realised wealth of New York, the proportion of personal property returned in that State seems surprisingly small — much less than in either Massachusetts or Ohio. But the morality of New York City is, no doubt, below the average of America, and the ad ministration there has been corrupt and lax.
TAXATION IN THE STATES. 83
While we, I think, go to one extreme in taxing the most precarious professional incomes at the same rate as incomes derived from realised property, the Americans seem to go to the other extreme, in exempting alto gether incomes derived otherwise than from property. For instance lawyers and other professional men are not taxed on their receipts.
Then there is, in most States, a poll-tax for education, to which I have before adverted ; it ranges from one to two dollars per head on ablebodied males, but is strictly confined by the Constitution to special purposes- — generally altogether to education. A tax generally the resort of tyrannical governments is thus given a popular character. A burning question in America is the imposition of a dog- tax. It is alleged that sheep and other animals suffer terribly from the depredations of dogs ; but the tax being obnoxious to much popular objection, it is provided that where it is imposed for preventive purposes it also is to go for education.
I think there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the imposition of local taxes of an indirect character for State purposes, except that nothing may be done which involves anything of the character of a transit duty or interferes with trade and commerce ; but generally speaking nothing of the kind is attempted. In some States — as, for instance, Virginia — a State tax on the sale of intoxicating liquors has been imposed in addition to the United States Excise tax. But such revenues are, I think, quite exceptional.
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84 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
THE LAND SYSTEM.
I omitted to mention one very important subject which is reserved for the Central Government, viz., the disposal of the unoccupied lands. The original States of the Union had and retained the disposal of their own lands ; and the great new State of Texas, on coming into the Union, made a bargain that it should retain a similar power ; but with this excep tion all the vast lands west of the Alleghanies, and out of which so many great new States and Territories have been formed, were considered to belong to the people of the United States as a whole, and are by them offered, not only to their own citizens, but to all foreigners who are willing to come and settle among them. It is under the system adopted by the central authority that wise rules have been passed and precautions taken to which I have already alluded, and under which land-jobbing and the monopoly of great areas is prevented. Great populations of free and independent small farmers owning their own land have been thus attracted to the soil of America. Only in exceptional cases and for special reasons is any public land sold in an unrestricted manner. It is reserved for lona fide settlers. Every citizen and every man willing to become a citizen of the United States is, under the homestead law, entitled to a free grant of 80 or 160 acres, according to the situation, provided he settles upon it and fulfils conditions ensuring that it is taken up for real cultivation, and not for speculation and sale. Or, again, he may buy
THE LAND SYSTEM. 85
a similar plot or a larger one up to 320 acres at five or ten shillings per acre (according to situation), under less restrictive conditions, but still subject to precautions against land -jobbing. Where peculiar circumstances exist — as, for instance, where large irri gation works are necessary to profitable cultivation — the land is sold in large blocks. And there has been a good deal of outcry of late regarding what is supposed to be a departure from the principle of the American land system in the grant of great quantities of land to railway companies. Though there may have been a good deal of jobbing in particular instances, I doubt whether the general complaint is very well-founded. I have alluded to the want of roads in America. In the deep black soil of the Western Prairie States roads are not only absent but most difficult and expensive to make. Railways are the very life of the country. Vast new tracts have been and are being opened up by railways which otherwise could not have been approached, and value less land is made valuable by railways, that close to the line being, of course, infinitely more valuable than that away" from it. Hence, the value being created by the railways, I think it was far from an unwise system to pay for the construction of railways into unoccupied countries, where no one would otherwise make them, out of the value thus created. The system adopted was to grant to those who made the railways every alternate square mile block along the line, the other alternate blocks being reserved for sale at an enhanced rate, or for homestead grants of smaller
86 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
area than elsewhere. Certainly the opening out of the country has been thus secured, and I don't gather that a very large amount of land-jobbing has resulted; for, the custom of the country being favourable to real settlement and small farms, the railways have generally laid out their lands with that object, and disposed of them to bond fide farmers in lots of 40, 80, 160, or 320 acres. I saw a good deal of the country thus occupied along the Illinois Central Railway, the best known case in which the system of railway grants was adopted, and certainly the result has there been a very excellent settlement of such farmers on farms suited to their means. It is only in some of the outlying tracts in the Far West that a few great estates have been got together and that one hears of farms on a magnificent scale ; but I gather that they are rather made to sell than anything else, and that the magnificent descriptions of them which have been circulated are of the nature of advertisements, with a view to their disposal in moderate lots. In Texas and some of the Far Western States land not suited for agriculture is, I believe, held in large grazing farms. In California the land was claimed in large blocks under old
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Spanish titles, which the United States Courts have declared to be valid, and by purchase of these titles large estates have been acquired, so that the tenure of land and structure of society is different there from other parts of the United States.
The system of survey and registration of all the lands settled under the system which I have described
THE LAND SYSTEM. S7
is admirable. The whole country is accurately sur veyed and lotted off into square mile sections of 640 acres, with rectangular road-spaces dividing them. These are again divided into quarter sections of 160 acres, and these again, as occasion requires, into 80 and 40 acre sections ; so that every 40-acre plot can be accurately stated and traced by the use of a very few figures in the simplest possible manner.
After a few years' bond Jlde settlement and cultiva tion all land is freely transferable, so that there is not the least practical difficulty in acquiring large farms, or even large estates, if, for purposes of large and high cultivation or systematic management, anyone wishes to acquire such by fair purchase, and not by mere land -jobbing and forestalling. In the older States plenty of large tracts are, in fact, in the market; so that it is not for want of opportunity if the large culture system is not often followed.
The system of direct taxation which prevails in the United States is, on the other hand, very effectual to prevent large quantities of land being kept waste for jobbing or speculative purposes, since all private property of this kind is taxed, whether it is cultivated or not.
Thus the land system of the United States is in great contrast to that of most of our colonies, where not only are great quantities of land monopolised by squatters and jobbers, but such tracts have been held almost exempt from taxation. In Australia these land questions seem to be very prominent ; but mean time it appears that there the public land is being
88 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
very rapidly sold away and the proceeds spent as revenue.
In the United States not only is the public land reserved and local jobbing and improvident sale prevented, but, although free self-governing institu tions within certain limits are given to the settlers in new territory, they by no means at once obtain the complete self-government which our colonies now usually have. As soon as there is a moderate popu lation what are called Territories are formed. But these Territories are under governors appointed by the President, the laws passed by their Legislatures are subject to the approval of Congress, and they are, as it were, kept in leading-strings till they arrive at a tolerable maturity, when they are converted into States, and admitted into the Union as such.
Besides the public lands, the central Government reserves the function of dealing with the Indians, the old possessors or roamers over these lands ; and con siderable tracts (in one quarter what amounts to the area of a State, comprising, it is said, as good land as any in the Union) have been reserved for them. In Canada I believe that some of the tame Indians have been turned into tolerable farmers, and the wild ones keep up amicable relations with the Government. Tame squaws knit stockings about the Niagara Falls, In the States one sees very little of tame Indians. A number of young Indians from the West are being trained in a college in Virginia, who are to be sent back to carry civilisation to their tribes ; but mean while these Western tribes are extremely trouble-
THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 89
some. Though unwilling to settle down to work, they are far from deficient in energy, and show very decided talent in the use of firearms ; in fact, I be lieve they are the best marksmen in America. They give an immense amount of very harassing occupation to the United States troops. Many people in America say they have been very ill-used, and I believe that is so — not by the Government, but by people whom the Government cannot restrain ; and so they are driven into rebellion. At any rate, the moral is to show how troublesome a few savages can be when they learn the use of good firearms. The conditions of the savage world are already very much changed from what they were but a few years ago, and are rapidly changing still more now that free trade in troduces cheap firearms everywhere. We must take full account of this in dealing with barbarian popu lations.
THE CURRENCY QUESTION.
The Currency question is so burning and impor tant in the United States, and of so much interest on this side of the Atlantic, that I will attempt to ex plain briefly how it stands.
The dollar — on which the United States monetary system is based — was originally a silver coin, the currency having been founded on the Mexican silver dollar. But almost ever since the Revolution the American system seems to have been in strictness bimetallic ; that is, both silver and gold were coined in any quantity for all persons who brought these metals
90 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES/
to the Mint, and both silver and gold coins were equally a legal tender. The debtor had the option of paying either in silver or in gold ; and, as is neces sarily the case under such a rule, he of course always paid in the coin which happened to be cheapest at the time. The silver dollar of this coinage is the ' dollar of our daddies,' weighing 41 2 i grains troy, of which one-tenth is alloy ; and that is still the American silver dollar. But I gather that in times before the war the Mexican dollar was more current than any coin of the United States.
That, then, was the state of things up to 1862, the debtor having the option of paying in silver or in gold, and on that basis all contracts were made and loans contracted. In 1862, in consequence of the war, a very important change took place — the legal coins remained the same as before in theory, but in that and the following years very large quantities of inconvertible paper notes were issued and made legal tender equally with coin i in payment of all debts, public or private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt.' These were the famous greenbacks. Legally debtors could then pay either in silver, gold, or greenbacks ; but, as greenbacks were speedily depreciated, and became cheaper to the debtor, all payments (save those excepted) were made in greenbacks. Practically coin was not seen again in the United States till January 1 of the pre sent year (1879), excepting only a small currency reintroduced of late years for small payments only. There was no term for payment of the greenbacks in
THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 91
coin ; but the constitutional legality of the Greenback Act having been disputed in the Courts, the Supreme Court decided that it was legal only under the neces sity of war, and it seemed to result that the notes must be repaid as soon as the necessities caused by the war permitted. To make this clear an Act of March 1869 declares that 'the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin or its equivalent of all the United States notes,' and ' to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the notes in " coin." No more exact time was specified. Thus, then, the holders were solemnly promised payment as soon as possible in ' coin;1 that is, either silver or gold.
Meantime the interest of the interest-bearing debt had remained payable in coin of one or the other description. But the gold discoveries had rendered gold the cheaper metal, and the consequence was that everything payable in coin was as a rule paid in gold.
This was the state of things when a new coinage
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Act was passed in 1873. Silver was not demone tised — the existing dollars still remained a legal tender ; but the new Act (looking, no doubt, to the prevalent use of gold, so far as any coin was used) dropped the silver dollar out of the new coinage, re taining only smaller silver pieces, the legal payment of which was limited to a small amount. As, in truth, for most of the ordinary business and transac tions of life, no coin at all was then used in the United States, little visible effect was produced by the new Act. But as very few silver dollars were in existence,
92 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
and no new ones were to be coined, the effect certainly was that, in case of resumption of specie payments, gold, and not silver, must be the coin used. The Act of 1873 seems to have been put into the form in which it was ultimately passed at the last moment, and, under the circumstances of the time, was not of the highest interest, nor did it create any excitement.
Two years later (in 1875) the Act for the resump tion of specie payments was passed, providing that the United States notes should be redeemed on January 1, 1879, in coin — nothing was said of the description of coin.
But about this time a great change began to take place in the relative value of gold and silver. Gold relatively went up in value and silver went down, as we all know. Then it was seen what a disturbance of existing arrangements would be caused by the Act of 1873. An agitation on the subject soon commenced, and prolonged and excited discussions took place. It was not till February 1878 that the Act to restore the old silver dollar to the coinage received the President's assent. Even then it was restored in principle rather than in immediate practice. It was feared that if an unlimited coinage of silver dollars
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were at once permitted the holders of silver would establish monopoly prices and get all the profits, and therefore it was determined to bring in the silver dollar gradually. The Treasury were to purchase not less than 2,000,000 nor more than 4,000,000 dollars' worth of silver monthly, and to coin it for cir culation. The Act also provided that, while silver
THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 93
dollars should be a legal tender, an exception should be made ' where otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract.'
A great outcry was made against this Act by the moneyed interests in the Northern cities and in Eng land, on the ground that it deprived them of the dear gold coins which they expected to receive, and put them off with cheap silver coins. I must say that for the most part I cannot see that this reclamation was well- founded. It seems to me that none of the holders or creditors whose bonds date prior to the Act of 1873 can complain, for they certainly get exactly what they bargained for — viz., coin, either gold or silver — and this includes the whole of the public obligations of the United States. The only people who might seem to have a fair case are those who made contracts or lent money between 1873 and February 1878 ; but morally even they do not seem to have much case of hardship — they dealt in or lent greenbacks, which in 1875 were at a discount of 12 to 15 per cent., but which the Act of that year prospectively restored to coin value. In 1876 the value of the greenback was rising very slowly, and throughout that and the follow ing year while the Act for restoring the silver dollar was under discussion, it was evident enough that it would be restored, the particular form of the measure only being doubtful ; so that there was no surprise.
Moreover, there has for the present come to the aid of the creditors the provision limiting the coinage of silver. The President and his advisers are unfavourable to the silver coinage, and I believe
94 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
they have coined as little as the law allows them ; consequently up to this time there is so little silver in circulation that it cannot take the place of gold. Resumption has been in practice effected in dear gold ; and the greenback of the past seventeen years has now become worth its nominal value in gold.
Practically, then, the United States are at present in the same position as the States of the Latin Union, France and the rest ; that is to say, although gold and silver coins are both legal tender, the quantity of silver coined is so restricted that gold is the real measure of value, and silver coin, so far as it cir culates (and we know that it circulates largely in France), bears an artificial value far above its real intrinsic value. But there is this important differ ence, that whereas the Latin Union fix a total limit to their silver coinage, the United States have only fixed the amount to be coined monthly. If the present law stands, silver coin must go on accu mulating, and in the end it must inevitably bring down the value of the dollar of account, cheap silver dollars displacing dear gold dollars. Under the ex isting law this is a mere question of time.
To realise the importance of this question we must remember that it is not only a question of the currency, or of the payment of the public debts and obligations, but of all private debts and obligations. Every man who borrowed a dollar in 1864 must now pay back a dollar two and a half times more valuable. Every man who borrowed a dollar in 1868 (after the war was well past and over) must pay back nearly one
THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 95
and a half times ; every man who borrowed in 1875 or 1876 must pay 10 to 15 per cent, more ; every man who borrowed in 1877 must pay 2 to 6 per cent. more. No doubt this is a heavy tax on debtors, and a great increase in the value the creditors can claim. There are so many debtors in the States that it is no wonder there is a strong feeling on the subject, the more so as the debtors are the mass of rural proprietors and others throughout the country, while the creditors are the capitalists in the large towns and in England.
It is most unfortunate that the Act of 1873 was ever passed. If it had not been for that there could have been no ground of complaint, and the debtors would have had the benefit of the cheap silver to which the law under which they incurred the debts entitled them. Then, again, if at the time of the passing of the Eesumption Act of 1875 provision had at the same time been made for coining the silver dollar, no one could have reasonably complained. The greenback being then at about 15 per cent, discount, it could be no hardship to make it payable in silver coin, accord ing to the original contract, for even that would have enhanced its existing value. There would thus have been a happy and easy transition from greenbacks to silver worth a little, but not very much more, than the greenbacks of 1875, without disturbance or difficulty. As it is the creditors claim their pound of gold under the Act of 1873, and denounce the Act of 1878, which only returns to the state of things prior to 1873, as spoliation.
It was the real hardship to debtors of a return
96 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
to a gold standard, excluding the old silver option, which produced the recent unreasonable and unsuc cessful agitation for a return to greenbacks ; but it curiously shows how much the question is one be tween the farmers and people on one side, and the capitalists on the other, that the strength of the agi tation was not so much in the indebted and depressed South as in the rich State of Massachusetts and the steady agricultural State of Maine, both model New England States.
The return to silver money would be the less a hardship on creditors, as the authorised standard in America puts gold to silver at about 16 to 1, instead of 15^ to 1, the European standard ; consequently the present cheapening of silver is a smaller departure from the old standard by upwards of 3 per cent.
I may mention that one is apt to be puzzled by the existence of another authorised dollar coined in the U.S. mints, called the 'trade dollar.' It is larger than the standard dollar, weighing 420 grains, and is not a legal tender, being coined for use in China and Japan, where it was supposed that a dollar of that kind would be preferred. I believe it is not very successful. The present state of things has brought about this curious result, that the larger trade dollar, not being a legal tender, is not worth a dollar in America, while the smaller standard dollar, enhanced in value by its scarcity, passes for the value of a dollar in gold. That is quite an artificial state of things, and can hardly last.
EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT. 97
AMERICA AS A FIELD FOR EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT.
It may be of interest to some of you that I should tell you something of what I have gathered on the subject of emigration to America. I should be sorry to see you go, of course, but at the same time there is this to be said in favour of America, that to any man who goes there, and especially to a Scotchman or an Irishman, that country is not in any degree a foreign country. There are some peculiarities, but they are all on the surface, and you would soon get over them. It is wonderful how soon one adapts oneself to local customs and habits when the people and language are really identical with those of our own country. The manners of the Americans are our manners, their ways are our ways, and their hearts and sympathies are the hearts and sympathies to which we are accustomed.
When we come to consider the question whether it is a good thing to emigrate to America, I would say, as a general rule, it is a country only for those who are willing to work with their hands, and work very hard indeed. It is not the place for a man who looks to earn his bread by his brains only, and with a moderate amount of work. No doubt if a man is ex traordinarily clever he may get on in any part of fche world ; and if such a one is well fitted to get on in this country, he may not improbably also get on in America, if he begins early. In America there is
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98 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
much greater room for extension than here ; but as a rule the people who earn their bread by their brains, instead of their hands, are not so well paid, and therefore average people of that class I would recom mend not to go to America. I have been surprised at the low salaries paid there, and at the extent of the head-work done at a low rate of remuneration, al though no doubt some people make large fortunes. If a man is not ready to work hard with his hands, if he hopes to earn his bread by his education and by head- work, I think, on the whole, unless he is very smart indeed, he had better stay at home or go to some of our colonies, and not try to rival the Americans, where the educated class are very keen and smart. After all if a man has moderate ideas and does not look to be a millionaire, some of the educated professions seem to be not yet over- stocked in this country — for instance, medical men are hardly procurable for Her Majesty's service — and there are many employments of various kinds throughout Her Majesty's dominions. To the man of the well-to-do classes with a few thousand pounds I would say that the land and the products would be somewhat strange to him, going from this country, and therefore, unless he lays out his money very judiciously, he might gain his ex perience by losing it, the result, in a good many cases, of young men going out with money. If a man has money he should take care to look about him before he invests in America. There is a view taken by some of my acquaintances that a fine young man, who does not care for indoor work, might farm in
EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT. 99
America, and might thus make sure of an indepen dent position. Now, in this respect there is a great deal of delusion. I do not think America is the place for every man who wishes to be a gentleman-farmer ; the majority of that kind of whom I have heard have been unsuccessful. Land is cheap, but it cannot be used till houses have been built on it, fences erected, and the land itself improved in a great many ways ; and there is this fact, that labour is so dear that large farms, as a rule, do not pay. There are some large cattle farms which have paid, but these are the ex ceptions, and have been of a speculative character. The only farms which surely pay are small farms worked by men who are willing to work with their own hands, and really to work hard. To men of that class I believe there is no country better than America, in which they may acquire an independent position, such as they would not have in this country, at a small cost, and with a small capital. Comparing, however, the condition of farmers in this country and in America, I must give it as my opinion that the average man who cultivates here 500 or 1,000 acres had better stay at home, or go somewhere else than to America. No doubt there is much room for improved farming in America ; at least many very competent Americans think so ; and a very energetic man who takes a lead in that way may make it succeed ; but he will be a sort of pioneer — he will not find things cut out to his hand. A man who takes to farming in America will not have the same comforts and society and civilised distractions that he has here. The distances are great,
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100 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
country neighbours few and rough, and servants scarce and dear. I have heard of many instances of ex-officers of the army and others who have taken to farming hi America who, and still more whose wives, have had to go through hardships and hard work which they little thought of in their own country. On the other hand, some very pushing and energetic men have no doubt been successful as cattle- breeders and, in some of the far-away States, as wheat- farmers on a large scale. In the wheat-growing tracts of the Red River of the North (in the far North- West of the States) and in the valleys of California, where great tracts of very rich and unmcumbered prairie land have been obtained from railway com panies, Spanish grantees, and otherwise, the system is to lay in a great stock of machinery and keep a few men to take care of it ; then at so wing- time, and again at harvest-time, to hire great gangs of casual labourers, lumber-men out of work and others, to plough and sow in spring, and reap in summer, in great fields miles long. This is, however, a style of farming which is quite exceptional, and will not, I think, last very long. On the other hand, I would advise the small farmer with a little means — to whom I especially re commend America — not to be too much led away by the prospect of getting a homestead grant for nothing in the farther parts of the country. I doubt whether such allotments can be taken up with advantage by men new to the country and climate, such as our coun trymen of the class I describe. Successful settlements are, I believe, made by Scandinavians and Germans,
EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT. 101
who are accustomed to a sort of communal arrange ments and to a very rough life ; but a man who goes from this country, and who wishes to begin at once as an independent farmer, would, I think, do better to buy a ready-made farm. He may probably get a good one, with house and everything to his hand, at from 21. to 5/. per acre. The most common size is 40, 80, or 160 acres, and he may enlarge that afterwards, if he is prosperous. If he has sons he may work a tolerable sized farm with his own family ; if not, he may hire one or two farm labourers, and that class are readily enough procured, and do not receive very monstrous wages.
Even the small farmer must not be too sanguine of a very brilliant success. The fact is that agriculture is now so largely spread and production is so enormous that, happily for the dwellers in older lands, food-stuffs are exceedingly cheap ; and, unless a farmer has a special success in breeding or otherwise, he must be content to make a living by the sweat of his brow. But at any rate he will have a rough plenty — he need not want for a tolerable house and good food. He may well be an independent and self-respecting man. His children will be easily provided for, and he may enlarge his holding gradually. To a man not too ambitious and not in too great a hurry to be rich I believe that the life of a respectable farmer, owning his own land, in a country where he need call no man his superior, is happy, useful, and creditable.
Now I come to the case of the labouring man willing to work hard for a good living. Any man
102 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
accustomed to farm labour, or willing and able to take to that kind of work, can be sure of such a living in America. I have said that in these times labourers do not receive very extravagant wages, as at one time they did ; but still they can earn higher wages than they do here, while food is cheaper, and a labouring man has better food. I have no doubt that on the whole such a man is immediately better off than he is at home ; and if he is prudent and saving he has certainly much better opportunities to rise. He may well hope to become an independent farmer after a time — a position to which, I fear, fewer and fewer farm- labourers rise in this country. The labourer, how ever, must, like the farmer, be prepared, if need be, to go far afield, and must not grumble if he finds himself obliged to rough it a good deal for a time. He may have a good deal to learn, and experience some change in climate and habits. He must not expect to carry into remote parts all the ways to which he may have been accustomed.
As regards the class of mechanics and others not willing to work on the land — artisans, navvies, miners, iron-workers, mill-workers, &c. — they are generally better off in America than in this country ; but, owing to the depression of recent years, their posi tion there is not so assured as that of those who are willing to labour on the land. During the bad times many American works have been stopped, and many good men, as well as a very great many indiffer ent and bad men, have been thrown out of employment and suffered much hardship. A good many of them
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have given up their trades and taken to work on the land ; and business being now a little better, there is by no means so conspicuous a want of employment as there was. But still I could not advise people of the classes to which I refer to go to America at present, unless employment has been assured to them. I may say, while I am on this subject, that the successful artisan in America has, I think, much greater facilities for owning a nice home and garden of his own than in this country.
There is one class of people who are in great de mand in America, viz., domestic servants. I do not mean male servants — I think domestic service is not the work for men — we require all the thew and sinew of the nation for other work. But there is no doubt that America is a paradise for female servants. They are treated there as helps rather than servants ; and though it is necessary for them to work hard, still their employment is certain, and a really good servant may almost make her own terms.
I have said that in recent years times have been somewhat hard in America, but I think there is a degree of exaggeration in that, because, though wages have been reduced, yet, on the other hand, the absolute necessaries of life are so much cheaper than they were as almost to make up for the difference. The ordinary labouring man, who in this country might earn 2s. 6d. or 3.5. a day, would in America earn a dollar ; a me chanic who gets from 5s. to 6s. a day here would, if he succeeded in getting employment, earn considerably more.
104 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
I am afraid, however, that much of the advantage is lost owing to the extravagant habits of the Americans in regard to spending. The obligatory expenses, or even those necessary to the ease and comfort of a working man, are not so heavy as in this country ; but there is no doubt that all classes, high and low, have been to some degree spoiled by former prosperous times, and that they have not learned saving as they ought. Many think that recent hard times will have a very good effect on the habits of the American people, and in this I speak of the richer and more pretentious classes still more than of labouring men. On the other hand, many of the Germans and some other classes exhibit wonderful thrift, and are a model of careful and successful industry, by which they improve their position much more than some who may earn more and seem of a higher class.
It must be felt that the absence in America of that wide social gulf between classes which so much exists in England is a great advantage to a working man who by skill and prudence rises to an indepen dent position ; and the political system is certainly one which makes him feel that he has a better and more recognised place in the commonwealth. We cannot, too, shut our eyes to the fact that this is a risen country, where there is not apparent room for so much further rise as there is in America, with its illimitable opportunities for expansion ; and in this respect the man who seeks to rise has probably more to look to on the other side of the Atlantic.
At the same time I cannot too often impress on
EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT. 105
you that, while America is the place for the man with a strong arm and a strong will to work — for the pushing and the energetic — it is most decidedly no place for the idle or the easy-going, or for men discontented with their lot, who think that a mere change of country will better it. There are too many of that sort in America already. This is the class which has suffered most from the want of employment, and it is a class to which Americans are not inclined to be very tender. Any man who is not thoroughly self-reliant had better stay in the older and perhaps more indulgent country.
There is this important consideration with respect to emigration, that many a man who hardly thinks that his own lot is improved by transplantation, and who sets against the advantages much that comes rather trying in the change, must feel that his children at least, growing up in America, will greatly benefit by the step which he has taken. To begin with, to the parents of large families the American educational system is a very great advantage. In all the best parts of America there is offered to all an excellent education, absolutely free, given to all children without distinction ; and the clever boy may not only thus learn the 'three E's,' but may go to the higher education, also given free, and qualify for higher work and a higher place than his father ever aimed at. If the son of a poor man is very ambitious he has certainly a better chance of being President of the United States than of being Prime Minister of England. And without looking
106 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
so high as that, I think there can be no doubt that not only the son of the energetic Scotchman and the prudent German, but also the son of the poor Irish man, brought up as an American citizen, has better prospects than in his own country. I won't say that this country has culminated and begun to go down — we have not, I hope, come to that — but there is no doubt that, with very limited land and immense foreign competition in manufactures, we can hardly hope to hold a place relatively so far in advance of the world as we have in the past generations. We shall, I hope, still progress in many ways, but it is almost in the nature of things that America must progress faster.
I will sum up my views in regard to emigration to America as follows — taking the case of the average man, not the exceptional man.
If I were a young man with a moderate patrimony I would go and look about me in America, but would not invest my fortune there rashly ; it would be principally a question of temperament, and a choice between the safety and ease which such a man may have in his own country, or the adventure and the chance of making his mark which he may have in America.
If I were a well-educated farm labourer, with a large family, I would certainly go. If I were an un- incumbered young farm-labourer or a young maid servant without special ties in this country, I would go. If I were a young mechanic or mill -worker I think I should take the first favourable opportunity of going, and would take my chance for better or worse.
EMIGRATION AND INVESTMENT. 107
A man of any other class I would not advise to go, unless lie feels a very special vocation for the adventure of American life. Clerks, professional men, shopkeepers, elderly mechanics and others of the working classes without a special engagement in America, may generally with greater advantage stay at home.
All that I have hitherto said has principally had reference to emigration, and to the investment of capital taken out by those who themselves emigrate ; but perhaps I may say one word regarding the investment of capital in America by people who do not emigrate, though that is a very difficult subject, and I should be sorry to give confident advice about it. Xo doubt the demand for money is greater in America than it is here, and the interest is higher ; but on equal security the difference is not now very great. The United States Government can borrow at 4 per cent, as easily as we can at 3^ — the security of that Government is, no doubt, as safe as any in the world. The New York money market is now a very large one, and investors there are glad to get moderate interest for safe investments. I think not fully 5 per cent, is to be got on first-class railway bonds and such -like securities, which give about 4 per cent, in this country. The difference between 4 and 4 1 may about express the degree to which in terest is higher in America. All the second mort gages, shares, &c., which bear higher interest, are more or less risky. It is true one is told that first-class mortgages on land are to be had at a
108 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
high rate of interest, but there is a good deal of diffi culty about this — estates are not large, the titles are not always unconditional — most States reserve rights of wives, without whose consent the homestead can not be alienated, and sometimes limited homesteads cannot be alienated at all. There is great variety in the laws of different States, and especially it should be noticed that in some parts of the country there is great uncertainty and liability to variation in the value of property, and a mortgage on estates one day said to be immensely valuable may more than exhaust the whole value another day. Some fine estates are made to sell, and I should be sorry to be the mort gagee of a house in Chicago for half the value which it bore some years ago. It comes, I think, to this, that if a man with a good deal of money and a good knowledge of business devotes himself to the subject, he might invest his money well in this way in America ; or if you have a friend in America who is both competent and honest, and on whom you can thoroughly rely (but who in such matters can rely on anyone in these days?), he may make a good investment for you ; but it is not to be done by the ordinary investor.
As regards most of the State and city debts, and a variety of tempting investments of that kind, they require a very thorough knowledge of American po litics and finance, and I think that a man who has not that knowledge had better not touch them.
FEELING TOWARDS ENGLAND. 109
FEELING TOWARDS ENGLAND.
Let me now say one word more before I have done as regards the feeling in the United States towards England. Upon the whole I am quite sure that the people there feel kindly towards us ; in fact, ninety-nine out of the hundred do so, and perhaps, the hundredth has no really hostile feeling. But there does still remain, among some of the Americans, a feeling that we did not behave well or kindly to wards them during their great Civil War, and espe cially some of these men are persuaded that it is due to our conduct that their mercantile marine has been destroyed. I will not deny that our miscarriage in permitting privateers to avail themselves of our ports and prey upon the commerce of the United States had something to do, for the time, with the destruc tion of their mercantile marine ; but we have paid heavy ' smart money ' for that ; and I believe that the real cause of the continued decadence of the marine is, not what was done by the ' Alabama,' but the protec tive system, which makes it impossible for a citizen of the United States to sail a ship abroad without pay ing for it a great deal more than a citizen of Great Britain pays for his ship. However, I fear it is the fact that in connection with this subject a sore feeling does in some quarters exist. I am afraid that there are some people in some of the States who, in case this country were involved in war, would very readily undertake the enterprise and excitement of priva teering against our marin?. I do not believe that
110 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES.
the central Government would willingly permit this ; but that Government is not strong enough to check all its citizens. If we could not prevent the ' Alabama ' from going out of Liverpool can we be sure that the President of the United States could prevent i Ala- bamas ' from going out from any port on the many thousand miles of seaboard of the United States? This actual fact is certain, that, in view of the proba bility or possibility of war with us, the Emperor of Eussia has had several first-class cruisers built in Philadelphia, though he must have paid much more heavily for them than they would have cost in Europe ; and the other day these cruisers were brought out and delivered over to the Russians with much parade. Happily this was after the immediate danger of war with Russia had passed. But that the vessels should have been built by Americans for the purpose for which they were intended seems to me to point to a very great danger. If we once got into a war there is no saying how far it might extend. If we ever go to war with Russia that country would strain every nerve, by means of such cruisers, to involve us with the United States ; and if once it comes to privateering from United States ports there is all too much fear that sparks leading to a conflagration might be struck at any moment. I sincerely hope, by a good under standing, so terrible a calamity may be rendered al most impossible ; and the word I say in conclusion is, pray cultivate friendship, good- will, and amity with the people of the United States ; come to know them well, and encourage them to know us well.
THE MANAGEMENT
OF
COLOURED RACES.
THE paper on ' Black and White in the Southern States/ which follows this, has appeared in the i Fort nightly Review/ and is now republished, with the kind permission of the Editor. I was, as I have there stated, led to look particularly into the relations between the black and white races in the Southern States, for the sake of the lessons that might be learned as bearing on our management of British possessions where white and black races are intermingled.
I do not here speak of our great dependency, India, where our system has been to rule both races by a Government avowedly absolute and despotic. In regard to that system I am one of those to be judged rather than to judge others; but this at least I may claim, that the Indian administration of the past cannot be ac cused of any habitual subordination of the rights and interests of the coloured races to those of the whites.
Of our Colonies, beyond a few very casual visits, I have no personal experience, but as a member of Parliament, and also in connection with the coolie
112 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
emigration from India to the Colonies, my attention has been during the past few years much directed to the management of our colonial possessions in tropical and semi-tropical regions. I cannot pretend to have mastered the details of the various colonies — the materials are not available. But the strong and broad glimpses obtained from official reports and Parliamentary papers and discussions have certainly led me to an unfavourable opinion of their adminis tration as regards the treatment of the coloured races. In none of the Colonies does the Home Govern ment exercise absolute and direct control, as in India ; in every case the colonists are admitted to some substantial share in the government, whether in the shape of Constitutional Assemblies or of nominated Councils. Except to a limited degree in a portion of the Cape Colony proper (where, I believe, a very cre ditable and successful commencement has been made), there is no attempt to admit the coloured races to any share of political franchise — where there is any election of legislators or officials the election is in the hands of the white colonists only. And in the colonies called Crown Colonies the administration is almost as much in the hands of a white oligarchy, for the Councils are mainly composed of the leading white colonists ; and the Colonial system is such (in this respect widely differing from that of India) that a large proportion of the official members of Council and other high officials are intimately connected by blood, business, and interest with the dominant race of settlers. Whenever the views or interests of that
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES. 113
race conflict with those of the labouring population the safe-guarding of the latter rests principally with the Governor sent out by the Colonial Office. Not only, however, is he in many cases without sufficient power, but also the atmosphere and surroundings in which he lives are such, and the public opinion which is heard of beyond the colony is so one-sided, that it requires much more than common firmness to do justice in excited times. Some governors have nobly done their duty ; some have more or less failed to do so. I think one might point to cases in which the latter have gone off in a blaze of popularity and obtained pleasant promotion, while those who have taken the part of subject races have fared very differently.
In the colonies where slavery once prevailed there is a hankering after compulsion to labour, which has, I think, given rise to injustice in many cases ; and even in colonies where there never was slavery, and where one would have supposed oligarchical abuses the least possible, recent official inquiries have dis closed an astounding partiality in financial matters. Not only to this day have the revenues of Malta and Ceylon been largely derived from taxes on the im ported food of the people (while the rich by com parison escape) to a degree with which the worst days of protection in England cannot compare, but it appears that in Ceylon the internal cultivation of paddy or rice, the food of the poorest of the people, is subjected to a special tax from which the valuable products of the rich colonists are exempt.
i
114 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
In our Colonies the disposition to compel labour has not affected the emancipated negroes nearly so much as in those of some other European countries. The negro has been to some extent under the pro tection of a powerful philanthropic party in this country; and he himself, though good-natured and submissive up to a certain point, has shown that he can break out in. an extremely dangerous way when treated with injustice — we have had some experience of that in Jamaica and elsewhere — and it is patent that the last negro outbreak in the Danish island of Santa Cruz was caused by extreme injustice in the attempt to limit wages and prevent free movement of the labourers. As a rule our colonists have probably more frequently failed to manage and utilise the free negro than greatly oppressed him. My own atten tion has been more directed to the condition of the Indian labourers who have been substituted for the negro labour which has failed. Several inquiries by competent lloyal Commissions in the past few years show that they have been treated with great unfair ness in some of our colonies.
In order to obtain the means of carrying on the coolie emigration the Government has been induced to sanction a system which would not be tolerated in the case of white labourers. In consideration that the expense is borne by the Colonies or the colonists, the labourers are bound down to labour for a term of years. They do not engage themselves to masters whom they know, or to any individual, but are engaged to serve in the colony, and on their arrival are assigned to a master.
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES. 115
They are afterwards subject to be re-assigned and trans ferred from one master to another, and from one estate to another, during the term of their indenture, without their own consent or voice in the matter. In short, call it as we may, and justify it as on the whole bene ficial, if we can, there can be no doubt that it is a temporary, modified, and supervised slavery, so long as the obligation to labour lasts. The Indian Govern ment have been careful to ascertain the voluntary character of the emigration, the fairness of the con tracts, and the adequacy of the provision for the voyage ; but so soon as the coolie leaves India he passes out of their hands — the due execution of the contracts and the treatment of the coolie henceforth rest with the Colonial Administrations. It is evidently necessary that such a system, carried out in colonies where the masters are the dominant race, should be very jealously watched, and there can be no question that the Colonial Office in England has always been actuated by a desire to protect the coolies. But there is great difference in the management of different colonies, and while some are good, abuses have crept into others. The Reports of the Royal Commissions, to which allusion has been made, show that in some instances the contracts made hi India have not been fairly carried out, and that in several respects in justice has been done. Great efforts have been made to remedy these evils, and I do not propose here to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the indenture system. What I have always strongly insisted on is, that at any rate after the indenture has
i 2
116 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
expired, the coolie is entitled to be treated as a free man on a par with any other of Her Majesty's sub jects ; and my great complaint has been that Colonial authorities, under the guise of vagrancy laws and the like, have curtailed that freedom and equality to the extent of making the emancipated coolie's life un endurable till he consents to re-indenture. To the disclosures contained in the Report of the Royal Commission on the coolie system in the Mauritius I chiefly refer, as showing both the injustice which may be done under Colon:al law and the insufficient power of the English Colonial Office to control and remedy the injustice. Mauritius is the colony in which the system of coolie emigration is oldest and best established. It is no inaccessible place, but thoroughly well known. It is ranked in the official Colonial Office list as a Crown Colony of the first class, ' in which the Crown has the entire control of legislation/ Yet the Report shows that the Colonial Legislature (aided by a Governor who took the side of the whites, and withheld information from the Home Government) was able in 1867 to pass the most monstrous laws — not disguised as general laws,
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but expressly directed only against the time-expired Indian emigrants who refused to re-indenture for long terms. These people were treated, not as free men, but (as the Colonial Office authorities have de scribed it) as if they were ticket- of-leave convicts of bad character, adscribed to their localities, subjected to the most harassing police supervision and tyranny, heavily taxed for the benefit of Colonial officials, and
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES. 117
oppressed by Colonial magistrates. One would have thought that, if this be really a Crown Colony, such disclosures had only to be made by such an authority as the Royal Commission to ensure an instant sweep ing away of these injustices. I am sure no man ever presided at the Colonial Office with a greater desire to do justice than Lord Carnarvon ; he immediately set himself to do so, and he sent as Governor an old Indian administrator of whose desire to protect all classes there can be no question. But in truth, though Mauritius be a Crown Colony, as it is now constituted the Colonists have a majority in the Legislative Council, and Colonial views and ideas have much weight in the departments of the Colonial Office. Radical measures were not found easy ; it was deemed necessary in some shape to obtain the consent of and to act through the Colonial Legislature. As a matter of fact several years passed in correspondence about draft b'.lls ; up to the close of the last session of Parlia ment the reformed legislation had not been passed; I have only now learned that at last, at the end of 1878, the oppressive laws of 1867 have been repealed, and a new law passed which is a very great improvement. But even now the law does not treat the time- expired coolie as altogether free from restraint — he must be protected by a pass and by a photograph, which are to be surrendered to his employer whenever he takes service ; and he is still subject to certain rules and restrictions.
While I write a very bad case of ill-treatment of coolies has been disclosed by papers presented
118 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
to Parliament regarding the West India island of Grenada. A new Administrator went to that island in 1878, and a new Protector of Coolies had been appointed on probation in the early part of that year. In August the latter not only reported very illegal and cruel treatment of a recently arrived cargo of coolies, but denounced the whole system prevailing in the island, asserting that the persons in charge of the estates neither took care of the coolies nor paid them, nor provided for them when sick, and worked them to such a pitch that few would survive. He added that of 2,000 coolies formerly imported very few remained ; that ' the treatment they received was iniquitous,' and that it was ' sad to think what has become of the bulk of them.' The complaints of the Protector in regard to the newly-arrived coolies were fully confirmed. The Administrator took energetic and praiseworthy measures to rescue the survivors, but remarked that the Protector himself was not free from blame for having allowed this state of things to be possible, and complained of ' the spirit which seems to actuate him as evinced by his report, his failure to move about sufficiently, and his not going to live in the district where most of the emigrants are.' He adds, however : ' Indeed, the person whose house I had engaged refused to give possession on finding who it was required for.' 1 should have thought the refusal of the planters to let the Protector live among them was rather a ground for vigorous measures to keep them in order. But the Administrator was satisfied that they had i an earnest disposition ' to do what
THE MANAGEMENT OF COI.QUKED ..JJACES. 119
was required; and, i as they are very anxious to have an additional supply of immigrants, I see no reason why they should not have as many as they are able to pay for.'
It is stated that the Protector so recently appointed had been laid up by an accident. The Lieutenant- Governor of the Windward Islands, on the matter being referred to him, thought the Protector ' could not be altogether exonerated from blame.' ' But,' he added, * he is in many respects a good officer. He speaks Hindustanee, and is trusted and liked by the coolies. His unpopularity among the planters is in itself evi dence that he discharged his duties conscientiously.' However, it was eventually settled to get over the difficulty by superseding the obnoxious Protector who had spoken out too strongly. As he was only 6 on probation ' he had no opportunity of defending himself. Xo inquiry was made into his allegations of past mismanagement; but a new ordinance is to be considered by the local Legislature. The whole pro ceeding certainly does not inspire me with confidence. I am one of those who believe that since we have, on one hand, in India great agricultural populations, docile, intelligent, and industrious, but constantly pressing on the means of subsistence, and on the other great possessions, which only require for their development such a population fitted for hot climates, it would be in every way beneficial from both points of view to encourage emigration from India, provided it be carried out on fair terms and the policy be accepted not merely to use the coolies as a substitute
120 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
for slave labour under planter-masters, but to facili tate their free colonisation and settlement on the soil under a liberal system similar to that adopted in the United States. Planters might then trust to a good free population for voluntary hired labour. It is impossible that the natives of India should distinguish between the British Government which they know in India, and the British Government of each colony; and the better colonies suffer in credit and popularity for the faults of the bad. I hold, then, strongly to the view that we are not justified in encouraging and facilitating this emigration till we have much greater security for the treatment of the emigrants and an effective assurance that the personal freedom which (as distinguished from political freedom) they enjoy in India in an eminent decree shall not be abridged.
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In some of our West Indian Colonies there have very recently been important questions with respect to the management of the negro labouring population, but it is in the African Colonies that the questions- relating to the African races are of the highest im portance. Eecent events have attracted very great attention to the subject, and have been the occasion of a mass of official information published in Blue- books, in which I have been much interested. I put aside external political questions, and now look to the matter only as regards the treatment of the large masses of indigenous blacks whom we either have found in the territories which we have acquired or have received under our protection and immediate or mediate control ; for it appears that disturbances and
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES. 121
tyrannies beyond our borders have led to migrations of large numbers of natives and the settlement of many of them in our territories, or in Boer territory which we have since annexed. The great and long- debated question in Africa seems to be, whether the natives who occupy large tracts almost exclusively are to be brought under civilised law or allowed to retain their own laws, more or less administered by their own chiefs. My own prepossessions have been entirely in favour of allowing the indigenes to retain their own laws, so far as they are not absolutely in consistent with our system. That has been the prac tice in India, in almost all things in the earlier days of our rule — and even when in later days we have come to regulate many things by codes common to white and black, we leave to every native class their own laws regarding marriage and inheritance, religious and social rites, and suchlike matters. Since, how ever, I have looked into the matter carefully I have seen reason to depart from this view as regards Africa, and rather to incline to a system which may lead us towards the state of things now found in America, where the- Africans have been converted in manners, religion, language, and clothing, and assimilated to the white man's standard. The accounts we have of the African tribal administrations seem to be very un favourable ; and though they are very often drawn from a hostile point of view, I must say that, looking to recent official summaries of native laws, as now administered in our Colonies, I do not think that they are such as it is desirable to retain. I do not here
122 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
enter on questions of marriage and the like ; but cer tainly as regards property the system seems to nega tive altogether individual ownership in a way which must be fatal to settlement and progress. The head of the kraal and of the house seems to have absolute control over all the property of the community, and that power descends undivided to a single heir, sub ject only to the customary liabilities in respect of the maintenance of the members of the house. Individual property is, it would seem, not recognised. These people are not the possessors of an old civilisation and ancient laws, under which they have learned to manage their own affairs ; they are in no degree in the position of Hindoo and Mahomedan races in India. They are mere barbarians, with some ill-defined customs which we have reduced to law. Even their tribes seem generally not to be well-established tribes under chiefs who are looked up to as the hereditary heads of clans and who carry a traditionary influence with them. African tribes seem to be mere casual ag gregations of people under the chief of the day. We are constantly told that a modern people have been made up of ' broken tribes ' and fragments of all sorts. I should judge, then, that there is little of native law or rule which we are much called on to respect when these people come under our jurisdiction.
On the other hand, if we would adopt the method of taming and civilising these people, I think what I have seen in America goes far to show how much good may result. The situation of the blacks in Africa is, of course, very different from that of their
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED EACES. 123
congeners in America ; but through all differences I seem to recognise the same radical characteristics in the men and the women too. There seems always to be the capacity for making excellent labourers; and the tribes whom we have most effectually converted to our ways, such as the Fingoes, appear to exhibit very considerable capacities for improvement and civilisation. Altogether I see much reason to sup pose that the African is quite at his best when working with the example, guidance, and assistance of white men and following their ways. Of course one cannot have long experience of newly -acquired terri tories without feeling that changes must not be too violent and sudden, and that in many cases we must receive people to a certain extent on their own terms, and allow them to retain for a time many laws and habits which we do not ourselves think the best. But I incline, so far as I have seen, to believe that in the case of these African populations our ultimate aim should be, not to govern them under their own laws and religions, as we do the Indian populations, but to assimilate them as far as possible, and to make them a good agricultural and labouring popu lation. At any rate, I hope that what I tell in the following pages of Africans so treated in America may furnish to the reader some material for forming an opinion on this point.
I am greatly disposed to think that if, by a just and equal rule, we humanise and improve these African natives, protecting them from class tyranny of the white man on the one hand, and from their
124 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
chiefs on the other, and teaching them to work as free men with the white man, great things may be achieved by these large populations in a vast country of great capabilities. The proof that South Africa has capacities is, that colonists can now afford to pay wages which seem much to exceed those paid in America. We may well hope that if they obtain a very large supply of the labour of humanised natives great prosperity may ensue and industry may be im mensely developed, without any of those compulsory and unfair methods to which whites lording it over coloured races have sometimes been tempted to resort. I am sure no one can compare the present state of these African populations under their own tribal system with that of civilised Africans in America without feeling that such a change would be im mensely beneficial to the native races of South Africa.
From a selfish point of view I think we might especially look to such a consummation as beneficial to this country, because we have a very large and increasing class for whom it is becoming; more and
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more difficult to provide : I mean the educated classes, somewhat above mere manual labour. I have said that I do not think America the country for that class — there I put it that the only farmer sure to succeed is he who holds the plough himself. After the early days of successful squatting have passed I suspect that most of our temperate colonies approxi mate to a similar condition. It would be very de sirable that there should be somewhere a field for the
THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES. 125
more educated and enterprising class, who are more fitted to direct and utilise labour than to do the mere manual work. Such a field might, I fancy, be found in South Africa, if we could humanise a great labour ing population and establish a state of things such that a young man of good education, good tact, and real energy might successfully work a large farm or other enterprise with the aid of native labour.
All this, however, is chiefly speculation. I only throw out these hints as showing the sort of problems I have had in my mind when I went to study c the nigger question ' in America, with the result set out in the following pages.
•126 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
DURING a recent tour in the United States I was particularly anxious to obtain information regarding the relation of the black and white races, not only because the subject is in itself of immense interest to commerce and humanity, but because it is of special interest to ourselves, called on to deal with masses of the black race in South Africa, and the possessors of many lands in which white and coloured races are intermingled. In some of our colonies it has been supposed that the free negro has shown a great indisposition to labour. On the other hand, cotton, the great staple of the Southern States, and formerly almost entirely raised by slave labour, has been pro duced in larger quantity since emancipation than ever it was before. How, I sought to know, has that been managed, political disturbances and difficulties not withstanding?
As regards political questions, too, I am much impressed with the belief that our management of territories where white and black races are intermixed has not always been successful. An oligarchical system of government generally prevails in our
BLACK AND WHITE IX THE SOUTHERN STATES. 127
tropical colonies, under which considerable injustice has, I think, sometimes been done to the East Indian labourers imported to take the place of the emanci pated negroes. Except in the Cape Colony proper no political representation has been allowed to the coloured races. I was, then, very anxious to see the effect of the political emancipation of the negroes in the Southern States of the Union.
In the course of my tour I have had opportunities of conversing with many men of many classes (and quite as much on one side of politics as the other), who have had the greatest experience of the blacks in various aspects — educational, industrial, political, and other. I am indebted to them for information given to me with a freedom, frankness, and liberality for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful ; to none more so than to many Southern gentlemen who have gone through all the bitternesses of a great war on the losing side and the social revolution which fol lowed — men whose good temper and fairness of statement, after all that has passed, commanded my admiration. I have visited not only the towns but the ruraL districts of four of the principal States- formerly slave-holding, viz., Yirginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia ; and it so happened that I was in South Carolina (the ne plus ultra of Southernism) on the day of the late general election. I have seen and conversed with the negroes in their homes and in their fields, in factories, in churches, and in political meetings, and I think I have also been able to learn something of a very prominent
128 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED EACES.
part of the population — the negresses. I feel that a single tour must still leave much to be learnt, but I have honestly weighed and compared all the infor mation I have obtained from different sources, and submit the general result for what it may be worth. If my conclusions do not in themselves carry much weight, I hope that I may perhaps succeed in indica ting some points worthy of inquiry and discussion.
THE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY OF THE NEGRO.
The first and most difficult question is the capa city of the negro as compared with other races. In one sense all men are born equal before God ; but no one supposes that the capacities of all men are equal, or that the capacities of all races are equal, any more than the capacities of all breeds of cattle or dogs, which we know differ widely. There is, therefore, no prima facie improbability of a difference of capacity between the white Aryan and the negro race, though I believe there is no ground for presuming that white races must be better than black.
It is unnecessary to try to distinguish between differences due to unassisted nature and those due to domestication and education. No doubt the varieties of wild animals found in different countries differ con siderably ; but the differences due to cultivation seem to be still more prominent in the animals and plants with which we are best acquainted. It is enough to take the negro as he is, and his history and sur-
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 129
roundings need only be briefly glanced at in so far as they afford some key to his present position and immediate prospects.
The negro race now in America is derived from an admixture of people of various African tribes, pro bably differing considerably among themselves, but all, it may be assumed, in a more or less savage and little civilised condition. They have all passed two or three generations in slavery to white men, during which period all traces of their various origin have been lost, as well as their original languages and habits. And now, though variety of breed, affecting their capacity, may still to some degree be present, if we could trace it, I believe that it is impossible to do so, and that we must deal with them as a single, English-speaking people. They are also now all Christians ; and though some African traditions may linger among them, they have for the most part adopted the dress and manners of the:r white mas ters, and have been greatly civilised. In this latter respect there is, however, a considerable distinction. One portion of the negroes has lived in parts of the country where the white population was numerous — equal to or more numerous than the blacks — and thus, working among and in very intimate contact with white people, has very thoroughly learned their ways, habits, and ideas. But there is a broad belt round the outer portion of the Southern States where the climate is very injurious to the white man, and almost impossible to the ordinary white labourer. In this tract, containing much of the most productive
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130 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
country, the whole labouring population was and is negro, the few white men being, in slave times, only the masters and drivers, and in no degree the com rades of the blacks. In these tracts we have a thick population not so completely converted. Their lan guage is still to some degree a sort of pigeon or negro English, and they are still to some extent a peculiar people — perhaps less good workers than those more thoroughly educated by contact with whites, but pro bably as a rule more simple and docile. It should be noticed, however, that considerable migrations have taken place in the troubles consequent on the war, and that there has been some intermixture of the two classes.
At the time of emancipation the negroes were destitute of education to an excessive degree. Not only were means of education wanting to them, but after some local troubles which alarmed the masters most of the Southern States passed laws making it highly penal to educate a negro. These laws endured to the last, and under them the generation upon whom emancipation came grew up entirely without instruc tion. The only educated persons of the race were the few free blacks who had obtained instruction in the North, and a very few favourite domestic slaves, whom their mistresses had to some degree educated, the penal laws notwithstanding. Since emancipation a good deal has been done to educate the negro. Many schools in which a superior education is afforded have been maintained by benevolent Northerners, and the State Governments have set up, and continue to
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 131
maintain, several colleges in which the more ambitious and aspiring young blacks are educated. For the education of the masses a public school system has been started in all the States, of which the blacks have a fair share. Owing, however, to financial difficulties these schools are extremely imperfect, being open but a small portion of each year — in some States as little as two months, and in none, I believe, more than about four months on an average. How ever, this is better than nothing. The negroes show a laudable zeal for education, and upon the whole I think that as much has been done as could be expected under the circumstances.
During the last dozen years the negroes have had a very large share of political education. Considering the troubles and the ups and downs that they have gone through, it is, I think, wonderful how beneficial this education has been to them, and how much these people, so lately in the most debased condition of slavery, have acquired independent ideas, and, far from lapsing into anarchy, have become citizens with ideas of law and property and order. The white serfs of European countries took hundreds of years to rise to the level which these negroes have attained in a dozen. Such has been the thoroughness of the measures adopted in America.
Another education has, I think, greatly affected the character and self-reliance of the negroes. I mean what I may call their religious education. Like most primitive races (the aborigines of India, for instance) they are inclined to take Christianity in
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132 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
a more literal sense than their more civilised fellow- Christians, who have managed to explain most of it away to their own satisfaction. And these negroes are by temperament extremely religious people of an emotional type. They like to go direct to God him self, and are quite unwilling to submit to priests claiming to stand between them and God. Hence it is that the Catholic hierarchy has had no success with them, and probably never will have. Every man and woman likes to be himself or herself an active member of the Church. And though their preachers are in a great degree their leaders, these preachers are chosen by the people from the people, under a system for the most pare congregational, and are rather preachers because they are leaders than leaders because they are preachers. In this matter of religion the negroes have utterly emancipated themselves from all white guidance — they have their own churches and their own preachers, all coloured men — and the share they take in the self-government of their churches really is a very important education. The preachers to our eyes may seem peculiar. American orators somewhat exaggerate and emphasize our style, and the black preachers somewhat exaggerate the American style ; but on the whole I felt considerably edified by them. They come to the point in a way that is refreshing after some sermons that one has heard. I did not witness any of the more active emotions in which I understand congregations sometimes indulge ; but the practice of emitting in a hearty way a sort of responses here and there during the sermon seemed
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 133
to me earnest and not unbecoming. I witnessed a convention of Baptist ministers (the blacks generally are Baptists or Methodists), in a rural church, and it was a pleasant sight. The ministers by no means had it all their own way. The whole country-side seemed to have come in to assist, both men and women — and they seemed to be making a time of it — camped about for the day.
The prominent position taken by the negro women is a feature in which they are distinguished from some Oriental races. No doubt this has some ad vantages, but also I shall have to note some attend ant disadvantages — social, industrial, and political. In matters matrimonial the women are somewhat too independent and light-hearted ; and the men also being on this subject given to a rather loose philosophy, the marital tie is not so binding and indissoluble as it might be. Those who take an unfavourable view of the negro character are in the . habit of speaking of these traits of their character in severe language, and dwell ing much on their immorality and want of family affection. I think, however, that it is scarcely fair to judge them by too high a standard. The truth is that the Aryan family has hardly yet established itself among the negroes, and it is not surprising that this should be so. In Africa we know that nothing of the kind exists ; there, no doubt, the progenitors of the American blacks lived under the loose polyga- mistic system still prevailing there. Under slavery the family could not be introduced — it was impossible that there could be much permanency of marital ar-
134: THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
rangements when the parties were constantly liable to be, and very frequently were, sold away like cattle ; and the relation between parent and child was espe cially weakened, or rather not created. The parents were not really responsible for the children ; on the con trary, the women were sent to work, and the children were carefully tended by persons appointed by the masters for the purpose, like calves or lambs or any other valuable stock. Parents had little affection for children thus reared, and children owed no respect and obedience to parents. The family as we know it is, in fact, a novelty to the negro since emancipation, and such institutions are not perfected in a day. Still the evil is a very grave one, especially in regard to the relations between parents and children. I have heard many authentic stories of children who have deserted or neglected their parents in a shocking manner, and the more than American liberty of the children threatens to render the next generation less tractable and useful than their fathers bred in slavery. We can only hope that time and religious influences will more completely establish the family system. Though the exceptions are many, there seems already to be much that is good and kind in the relations of the blacks to one another. If in some respects, other than marital, the women are rather troublesome, it seems that in this as in other things they have rather exaggerated American ways than set up ways of their own. Seeing the liberty, equality, and privileges enjoyed by the free white women, the negro women insist that their position among their own race shall not be inferior.
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 135
One great difficulty in estimating the qualities of the negro race, as tested by education, &c., is, that since under the American system all who have any share of black blood are classed with blacks, a large proportion of those who have received the most edu cation in former days, and wTho most frequently be come known as prominent coloured men, are mulattos of mixed blood ; so, in fact, are many of the students in the higher schools. Whatever the qualities of those whose blood is mixed in various degrees, they are evidently no safe index of the negro qualities and capacities, and it is necessary to be constantly on one's guard on this point when one generalises from experience of individuals.
As respects the mulattos there is much disposition to disparage them ; but I am inclined to think that this is in great part due to their peculiar position — they are rejected from all the society of the w^hites, and have not been accepted by the blacks as their natural leaders. The same tone of disparagement has gene rally been adopted regarding the Eurasians, the people of mixed blood in India ; yet I believe their failure is more due to an unfortunate position than to want of effective qualities. In early days Skinners and Gardeners were men of great mark, and the Eurasian drummer-boys of the old sepoy regiments were physi cally fine men and good athletes. I understand that in the New Orleans country, under the French prac tice (which has not our Anglo- Sax on antipathy to intimacy with coloured races), many Creoles of mixed blood attained a far higher position than in other parts of the United States.
136 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED EACES.
Reverting now to the capacities of the negro proper as we find him in America under the circum stances which I have described, the general opinion of those engaged hi the education of the race is, that while the younger children are as quick and bright as white children, they do on the average fall off in some degree as they get older. Yet this opinion is not given without some consideration and qualification ; the intellectual gulf between the two races does not seem to be very wide and evident. I am told on all hands that some pure negroes show an educational capacity quite equal to that of good whites. Nothing is more difficult than to estimate accurately qualities of this kind, especially when, as in this case, the two classes are not taught together, but separately; and there has not yet been time to see much of the results of educating the blacks on a large scale ; but I think that in general terms the direction in which all ex perience points is that which I have stated, viz., that on the whole they are behind, but not very far behind.
When we look to practical success in life appear ances seem at first sight less favourable to the blacks. I constantly asked, ' Have any individuals among them come to the front and achieved success in industrial pursuits, in commerce, or in the professions ? ' and I could not learn that they have. ' There were,' I said, 1 before the war a number of free blacks, many of them educated ; have none of them distinguished themselves in practical life? And since emancipation the negroes have for years had the upper hand in some of the Southern States ; have none of them come to the
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 137
front among their own race by the process of natural selection which has raised men to greatness in bar barous and Oriental countries?' Well, as I have already mentioned, they have shown some capacity as preachers, and they seem to have some talent for oratory (though I believe that Frederick Douglas and one or two other well-known men are mulattos, not real negroes). As politicians some of them have done fairly well, and are now good and popular representatives of their race ; but I don't think any of them have made a great mark. The politics of the Southern States, while negro majorities prevailed, seem to have been in reality entirely under the guidance of the white ' Carpet-baggers.'
For the rest I have not been able to hear of a successful negro merchant — the shopkeeping business in the most negro districts is almost entirely in the hands of whites. I have scarcely found a negro who has risen in the mercantile world higher than an apple- stall in a market. Certain professions they almost monopolise throughout the Union — waiters- and barbers, and in some parts ship-caulkers ; but I found very few negro lawyers, and no doctors. All over the world it is curious to notice how ready people are to entrust the care of their souls to very unsafe home-rulers, and how much less trustful they are of their bodies.
When I have put these failures to the friends of the negroes they reply that allowance must be made for very great disadvantages — even in the North, they say, the free negroes were subjected to a social
138 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
ostracism which made their success in commerce and the professions almost impossible. And as regards the South, they say, ' Since emancipation how short a time has elapsed ! — people enslaved and denied educa tion cannot rise in a day.' In all this there is much truth. Still I cannot help thinking that if the race had been a very pushing and capable one, the men educated in the North would ere this have made more way in the South. l Do you think,' I have said, ' that if they had been Chinamen they would not, in spite of all these disadvantages, have found their way to the front in some directions? ' I think it is admitted that to some extent this is so. The negroes are certainly not a race remarkable for energy and force under difficulties. The only question is whether they are very deficient in these qualities. As respects mer cantile qualities, we may remember that there are many excellent races who show no aptitude that way and permit alien races to usurp the mercantile func tions. In the Southern States the white Americans themselves are very much ousted from the business of small storekeepers by the Germans, who are to the manner born.
What is more disappointing is the failure of the negroes, so far, as superior artisans and in all that requires accuracy and care. As it is expressed, they are not responsible — they cannot be depended on. In slavery times some of them AY ere pretty good artisans, and many of them, in the South, are now fairly good carpenters, bricklayers, and blacksmiths. But they seem hardly to have progressed in this respect since
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 139
emancipation. A man who will do his carpentry so
far well enough will not fit the pieces accurately;
and in factories which employ black labour they do
not rise to the higher posts. In the North the
trades unions are so strong, and the jealousy of the
negroes on the part of foreigners, Irish and others, is
so great, that they would not have a fair chance ; but
in the South they labour under no such disadvantage,
and employers rather prefer negro labour ; yet in
practice they don't seem to be able to trust the blacks
beyond a certain point. In mechanical shops the
blacks do the manual labour, but are hardly trusted
to work engines. ' Perhaps a negro might learn to
work the engine,' an employer said to me, ' but I
never could be sure that he would not go to sleep
on the top of it.' In tobacco factories the labour is
almost exclusively negro, and many of them are very
well paid for labour requiring considerable skill ; but
I noticed that for certain work, the weighing and
making up the packages and such-like, white men
were always employed. I was in all these cases
assured that no black man could be trusted to be
accurate. - Yet they make very fair cotton-farmers,
and much of their handiwork in various branches of
industry is quite good.
On the whole, I think it must be considered that at present, whether from natural defects or from want of cultivation, they are to a certain extent inferior to white men in the qualities which lead to the higher grades of employment. On the other hand, they have a very remarkable good nature and good temper,
140 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
much docility, and great physical power and endu rance — qualities that admirably fit them for labourers. Considering from how low and oppressed a condition they have been lately raised, and how infinitely higher their position now is, it is hardly ground for disappointment that they do not immediately rise in large numbers to the higher grades of society. They have now opportunities of education which will enable them to rise, if they are fitted or when they are fitted for it. For the present we may deal with them in their existing position as the labouring population of the Southern States.
THE NEGROES AS A LABOURING POPULATION.
To understand the relations between the whites of the South and the blacks, as labourers and farmers, we must go back a little. In later slave times — in the States, at least, to which my inquiries were chiefly directed — the slaves were not worked out like omnibus horses ; in fact, the capital sunk in slaves was so heavy, and produce had become so cheap, that the principal source of profit was what was called the ' increase ' of the slaves — the breeding them for the market or for new plantations opened in the more Western States. As in breeding-farms for other kinds of stock, the human stock was carefully, and, on the whole, kindly treated ; and although the sell ing off the young stock as it became fit for the market was a barbarous process, still, the family relations being so weak as I have described, those who re-
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATS. 141
mained did not feel it so much as we should ; and I think it may be said that the relations between the masters and the slaves were generally not unkindly. One old gentleman in Carolina dwelt much on the kindness and success with which he had treated his slaves, adding as the proof and the moral that they had doubled in twenty years.
Then it must be remembered that in all the older States the whole of the land was private property — there was no unowned land available to squatters — and through all the political troubles the rights of property have been maintained inviolate ; neither by mob violence nor by class laws have they been inter fered with. In some limited portions of the Southern States, occupied early in the war by United States troops, a good deal of the property of absent seces sionists was sold for non-payment of taxes in a way which the Southerners call confiscation, but this was done by the authority of the United States Govern ment. The Carpet-bagger and Negro State Govern ments and Legislatures never seriously infringed on the rights of property.
After _the war the Southerners accepted the situa tion as few but Americans can accept a defeat, and, instead of throwing up their hands and crying to heaven, sought to make the best of the lands that re mained to them. It seemed not impossible that, the property in slaves being written off as lost, the land might be as cheaply and effectively cultivated by hired labour, if the negroes could be got to work ; at any rate it was a necessity to get it cultivated some-
142 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
how. The negroes, on the other hand, found that they must work or starve ; and the feeling between them and their former masters being, as I have said, not un friendly, the matter was arranged in one way or another.
Under the old system there were no great estates in the English sense — that is, very large properties, let to tenants. The large plantations were what we should call large farms, several hundred acres — up to, say, a thousand or fifteen hundred — being cultivated by the owner with slave labour. Some of the old owners, and some Northerners and Englishmen who purchased encumbered estates at a cheap rate, at first tried to maintain this system with hired labour, but the result has been to show that, as in almost all the States of the Union, large farming does not pay as well as small farming, and consequently the large farms have for the most part been broken up or let to small farmers.
There is a general concurrence of opinion, and not of opinion only, but of the most practical experience, that the blacks make admirable labourers when they are under sufficient supervision. On public works, and all undertakings carried on under professional superin tendence, nothing can be better or more effective than their labour. They are physically exceedingly fine men ; they stand any climate and any weather, and are quite ready to do a good day's work for a mode rate day's pay, provided it is fairly and regularly paid. I heard of no case in which when such work has been offered to them they have preferred to squat down in idleness ; that allegation against the negro character
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 143
seems to me quite disproved by experience. The worst said is that they cannot alway be depended on, and sometimes after labouring for a time will go off for a time. There may be some cases in which, work not being readily available, and little assistance or guidance forthcoming, they have sunk into a some what degraded condition, but such cases are quite rare and exceptional. I came across none, though I have heard it asserted that there are such. On small farms, where black men work in small numbers, in company with and under the immediate control of their em ployers, they do exceedingly well ; also when they work on their own account they do very well. It is only where they are employed in large numbers, under insufficient supervision, as on very large farms, that they are apt to take it easy and idle away their time as is the case with most such races.
Not only is the negro labour excellent, but also there is among the Southern proprietors and leading men accustomed to black labour, and not so used to whites, a disposition greatly to rely on black labour as a conservative element, securing them against the dangers and difficulties which they see arising from the combinations and violence of the white labourers in some of the Northern States ; and on this ground the blacks are cherished and protected by democratic statesmen, who now hold power in the South.
As in other parts of America, wages are not so high as they were ; but a common negro labourer in rural districts can generally earn about fifty cents, say two shillings, a day ; and that, with food so cheap
144 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
as it is, and in a country which requires little fuel and no very expensive shelter, is a very good wage. Nothing so much brings home to me the poverty and lowness of living of our Indian population as to hear these wages talked of as low ; being, as they are, six or eight times the wages of a coolie in India, while food is scarcely, if at all, dearer. In truth, the negroes are very well off.
More important than the rate of wages is the question whether the black labourers show any dis position to providence and saving. There is a good deal of discrepancy in the evidence on this subject, but on the whole I am afraid it must be said that the balance of evidence is decidedly against them. It seems pretty clear that providence is as yet the ex ception, and that the rule is a light-hearted way of spending their money as they get it. A very great scandal and evil was the failure of the Freedman's Bank, in which so many were induced to put their savings in the days of high wages. I suspect that in the case of the negro, as of other races, prudence will not come but with the growth of desires and ambitions only to be satisfied by saving.
In some parts of the country there has been a considerable lack of female labour. In slave days women were probably worked too much ; now they sometimes work too little, because, in the parts where they are much mixed with whites, the negro women, seeing that the white women do not work in the fields, and being, more than the men, inclined to assert equality, refuse out-door work. I. have no
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 145
sympathy whatever with the sentimental feeling which would stigmatise the field labour of honest Scotch or German women as degrading, and I do not sympathise with negro ladies who make their hus bands work while they enjoy the sweets of emancipa tion. But after all they are only followTing the most usual American fashion in regard to out-door labour ; and both in the more negro parts of the country, at all times, on their own farms at cotton-picking seasons, and everywhere at in-door labour, the negro women work well enough.
I inquired whether the black labourers have shown any disposition to violent outbreaks such as have occurred in several West India islands, but I could only hear of one such case, when the hired labourers in some of the rice-plantations of South Carolina struck for wages, and used much violence towards non- strikers, hunting them about with whips. The whites attempting to apprehend the rioters were mobbed, and the aifair at one time looked very serious; but, by the aid of influential black politicians, the matter was accommodated, and the labourers have since worked well and quietly. I am told that though in their immediate demands the blacks were in the wrong, they had much ground of complaint, owing to the practice of some of the employers, who, not being able to pay the wages earned and due, put the labourers off with checks upon stores kept on the truck principle. So here, also, there was some in justice at the bottom of the affair. But it shows that when stirred up there is always this element of ex-
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146 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOUPtED RACES.
citability and potential violence in the negro cha racter. Here, also, I understand, the women came to the front. The men might have been managed, but the women were terribly violent.
The great majority, I take it, of the negroes are not employed at regular wages, but work more or less as farmers of a sort. Not only are large farms generally unsuccessful in America, but in the South there is very great deficiency of capital to work such farms; and so it has come about that most of the land is cultivated on a sort of co-operative or Metayer-tenant system. Virginia still contains a large negro population, and I saw one instance of a large estate still successfully cultivated by hired black labour, under a proprietor well known for his kind treatment of the negroes ; but others doubt his pro fits, and say that his success is due to large private means, and that there are not many such instances. In fact, Yirginia, not being a cotton State, is some what unfortunately situated. The influx of cheap cereals from the West makes their culture in the East unprofitable; and in the culture of its old staple, tobacco, Yirginia has been surpassed by some more Western States. Except in the higher tracts in the west of the State, where excellent pastures support very fine cattle. I am afraid it is not very prosperous.
From North Carolina all the way round to Texas there is a belt of States in which cotton is to an over whelming degree the staple. That staple is certainly now produced in greater quantity than ever it was, and it cannot be said that this tract has in any degree
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 147
receded or ceased to progress, even though the want of money resulting from the war and its consequences is still very greatly felt. The cotton I speak of is the ordinary short cotton, which always has formed the great bulk of the American crop. There is a narrow belt on the seacoast, which used to produce in part the long, or Sea Island cotton, and in part rice, where there has certainly been a great falling off ; but this is, I believe, chiefly due to other causes than the emancipation of the slaves. The long-cotton plant produces but a fraction of the quantity that the ordinary cotton yields, and requires a more expensive and careful cultivation. It never could be produced at a profit except at a price several times greater than that of ordinary cotton. Xow that Egyptian cotton to a great degree supplies the wants of manufacturers, no considerable quantity of Sea Island will fetch this price in the market, and consequently its production has fallen off. So as regards the American rice, which was once in great demand. It is now so un dersold by Indian rice that it is not exported, and scarcely holds its own in America by the aid of a heavy protective duty. I did not see the sugar-lands of Louisiana, I understand that the sugar- culture a good deal fell off, but has recovered itself, aided as it is by a protective duty. It is, however, at a great disadvantage compared with the West India sugar,- the frosts often prematurely killing the American annual, while the West Indians get two or three crops from one planting. I doubt if sugar will ever be a great American staple.
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148 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
We may take, then, the ordinary cotton as the great subject of black labour in the South. For some years the produce has begun to overtop the best years before the war, and the late cotton-pick ing season, which was going on when I visited the Southern States, very far exceeded any previous crop, the season having been altogether favourable and the late autumn unusually favourable to cotton -picking. There seemed to be no doubt that the crop would considerably exceed five millions of bales ; and if it had not been for the extreme stagnation of the cotton manufacturing trade, and consequent lowness of prices, the South would be in a fair way to recovery. Let us see, then, how this great cotton crop is raised. There has been an idea prevalent that much of it is due to white labour, and there is some truth in this, but only to a limited degree. It has now been dis covered that cotton (really a very hardy plant) will grow very well on the high red soils not generally supposed to be cotton-lands, and by the aid of stimu lating fertilisers it is brought to maturity earlier than formerly ; consequently it has advanced some distance north of its former limits and a considerable distance up into the higher parts of the Southern States (along the Alleghany range), where small white farmers abound. There has also been a great increase in Texas, where, I believe, most of the farmers are white, but I did not see that country. In the Carolinas and Georgia it is certainly the case that a good deal of cotton is raised by small upland white farmers who did not raise it before ; in part by their own labour.
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 149
•and in part by the aid of the black labourers whom they employ. The portion, however, of the crop wrhich is raised exclusively by white labour is, I be lieve, very small ; the whites generally prefer other crops; cotton culture is especially suited to the blacks. There is rather a change- from large farmers to small, than from black to white labourers. Taking, then, the normal condition of the cotton districts — white ownership and v black labour — the owners still cul tivate by hired labour moderate home-farms, but the greater portion of their lands they let out to blacks on a variety of terms. First there is a mere co-operative arrangement under which the owner supplies land, seed, mule, implements, and all, and exercises a general supervision over the culture, giving the labourer a share of the crop rather than taking a share from him. The labourer's share is, moreover, subject to deduction for food supplied to him during the cultivating season. Then we have regular Metayer tenants, who themselves find the mule and implements, the crop being divided with the landlord ; and again many tenants who pay a fixed rent in cotton — so many bales — and a few (comparatively rare) who pay money rents. Some times white men rent land and cultivate with negro labourers, but most frequently the owner deals direct with the negro.
I have said that the cotton cultivation is suited to the blacks ; it is easily carried on upon a small scale — as slaves they have learned to raise it. A single mule and a light plough suffice for the operations of
150 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
a small farm. The cotton gives employment almost all the year round, especially at the season unfavour able to white labour. After preparing the ground, sowing and tending it, there is much and constant hoeing and clearing to be done. Then at picking- time the negro family turns out, and much work is done without expense which would be very expensive to do by hired labour. And after the cotton is picked many hands, especially the women, find em ployment in the ginning mills. The ginning system makes the division of shares much easier than it other wise would be. The hand-gins have completely gone out. All the cotton must of necessity be brought to the mills. After being ginned it is divided, and the account is struck.
The cotton is then produced, and things go on much better than might have been expected under the circumstances. Yet, after all, this is rather attained by make-shifts the result of necessity, than based on a settled and satisfactory system. Although after the war the proprietors and the ex- slaves came to terms to carry on the cultivation, it must not be supposed that the former slaves have generally re mained with their old masters. In some cases no doubt this is so, but it is the exception. Not only have war and revolution caused considerable migra tions, but there seems to have been a general feeling that freedom was not practically realised till the slaves had left their masters, if it were only for a time. Both parties seem to have felt that it should be so ; and it often happened that while remaining on
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 151
quite friendly terms with their old masters, and even coming to them for advice and assistance, A's former slaves would prefer to cultivate under B, and B's slaves under A. Altogether, somewhat migratory habits were set up, which the existing system of agriculture has not tended to diminish. Some men whose means admit of a liberal system, by which assistance is rendered to the cultivators, are well satisfied on the whole with the result of the present method, but more generally it is found that there is a want of fixity and stability about it. The cultiva tion is carried on in a somewhat imperfect and hand- to-mouth sort of way, and the negroes frequently change about from one estate to another. Except some short clearance leases, there is no system of leases of cleared land ; it is merely held from year to year, and there is no system of compensation for im provements under which the tenant might improve his house, his fences, and his land, and settle himself down. On the contrary, it is a common complaint that much land is allowed to run out into ravines, or is otherwise neglected and exhausted, and then aban doned by the tenant.
Xo doubt the purely commercial system of land- letting succeeds in Scotland and parts of England, where we have capitalist landlords and large capitalist farmers ; but I am more and more convinced by all I can see and learn in various countries that a small- farm system, under which the landlord does not do all the improvements, never works well without some sort of fixity of tenure. In America there is no
152 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
system of tenant-right, but land is cheap, and through out the United States (with perhaps an exception in California, on which I need not here dwell) the agricultural success of the country is due to small farmers owning their own land. I have, then, sought with very special interest to ascertain whether the black small farmers of the Southern States have to any considerable extent purchased their farms, or are in the way of doing so.
I freely admit it may well be that if, in the first instance, there had been confiscation of the lands of the whites and every enfranchised black had been given, what they are said to have expected, twenty- five acres and a mule, and left to make the most of it, without white assistance or guidance, the result might perhaps have been disastrous. The people might pos sibly have relapsed into semi-barbarism and squatted down, content to raise a low subsistence from the land. That might or might not have been so. But there certainly is not the least fear that anything of the kind could now result from the acquisition of land by the negroes by any fair methods. They have become accustomed to independent labour and to raising valuable staples for the market. So far from neglecting these latter in order to raise a low and lazy diet, the common accusation against them now is that they cultivate the staples, which bring money, too much, to the exclusion of food -supply. I have heard much said of the folly of negro farmers in buying Western corn and bacon instead of raising these things. This is partly the consequence of the system
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 153
of cotton-rents, which makes a large cotton cultivation obligatory; but also, I dare say, these people know by experience what pays them best. At any rate it is clear that they are not now inclined to lapse into a low style of living; their fault and difficulty is just in the opposite direction. Unfortunately they live too freely and generously, and do not save money to buy land, and make themselves independent, as they might.
This is the general rule, I fear, but not the universal practice. Throughout the Southern States there are already a good many negroes (though very few compared to the whole number) who cultivate land of their own, and there are very many more who own houses and small patches, especially in the vicinity of towns, where they congregated too much at first, and where for a time they obtained wages which enabled them to set up house. It is generally said that most of the negroes who were superior servants on the plantations, and above the ordinary level in the days of slavery, have now acquired land. Though the old proprietors sometimes cling to their land when their means do not justify their holding it, and in some places there is a feeling against letting the land pass into the hands of blacks, there is so much land for sale that those who save money need have no difficulty in buying it.
The statistics which most of the States are now beginning to attempt are very imperfect and unreliable, and it is difficult to ascertain how much agricultural land is now owned by blacks who have acquired it
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since emancipation, and to what extent they are now acquiring land. Even when there are any sort of figures they include all the property of coloured people, and the totals are swelled by the property of those free before the war ; for instance, of the French mulatto Creoles, who are, I believe, found to some extent in Charleston and Savannah, as well as in New Orleans. But from personal experience and inquiries I ascertained that farms owned by emanci pated blacks are certainly found here and there scat tered about the country. The ice has been broken, the example set.
Georgia, which was not long under a black Legis lature, but which early adopted liberal principles of white rule, has been held out, in a paragraph which went the round of the papers, as in advance of other States in respect of negro property ; but on examining the latest official papers I think they somewhat de tract from the grounds of this reputation. Most of the property attributed to coloured people consists of household furniture, animals, agricultural tools, &c. They have something more than 1^ million dollars worth of land out of about 86 millions worth in the State. But some of the largest quantities are in counties where there are fewest negroes, and can hardly be ordinary small farms. I fear, too, from all I can learn, that, in these days of cheap cotton, the negro- owned lands are not now much increasing. Georgia has done nothing special to facilitate the acquisition of land by the negroes, and what I could gather from personal inquiries rather led me to think
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 155
that in this respect they were less forward there than in the Carolinas.
In South Carolina more has been done for them, and I think they have done more for themselves than in most States. During ' carpet-bag ' rule the State Government established a commission to buy estates as they came into the market and settle freedmen upon them on fair terms of payment, on exactly the plan recomnlended by the last Parliamentary com mittee on the Irish land ; and the plan promised success if it had not been interrupted by accusations of fraud and embezzlement against those charged with the management, and the fall of the Carpet-bag Government. A more important and permanent ex periment was made on the lands sold by the United States Government for taxes, on the Coast of South Carolina. These lands were not given to the negroes, but were cut up into ten and twenty acre lots, and offered to them for purchase on reasonable terms. They were taken up by blacks, who by paying for them showed both their ability to help themselves and their appreciation of the opportunity offered to them. I visited these tracts, and was very greatly interested in the independent and self-supporting rural com munities which I there found. They were under considerable disadvantages. To begin with, most of them were those low -country negroes who have been less than the others civilised by contact with the white man. Then the lands on which they are settled are those which have been more and more falling into decadence owing to the decline in long
156 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
cotton and rice ; so much so that the white proprietors of large portions of such lands have suffered them to go out of cultivation, or sold them for a song. Xo other money -fetching staple has yet been found for these lands, and they are not suitable for short cotton. Hence the negroes have carried on the long- cotton culture at a very great disadvantage. On the other hand, they had this considerable advantage, that the able-bodied men can do much to make the two ends meet by occasional labour at the ports, and especially on the great phosphate beds, which have become a large source of industry and wealth to that part of the country. The fact that the men readily avail them selves of the opportunity of hard and remunerative work and make most admirable labourers at it — as good, I am told, as any in the world — is of itself a practical answer to any suggestion that they are unwilling to work. I have heard it suggested that negroes are somewhat unreliable workmen for a con tinuance, and apt to throw up work and go off when they have made a little money and want to attend a religious camp-meeting or something of that kind ; but there is no question that for a certain time no workman can be more steady and effective. At seasons when no very hard field-work is necessary these men leave the women and children to hoe and look after the crops, while they earn wages by diving for and cleaning the phosphates. It has probably been an advantage to them that their land has not been such as to enable them to live without working hard, men and women too.
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They have had, too, the advantage of aid from friendly Northern and other whites, who do for them those things which they cannot do for themselves. Some very excellent Northern dealers gin and buy their cotton, and white storekeepers have introduced among them a wholesome system of ready-money payment. They owe very much to the devoted Northern and English ladies who have come among them to educate their children. It is somewhat difficult to reconcile conflicting statements. While many or most people attribute to the negro race some very serious social and other faults, those who have the best opportunity of knowing these land- owning negroes represent them as possessed of every virtue • not only those ordinarily conceded to the race, but those usually denied — thrift, carefulness, and family affection. They are said to save in order to buy farms for their sons, and to be altogether a growing and progressive community, unremunerative prices notwithstanding. Perhaps some allowance must be made for a kindly enthusiasm ; but also I am con vinced that these people, more happily and inde pendently-placed and educated to that craving for land which of all things leads to thrift, really are much superior to the average of the negro race. I could myself see that their homes are better, and that they have many horses and light carts and other evidences of comfort and well-doing.
I visited some of these people with a coloured Congress-man to wThom they much look, and was struck by the eager interest with which they (especially
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the women) questioned him about an attack on the title to the lands, which has a good deal disturbed them. It has been attempted or threatened to ques tion in the Courts the legality of the sales by United States authority, under which the land came into the hands of the blacks. No doubt it seemed at the time that by these forced sales at a cheap rate the lands were sadly sacrificed ; and, the owners being in re bellious contumacy, the proceeds, such as they were, came into the United States Treasury. But, in truth, this particular class of land has fallen to so low a value, that if the sale had taken place now, it would perhaps have scarcely realised more than it did when sold after the war. If the money in the Treasury were restored to the old owners, justice tempered with mercy would be done without disturbance.
Many proprietors in South Carolina and elsewhere, far from thinking, as some of our colonists seem to think, that the best way to make sure of hired labour is to debar the labouring population from any in dependent place on the land, have followed a much wiser course, and encourage by all means in their power the settlement of the negroes on small holdings owned by themselves. They have rightly deemed that this is the best way to fix a permanent popula tion from which they can draw labour when needed. They have therefore laid out parts of their lands in small lots, and offered facilities to negroes willing to purchase. Once the blacks are settled down in this way, it is not difficult to maintain friendly relations with them. They are still a good deal dependent on
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 159
the proprietor of the estate for liberty to graze their cattle in the woods, and other little aids. They are a good-natured, easily-managed race, and they are always ready to accept a good spell of work, for a time at least. Proprietors so situated get plenty of labour when they want it on the lands they cultivate them selves, and for any improvements and operations that they may undertake.
On the whole I am very agreeably surprised to find the position of the emancipated blacks so good, and the industrial relations between them and the whites so little strained and difficult. They are, as a rule, good labourers and very tolerable cultivators. A gentleman who has had much experience of them, and who now labours among them in one of the most negro parts of Virginia, in describing their character said that one might take about one-third of them to be really good and progressive ; another third to be so far well-inclined and well-doing that, with good management and judicious treatment, they may be made good ; and the remaining third to be bad. But I am inclined to think, from what I saw and learned elsewhere, that this description is more correct of a particular tract, in which many of the best and the worst of the race congregated during the war, than of the country generally ; and that in reality both the good, thrifty men who have shown a capacity for in dependence, and the bad, who prefer idleness and thieving to work, are far less than this saying im plies, the great majority being in the second category, who so far do well that under favourable circumstances
160 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
they will settle down into an excellent peasantry. It seemed to me that the present situation gives very good ground of hope, and I am sanguine of a favour able issue. The position of the cultivators is such that they may well, with a little kindly aid, become independent farmers ; and any man inclined to work honestly and well can earn sufficiently good wages.
All that is now wanted to make the negro a fixed and conservative element in American society is to give him encouragement to, and facilities for, making- himself, by his own exertions, a small landowner ; to do, in fact, for him what we have sought to do for the Irish farmer. Land in America is so much cheaper and more abundant, that it would be infinitely easier to effect the same object there. I would by no means seek to withdraw the whole population from hired labour ; on the contrary, the negro in many respects is so much at his best in that function, that I should look to a large class of labourers remaining ; but 1 am at the same time confident that it would be a very great benefit and stability to the country if a large number should acquire by thrift an independent position as landowning American citizens.
Supposing things to settle down peaceably, as I hope they may, I go so far as to say that, though nothing is perfect in this world, the American blacks are in a fair way of becoming a comfortable, well-to-do population to a degree found in very few countries ; a condition which may compare very favourably not only with the Indian ryot, the Russian serf, or the Irish tenant-farmer, but also with the Dorsetshire
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 161
labourer. I doubt whether, on the whole, a better labouring population, more suited to the climate and country in which they find themselves, is anywhere to be found. The whites certainly cannot do without them ; already the great drawback to the Southern States is the want of that great influx of foreign po pulation which causes the North and West to progress in a geometrical ratio. Evidently their true policy is to make the most of the excellent population which they have, and they quite see it. The blacks, again, certainly cannot do without the whites ; their own race is not sufficiently advanced to fulfil the functions now in the hands of the whites.
Newly-educated classes, among races hitherto kept down, are apt to over-estimate their own acquirements and powers ; that is the tendency of the educated Hindoos of Calcutta and Bombay, and the same ten dency shows itself among the educated mulattos and blacks in America. It is scarcely surprising that they should chafe against the social ostracism of all who have dark blood in their veins, and should long for a Utopia in which educated coloured men own no superior ;- but I think they are entirely wrong in preaching as they now do to their countrymen the advantages of emigration to Liberia — which, however, they do not themselves practise. Probably there could be no more notable example of the want of practical ability in these men, than their management of the last exodus from Charleston to Liberia. The whole thing was a purely coloured movement, and the management was in coloured hands. It seems to
M
162 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
have been terribly mismanaged ; and the result was that, after much loss and suffering on the voyage, some of the best of the coloured people who had accumulated money enough to set them up most comfortably in farms of their own in America, were drained of everything they possessed for the expenses of the voyage, and landed in a country where they could earn as labourers about half what they could in their native America, the cost of living being also infinitely dearer. My advice would certainly be — to the blacks in America, ' Stay at home, and make the best of an excellent situation,' — to the whites, ' Do all you can to keep these people, conciliate them, and make the most of them.' I am confident that this may and will be done, if only political diffi culties and unsettlements do not mar the prospect, and in this view I must now look at the political situation.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE SOUTH.
The population of the principal Southern States may be roughly stated to be about half black and half white; that is, putting aside Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and such intermediate States. Of the first- mentioned States the blacks are in a considerable majority in South Carolina and one or two more ; in the others the whites are somewhat more numerous. Before the war the blacks were almost all slaves. I think the idea prevalent in Europe was that the
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Southern whites were composed of an aristocracy of slave- owning gentlemen, refined and polished, with their dependent slave-drivers, and a large number of very inferior whites, known as ' mean whites,' ' white trash,' and so on, who were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. It seems to me that this view is not justified. The population was very much divided geographically; there was the great black belt on the lower lands, where a few whites ruled over a large slave population ; and there was a broad upper belt in the hilly country, where the great bulk of the population was white, mostly small farmers owning their land. No doubt education was much more backward in the South than in the North, and the people were probably less pushing ; but I have been very favourably impressed by these Southern whites, many of whom are of Scotch- Irish (i.e., Northern Presbyterian Irish) or Highland Scotch blood ; they seemed to be a handsome, steady, industrious people; and if somewhat primitive in their ways, and humble in the character of their houses and belongings, they are curiously self- supporting and independent of the outer world ; they raise their own food, and to this day their wives weave their clothes from their own wool and cotton ; and, if not rich, they have few wants. There is, no doubt, in all these Southern States a large intermediate zone in which white and black are much intermixed ; but even there they are a good deal aggregated in patchwork fashion, the general rule apparently being that the rich slave owners have occupied the best lands, and the poorer
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independent whites the poorer lands, especially much of what are called 'pine barrens/ though they are not so barren after all. A notable population in this latter country is the settlement of Scotch Highlanders who came over after ' the '45,' Flora Macdonald being one of them. I am told that not only do they speak Gaelic to this day, but the few black slaves they had among them spoke Gaelic too. In truth, then, I gather that the population of very inferior whites without property never was very large. There were very many without slave property, but most had more or less land. The chief justification for attri buting lowness and meanness to the poorer whites seems to be, that some of the inferior central tracts are occupied by a set of people said to be descended from the convicts sent out in former days, and to this day very unthrifty. They are called Sandhillers in South Carolina, and really do seem to be an inferior people.
The changes favouring small farmers have tended to improve on the whole the condition of those Southern whites who have any sort of property, the losses of the war and the bad times notwithstanding ; but mere labourers, probably, feel the competition of free black labour more than formerly. I saw at places black and white labourers working together at the same work, and on the same wages, in a way which, to our Indian ideas of the dignity of the white race, is somewhat distressing. But I did not detect anything specially bad or degraded about these whites; and in the Southern cotton mills (very prosperous
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and growing establishments), where the whites have a monopoly of the employment, they are very good workers, the women especially being, apparently, as good as anywhere — the men not so good.
The real weakness of the Southern party during the war was neither any want of gallantry on the part of the slave- owning classes, nor any active disaffection on the part of the blacks, but the entire want of sympathy for and zeal in the war on the part of the majority of the white population owning no slaves, who considered it a slave-owners' war for the maintenance of slavery. It is surprising to find how many, even of the upper classes, say that they were against secession and war, and only ' went with their State ' when war was inevitable ; but having gone into it, the whole of that class, and all connected with them — professional men, doctors, lawyers, and everyone else — went into it with a will, and sus tained losses such as, perhaps, no civilised people ever bore before. So long as they were successful there was little active opposition by the poorer whites'; but the conscription and other burdens to support a slave owners' war became very severe, the whites not in terested in that cause became recalcitrant, some went into active opposition ; and at last it was more deser tion and disunion than anything else that brought about the final overthrow.
After the war the results of the victory were summed up in the three famous amendments to the Constitution known as the 13th, 14th, and 15th, com prising the abolition of slavery, equal privileges for
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all citizens, and the ' right of all citizens to vote not to be denied or abridged in any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.' The great struggle was over this last, or 15th amendment, and it was only forced on the Southern States by extreme compulsion. That is, in fact, still the bone of contention. At the first election under the new Constitution many of the whites were still under political disabilities on account of rebellion, and in several States the leaders of the lately rebellious whites deliberately counselled abstinence from poli tical affairs as a sort of protest. Consequently, in most places, the black vote, under the guidance of the Northern politicians known as Carpet-baggers, carried the day entirely. The result was that a very large number of ignorant negroes were sent to the State Legislatures ; and many of the Carpet-baggers being corrupt adventurers, there was much corruption and scandal. This has brought about a union among the Southern whites, for those who were unwilling to fight for slavery are by no means willing to be ruled by the blacks, or even very freely to admit their equality ; and so it has happened that parties in the South are ranged into black and white much more than ever they were before.
In most States the white leaders soon came to their senses, and perceived, what might have been seen from the first, that a, population which had half the numbers, and all the property, influence, and education, must prevail over the black half, possessed of none of these advantages, and in many respects
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dependent on the propertied classes. They therefore very early returned to the electoral charge, and by no very unfair means regained possession of most of the State Governments and the control of the State Legislatures. Fortunately, taught by adversity, the white leaders so restored to power took a reasonable and moderate course, honestly accepting the situation and the great constitutional amendments. In these States it is a great gain that, in order to introduce certain amendments of a moderate character, the people, under white leadership, have recently passed revised editions of their State constitutions (embody ing the war amendments, which no one can gainsay as not being real and voluntary ; whereas the first con stitutions imposed after the war were certainly the work of very one-sided conventions, acting under the protection of United States bayonets. Besides the management of their own States, the white party have been more and more gaining the great majority of the Southern seats in the United States Congress, and things have been more and more tending to that democratic ' Solid South ' of which we have lately heard so- much. In some of the States this was in evitable, and I doubt if it can be said that in most cases any very unfair means have been used to great excess. When I left the States several of the recent elections were still disputed ; but I believe there is no doubt that in Virginia and North Carolina two or three Republican members have been returned for the districts in which the black vote is in a very overwhelming majority ; and that is probably as
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much as could be expected under the circumstances. In Georgia no Republican Congressmen were elected ; but several ' independent ' Democrats have been re turned under circumstances which tend much to ensure fair dealing towards the blacks, inasmuch as, the whites being divided, the black vote has been important. The Independents justify their separa tion from the regulars of their party by denouncing the evils and jobbery of the ' caucus ' system ; and they go on to say that it was a sort of bargain with the blacks that if they quietly yielded the reins of power to the whites, they should be fairly treated, and their right to vote should be honestly recognised; whereas if the whole thing is settled in white caucus, from which the blacks are excluded, they are practi cally disfranchised.
As regards, then, what I may call the moderate States, I see no ground for taking a gloomy view of the situation. Perhaps, as a foreigner writing on the other side of the Atlantic, I may be permitted to say (what might, if I were nearer, seem presumptuous) that the men who, in these States, as governors now wield the large powers entrusted to the executive in America, seemed to be very able, sound, moderate men, from whose judgment and discretion I should expect much benefit. My only doubt is as regards one constitutional amendment which most of these States have adopted. I do not seriously quarrel with that which, as with us, deprives of the franchise those who have not paid their taxes. But it must be fairly worked. There is generally a direct poll-tax, jus-
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 169
tified by its application to popular education, of which the masses are so much in need ; and there is a question of a tax on dogs, the slaves of the ex -slaves. If any laxity is shown in the collection of taxes from poor and ignorant people about election -time, or the date of payment is put near election-day, very many may be disfranchised, who must soon pay the money nevertheless. The provision in the new Constitution which I most fear is that which permanently dis franchises all who are convicted of crime, unless the governor remits the sentence. In principle exception can hardly be taken to this ; but I have some doubt whether, in the matter of justice, the negroes are quite secure of fair play; and it is somewhat danger ous if a nearly balanced constituency may be affected by a rigorous administration of the criminal laws. It is certain that the prison populations are composed of blacks in a proportion greater than the general population to an overwhelming degree. Whatever the degree of their criminality, there is a disposition to cure it by a strictness in penal management which requires watching, seeing how much the administra tion of justice is now in the hands of the whites. The magistrates and judges are either elected or nominated by the white rulers. English law is the basis of most American institutions, and the English law regulating the selection of juries has always been very lax. I found that in the Southern States there is little regard to the principle of selecting de medietate linguce in cases between black and white. Very few blacks are admitted on juries ; in Virginia, I believe, none at all.
170 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
Then, as regards 'punishment, flogging is very freely used in Virginia ; but further South the system of chain-gangs^ — i.e., extra-mural labour — is universal. The convicts are not only employed on public works, railways, and the like, but are very usually let out to private speculators, and they are made a source 'of profit instead of an expense. It comes simply to this, that the punishment for crime is reduction to the old state of slavery in a form not very widely differing from the old form. I ani told that the people most often convicted and sent to the chain-gang are the undisciplined young negroes who have grown up since the days of slavery. I have even heard it said by reliable men that they employ no man so readily as one who has come out of the chain-gang, because he has there learnt discipline.
In nothing have I encountered greater discre pancies of statement than in regard to the criminality of negroes. Many people represent them as most inveterate thieves, whom nothing but severity will reform. Others say they have lived among them for years and never had occasion to lock a door ; and of this last I have had personal experience. I tried very hard to sift the truth, and I believe it to be this. The negro is not much given to violent, and very little to what I may call vicious, crime. In this respect he really stands above most other races. But he has brought from slavery times a sort of childish want of respect for property in certain things. It is hardly deemed a theft, but merely a misconduct, when a child is caught taking a spoonful of jam. A slave
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 171
used, it is said, to reason thus: 'I am my master's, so is this chicken. If I catch and eat the chicken I take nothing from my master.' These things depended much on individual management. So it is now ; in well-managed establishments and on well-adminis tered estates things go on smoothly enough, but in many places there is a good deal of disposition to petty picking and stealing, which needs to be checked by moderate measures. I gather, however, that some things thought very venial in slave times are now severely dealt with. On the whole I am inclined to think that there is some foundation for the assertion sometimes put forward by friends of the blacks, that a much harder justice is dealt to one class than to another ; that for all the outrages and murders committed by the whites in the troubled years after the war very little condign punishment has been ex ecuted, while justice and something more is done on the blacks. One thing did astonish me during my tour, and that is, to find how much k Judge Lynch ' survives, especially when the accused are blacks. I imagined he was a thing of the past, but I found that several lynching cases of atrocity occurred before I had been many weeks in the States ; that is, hanging by popular movement without the intervention of judge and jury. This is generally the case when there is any alleged assault of any kind by a black on a white woman. The blacks are popularly said to be prone to that kind of crime ; with what justice I cannot say. An experienced judge told me he had known many accused and many hanged, but none convicted
172 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
•on trial. The mere suggestion that a black man would like to do something of the kind if he could seems enough to hang him.
Hitherto I have principally spoken of those States which I have called i moderate/ but there are two or three others where moderate counsels have not pre vailed, and where the difficulties are much greater. Happily they are but a small minority. My personal inquiries were limited to South Carolina ; but, known as it is as the ' Petrel State J there is probably no more typical instance of the difficulties of reconstruction. So I shall confine myself to stating the case as I have gathered it in connection with that State.
Partly owing to the greater numerical preponde rance of the blacks, and partly to the less disposition of the whites to accept measures of moderation and compromise, the black predominance in the Legisla ture and the Carpet-bag rule were carried further and lasted much longer in South Carolina than in the surrounding States. The great majority of the legislators were blacks ; and though some of them were fair representative men, with some education, no doubt most of them were absurdly ignorant and out of place, and there was some colour for the nickname of ' the Monkey House,' which their enemies applied to the Assembly. They, however, indulged in no violent class-legislation, but were very completely guided by the white men who had obtained the government — principally Northern Carpet-baggers. Whatever violence and disturbance there was (and there was a good deal), was not on the part of the
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 173
black majority, but of the white minority, who, in stead of trying constitutional methods to regain power, preferred Ku Klux organisations and such violent methods, committing many murders and creating much terror. The strong arm of the United States authority was, however, used to aid in putting down the Ku Klux, and by the time the elections of 1876 approached the whites had begun to see that with two -fifths of the population and all the property, and much physical and moral force, it was easier to win elections than to continue the contest by uncon stitutional means. Accordingly, in 1876 the whites got the best of it in the elections for the State Le gislature, though three black men were still sent to Congress. As regards the very important question of the election of State Governor, and the conse quent control of the Executive, the election was dis puted between Chamberlain, the former Carpet-bag Governor, and Wade Hampton, the very popular Democrat, who was put up on moderate and com promise principles, and from whose moderation and conciliation much was expected. As we know in regard to a more important election and subordinate issues arising out of it, there is an extreme difficulty in deciding disputes of this kind in the United States. On this occasion no mode of settlement was arrived at, and in the beginning of 1877 two rival govern ments were for months actually face to face, each claiming to exercise the executive function. That the question was not settled by an appeal to arms was due partly to a certain forbearance, and partly to the
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presence of United States troops ; but these latter were powerless to settle the matter, and a good deal of disturbance took place under their noses which they could not put a stop to. It was at this time that President Hayes decided to withdraw the garrisons which had hitherto been posted in the Southern States, and to give the moderate Southern politicians, who had everywhere come to the front, a fair chance of carrying out in good faith the constitu tional amendments, and bringing about a moral and political instead of a mere military restoration of the Union. He was probably well aware that the result must be to restore the Southern Democrats to power, and deliberately preferred to let South Carolina pass under the government of the moderate Wade Hamp ton, rather than abet a continuance of the struggle. Certainly that was the immediate effect of the with drawal of the troops. I believe the question never was formally decided at all ; but as soon as the United States troops went, the Democrats being evidently the strongest physically, the other party collapsed, and Wade Hampton quietly assumed the government without further dispute.
It is marvellous, under the circumstances, that there has been so little of armed collision in the Southern States ; for, after all, the so-called United States garrisons were mere detachments at a few places, carrying with them the moral power of the United States Government, but nothing more. Very many of the blacks were armed and taught to fight during the war. There has been no attempt at any
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 175
general disarmament of the Southern States ; on the contrary, the Constitution insures to all citizens the right to possess arms, and all are entitled to serve, if they will, in the National Militia of each State. At one time arms were very freely distributed, and very large numbers of the blacks belonged to the popular military force which it sought to establish under the name of ' National Guards ; ' but the regiments so formed were very ragged and irregular indeed, and on the ground (fairly enough established) of total inefficiency their arms were taken from them, and the State- armed Militia was confined to the companies which came up to a moderate standard of efficiency — a practice consonant enough with that of other States of the Union. The negroes have a good deal of military zeal, and in many of the larger towns they have very creditable Volunteer Militia companies ; sometimes, I am told, a good deal better drilled and more efficient than the white companies ; but they are required to provide their own uniforms and incur expenses which the rural negroes cannot afford. And so it happens that the black Militia are, on the whole, small in number compared with the whites. Moreover, hi some States — and South Carolina is one of them — the whites have rifle clubs, outside and beyond the recognised and inspected Militia, which constitute, in fact, a sort of armed political organisa tion. Between Militia and rifle clubs and volunteer artillery they can always make a show of armed force, and indulge in an amount of cannon-firing and so on which is not encouraging to opponents of weak nerves.
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For much that was done in troubled times, and much that has been done since (to which I shall come presently), the excuse is, that the Carpet-bag rule was so utterly detestable, wicked, and impossible that it was an absolute necessity to get rid of it by fair means or foul. I have, then, sought to learn what were the terrible things suffered under this rule. There seems to be a general agreement that very great abuses did exist under it, and before I went South I certainly expected to find that the Southern States had been for a time a sort of Pandemonium in which a white man could hardly live. Yet it certainly was not so. I have said that the Kepublican State Go vernments made no attack on the rights of pro perty, and I have been able to discuss the whole labour and land question without having occasion to allude to political events as a very disturbing influ ence. It is in truth marvellous how well the parties to industrial questions were able to settle them while there was so great political unsettlement. When I went to South Carolina I thought that there at least I must find great social disturbances ; and in South Carolina I went to the county of Beaufort, the blackest part of the State in point of population, and that in which black rule has been most complete and has lasted longest. It has the reputation of being a sort of black paradise, and, per contra, I rather expected a sort of white hell. There I thought I should see a rough Liberia, where the blacks ruled roughshod over the whites. To my great surprise I found exactly the contrary. At no place that I have seen are the
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relations of the two races better and more peaceable. It is true that many of the whites have suffered very greatly from the war, and from the tax -sales by United States authority to which I have before alluded, and I am afraid that there are numerous cases of poverty and sad reverse of fortune among them ; but that comes of the war which is past. Those whose fortunes or professions have in any degree survived have nothing serious to complain of. The town of Beaufort is a favourite summer resort for white families from the interior. All the best houses are in the occupation of the whites — almost all the trades, professions, and leading occupations. White girls go about as freely and pleasantly as if no black had ever been in power. Here the blacks still control the elections and send their representatives to the State Assembly ; but though they elect to the county and municipal offices they by no means elect blacks only. Many whites hold office, and I heard no complaint of colour difficulties in the local administration. The country about is partly the land on which black proprietor- farmers have been settled, with white traders, teachers, &c., in the suc cessful manner which I have already described; partly similar lands of white proprietors who let them out and manage amicably with a black tenantry; partly rice plantations, which, on account of the works of protection and irrigation required, are worked in large farms by hired labour ; partly the land and water in which the phosphates before al luded to are found ; partly forest and sandhills ; but
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whatever the tenures and circumstances, I say em phatically that nowhere are the relations between blacks and whites better, and nowhere does a tra veller see fewer signs that political difficulties have been fatal to settlement.
t Well, then,' I have gone on to ask, ' did the black Legislatures make bad laws ? ' My informants could not say that they did. In truth, though many of the Carpet-baggers were in some sense the scum of the Northern armies, the leading spirits among them seem to have been men of decided education and ability, and the work done under their direction, and a good deal adapted from Northern models, is not at all below the average of American State legislation. What, then, is the practical evil of which complaint is made? The answer is summed up in the one word ' corruption.' It is alleged that under Carpet bag rule the most monstrous and inconceivable corruption was all but universal, and that not only were the available public funds made away with, but the States were burdened with terrible debts by those who pretended to represent them, so as to have brought them to the brink of insolvency. I believe there can be no doubt at all that a great deal of corruption did prevail — much more than the ordinary measure of American corruption ; it was inevitable that it should be so under the circumstances, but to what degree it was so, it is very difficult to tell. The fact is there is no denying that corruption does to some degree exist in American politics, and is not confined to the South. If we are to believe the
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHEBN STATES. 179
common language of Americans themselves, and have regard to their opinions of the motives and character of 'politicians,' their every-day accusations, and the staple of their caricatures and farces, this corruption must be very widespread indeed. On the other hand, I am inclined to suppose that such ac cusations are the ordinary form of throwing dirt at any man who is in disgrace, and that while some are true a good many are not well-founded. Of course I am not qualified to speak with any confidence, but the general impression I have brought away is, that, as the leading men in America seem to be constantly oscillating between high political office and the management of railways, life insurance companies, and other joint-stock undertakings, many of them have carried into politics what I may call joint- stock morals, and are no better and no worse than our own directors. All the Carpet-bag Governors are, as a matter of course, accused of the grossest personal corruption ; and as soon as they fall from power it is almost a necessity that they should fly from criminal prosecutions instituted in the local courts under circumstances which give little security for a fair trial. Several Democrats of high position in Georgia have assured me they believe that the Northern gentleman of good antecedents, who was Governor there, was innocent of the things of which he was accused; in fact, I believe he came back, stood his trial, and was acquitted. In South Carolina I was given the report of the Committee of Investigation disclosing terrible things, and said to be most
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impartial and conclusive. The general result was to leave on one's mind the belief that undoubtedly a very great deal of pilfering and corruption had gone on, but the tone of the report was far too much that of an indictment, rather than of a judgment, to satisfy me that it could be safely accepted in block. The Governor of Massachusetts has refused to render up the ex-Governor, who asserts his innocence and his readiness to stand his trial if a fair trial be assured. As regards the State debts, I believe those shown to be fraudulent and unjustifiable have been repudiated long ago ; and the Southern States having also had the advantage of writing off all debts incurred during the war, I understand that by far the greater portion of their existing debts were incurred before the war. The debts which Virginia and North Carolina find it necessary to ' adjust ' were, I am told, very largely incurred for somewhat reckless subventions to railways and other public works. But the railways at any rate exist, and are the making of the country. In South Carolina the whole debt is not large — only, I think, about one and a half millions sterling, all told.
On the whole, then, I am inclined to believe that the period of Carpet-bag rule was rather a scandal than a very permanent injury. The black men used their victory with moderation, although the women were sometimes dangerous, and there was more pilfering than plunder on a scale permanently to cripple the State.
To return to the history of South Carolina.
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After the withdrawal of the United States troops the Carpet-baggers were entirely routed and put to flight, and Wade Hampton assumed the undisputed govern ment. He has certainly had much success. His party claim (I believe with justice) that he has done much to restore the finances, promote education, and protect blacks and whites in the exercise of peaceful callings. As regards political matters, his policy amounts, I think, to this ; — it is in effect said to the blacks : l If you will accept the present regime, follow us, and vote Democratic ; we will receive you, cherish you, and give you a reasonable share of representa tion, local office, &c. ; but there shall be nothing for those who persist in voting Republican.' Some of them accept these terms, but to vote Democratic is the one thing which the great majority will not do. They may be on excellent terms with white men with whom they have relations, will follow them and be guided by them in everything else, but they have sufficient independence to hold out on that point of voting, even when they have lost their white leaders and are quite left to themselves. They know that they owe their freedom to the Republicans, and it is to them a sort of religion to vote Republican. I think it was in Georgia (where they have not held out so stoutly) that, talking to a small black farmer, an ex- slave, as to the situation, I asked him about the black vote. ' Well,' he said, ' some wote straight, and some don't ; some is 'suaded and some is paid, but I wote according to my principles, and my prin ciples is Republican.' In South Carolina that is the
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view of the great body of the blacks, as the Democrats fully admit. Stories are told of personal dependants of the present Governor who owe everything to him and would do anything else in the world for him, but who will yet openly vote against him. Such, then, was the state of things when the elections of No vember 1878 came on.
It seemed to be well known beforehand that the Democrats were determined to win everything in the South. It was said to be a necessity finally to emancipate all the States from the scandal of black and Carpet-bag rule, and so far one could not but sympathise with the feeling ; but so much had been already achieved, and there was not the least risk of a reaction. On the contrary, the power of the native whites was thoroughly re-established. In South Carolina Wade Hampton's re-election was not opposed, and there was no question whatever that by moderate means the Democrats could retain a very decided majority in the State Legislature. But they were not content with this ; they aimed at an absolute possession of everything, leaving no representation to their opponents at all, and especially at a ' solid South,' in the United States Congress. ' They are determined to win,' I was told. ' They will get the votes by fair means, if they can; and if not I am sorry to say they will steal 'em.' And that is just what was done in South Carolina.
To understand what took place we must look at the election law prevailing in the United States. It seems to me that if the law had been designed to
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facilitate fraud, make detection difficult, and render the settlement of disputed elections impossible, it could not have been more skilfully devised. There is something to be said for open voting and something for a well-managed ballot, but the pretended ballot of the United States seems to combine all the evils of both systems. It may be just possible for an indepen dent man connected with no party, who manages the thing skilfully, to conceal his vote ; but if he con sents to make it known, there can be, and in practice there is, no secrecy whatever. There are no official ballot-papers, numbered and checked, so as to be afterwards traced, as with us ; every man may deposit in the box any ballot-paper he chooses, written or printed in whatever form he chooses. In practice voters use papers in a particular form supplied by their own party, so that there can be no mistake which way they vote. There being no means of identifying the papers so cast, everything depends on the honesty and fair dealing of those who have the official management of the polls. In all things the executive Government has much greater power in America than with us, and the party which has the executive power has also the control of the ballot- boxes. They appoint returning boards and election managers at each polling-place, who, when party spirit runs high, are in the interest of the dominant majority. This was carried to an excess in South Carolina during the recent elections. The United States officers are entitled to take certain precautions to see that the United States election law is fairly
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carried out, but they could only be present at the principal places, and sent very subordinate agents to the other polling-places, where they were hustled and treated with no respect whatever. Under these con ditions the elections were held in South Carolina.
There is a remarkable frankness and openness in speaking of the way in which things were managed, and I believe I violate no confidences, because there was no whispering or confidence about it. There was not a very great amount of violence or intimi dation. Some Republican meetings were violently interfered with before the election, and on the day of the election there was at some places a certain amount of galloping about, firing guns, and such-like demonstration by men in red shirts ; but any intimi dation used was rather moral than physical. In all districts where the parties in any degree approach equality perhaps there would be no very strong grounds for disputing the victory of the Democrats. It is in the lower districts, where the Republicans are admittedly in an immense majority, that great De mocratic majorities were obtained by the simple pro cess of what is called l stuffing the ballot-boxes.' For this purpose the Democrats used ballot-papers of the thinnest possible tissue-paper, such that a number of them can be packed inside of one larger paper and shaken out as they are dropped into the box. These papers were freely handed about ; they were shown to me, and I brought away specimens of them. I never heard a suggestion that these extraordinary little gossamer-web things were designed for any
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other purpose than that of fraud. Of course the result of such a system was that there were many more ballot-papers in the box than voters. At one place in the Charleston district, where not above one thousand persons voted, there were found, I believe, three thousand five hundred papers in the box. In such case the practice (whether justified by law or not, I know not) is that the election managers blind fold a man, who draws out and destroys the number of papers in excess of the voters. Of course he takes care to draw out the thick papers of the opposite party, and to leave in the thin papers of his own party ; so when the process is completed the Demo crats are found to be in a great majority, and the return is so made by the returning board. There are some other grounds of complaint. In some of the black districts the number of polling-places has been so reduced that it is impossible for all who wish to poll to do so in the time allowed. At one or two places the ballot-boxes were stolen and carried off. At one place of which I have personal knowledge the appointed election managers simply kept out of the way, and "had no poll at all. Hundreds of blacks who came to vote were told they must go elsewhere, when it was too late to do so. In short, I have no hesitation in saying, as matter within my own know ledge, that, if these elections had taken place in England, there were irregularities which must have vitiated them before an election judge a hundred times over.
The result of these elections was that, except in
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the single county of Beaufort, not one Republican or Independent was returned to the State Legislature ; nor, I believe, was a single office-bearer of those persuasions elected. The dominant party took every thing, and the Republican members of Congress were all ejected. South Carolina returns a solid Demo cratic representation to the next Congress.
I have throughout, on the spot, as I do now, ex pressed the opinion that there is no excuse whatever for the lengths to which the triumph of the Demo crats has been pushed. Granting that they were fairly justified in vigorous measures to give them the control of the Government and Legislature, and that they were in a position thus to obtain a good working majority, there could be no reason for unfairly de priving their opponents of a certain representation. It was bad policy, too, for the things that have been done have roused the indignation of the North, and it is believed that the somewhat unexpected Republi can successes in the North were in great degree due to the feeling excited by unfair attempts to make a solid South. Perhaps, for the time, it may not be a matter of the very first importance whether the Democrats have only a good majority in the Southern State Legislatures, or almost the whole representa tion ; but in the present state of parties in Congress two or three sea£s, or say, including Louisiana and Florida, half a dozen seats, won by extreme and pal pable irregularities and fraud, make a great differ ence ; and the question of these elections raises very large and difficult issues. Not only are nearly-
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 1ST
balanced parties very much affected, but, in case of a struggle over the next Presidential election, these votes might just turn the scale ; and the question whether there is any remedy practically available to redress wrongs which are, I may almost say, admitted, puts in issue the wider question whether the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution, se curing equal electoral rights to the blacks, is really to> be enforced, or whether it may be set aside in practice by the action of individual States. Is, in fact, the settlement at the end of the war to be maintained or surrendered ? The excuse made by the Southern whites for their proceedings is, that throughout the- United States elections are not pure and free from fraud ; that there has been as much of it in New York as in the South ; that the laws admitting of such things were made by their enemies to crush them ; that the Presidency was ' stolen ' from them by fraud ; and that they are justified in reprisals. I have no doubt that it is an absolute necessity that the election laws should be improved. But besides this there is need of a final laying of the issue between "North and South, depending on a due execution of the war settlement. To see how this stands we must glance at the relations between the United States and the States of the Union as things now exist.
When the United States Constitution was origi nally framed, after the Revolutionary War, there was much need of union and much necessity for taxation, for which it provided the means. But as time passed
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and the condition of the States rose with peace and prosperity, the external customs revenue sufficed, and more than sufficed, for all common purposes. No internal revenue was raised for the general government, and scarcely any interference of any kind was exercised. We, who are accustomed to speak of the United States as one country, hardly realise how entirely as respects internal affairs the Union was, and for most purposes still is, not one country, but a league of many countries. The do mestic administration is peculiar to each State, and under no common control whatever. The United States Courts of the original Constitution were few, and confined in practice to larger matters. As I heard a Democratic orator say (with truth, I believe), ' You hardly knew that there was a United States Government, except when you went to the Post-office for your letters/
After the war the clauses providing for the aboli tion of slavery and the equality of race and class were the only amendments which it was necessary to in troduce into the Constitution; but, nevertheless, there was in addition a very great practical change carried out under provisions of the old Constitution, which had long been almost dormant. The great debt rendered necessary a heavy taxation, and an entirely new system of internal revenue was put in force ; whisky, tobacco, and some other things being subjected to a heavy excise duty to the general Government, which rendered necessary a strong executive control by United States officers in every
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corner of the States. Both revenue questions and many other questions raised by the events of the war necessitated a great extension of the United States Courts, and brought them, as it were, to every man's door. These, and some other changes, were common to all the States. In the South there was further required some measure of precaution to give effect to the changes affecting the blacks.' Besides the mili tary occupation for a time, the central Legislature was empowered to pass laws to give effect to the new electoral equality, and to station officers to watch the working of those laws. Under these laws the central authority has in theory power to deal with the elec tion abuses which I have mentioned ; but in practice it is not so easy. Like our Parliament, Congress can deal with disputed elections to its own body ; and when the new Congress meets, some months hence, some of these elections will no doubt be brought before it; but it will require a great exercise of virtue on the part of Democratic members to do a justice which will convert their narrow majority into a narrow minority. Meantime the President may pro secute in the United States Courts those who have broken the election laws. But the first difficulty is that, as such actions will be resisted by every means, the conduct of the prosecutions will be very expensive ; and they cannot be carried through with out an appropriation for the purpose by a House in which the Democrats have the majority. Then the local people resist in another way : as fast as prose cutions are instituted the United States subordinate
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officers are arrested and dragged before the local State magistrates on all sorts of charges ; and the witnesses for the prosecution are arrested for perjury and com mitted for trial before the local State Courts. The President is much urged to vigorous and decisive action ; but his position is very difficult. Apparently a Committee of Congress to inquire into electoral abuses has been appointed, but the terms of refer ence seem to be so wide that it may be difficult to bring it to a practical issue.
There never can be peace, quiet, and safety in the United States till a mode of settling disputed elec tions is arranged, and this question of the black vote is definitely laid at rest. There is a curious cross of opinion and interest on this latter question. Before the war, the blacks having no votes, the electoral representation of the South was diminished on that ground. Since all have had votes the South has a full representation according to population, and thus sends many more members to Congress than ever it did before ; and so, an almost solid South having been returned on the Democratic side, it curiously happens that the very measure of enfranchising the negroes, which was expected to have an opposite effect, has now given the Southern Democrats greatly increased power. Seeing this, and the difficulty of dealing with the question, some of the Northerners have inclined to settle the matter by disfranchising the blacks and diminishing the representation in proportion; but this the Southerners stoutly resist. They say, i You gave the blacks votes, and now they
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shall not be deprived of them.' In truth, disfran- chisement cannot now be the remedy. I venture to agree with those thoughtful Northern statesmen who say that, whatever temporary inconveniences may attend the policy, deliberately adopted, it must be adhered to ; for, they say, under our political system the only security that every class shall be fairly treated is, that they should have votes. They instance the case of the Chinese in California, who, in their view, are unfairly treated because they have no votes. A man, they say, who has a vote, even if he carries no weight now, is sure to be courted by some party sooner or later. The whites must have divisions among themselves, and then they will be civil to the blacks. I think the experience of our own Colonies is entirely in favour of this view. Un represented blacks, and other unrepresented classes, are always liable to be treated unfairly under labour laws, vagrant laws, and revenue laws. I am told that in the interval between the war and the adoption of the black-vote clause of the Constitution some of the Southern Legislatures showed a disposition to adopt similar laws ; and though they now are honestly free from such ideas, such proposals would probably spring up again if the blacks were not represented.
It must be remembered that the Constitution of the United States imposes no obligation whatever to give universal suffrage to all blacks ; all that is re quired is that there shall be the same rule for black and white. The Southern States are perfectly at liberty to impose any general property qualification,
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household qualification, or anything else they please — they might very well impose an education qualifi cation such as exists in Massachusetts to this day. With this exception, in Massachusetts, however, universal manhood suffrage has, I think, become a sort of custom of all the States, and perhaps they would find it difficult to depart from it.
What makes it more especially desirable that the question of the black vote should be settled is, that in reality there are no other great questions whatever to divide North and South, or black and white. Such is the conclusion to which I have come after very careful inquiry.
Free trade is no longer a question between North and South — in fact, if the truth must be told, it is not now a question in the United States at all. The system is to disarm opposition by protecting every thing and everybody. The sugar and rice of the South are protected to conciliate the South. Dwell ing on the good management of Georgia, a man of position said to me, ' Look at Georgia ; instead of talking nonsense about free trade they have gone in manfully, established most successful cotton manufac tures, and taken the benefit of protection.'
Well, then there is the more burning question, lately the Greenback question — still the question of debts on the former footing or enhanced debts, and of cheap silver dollars against dear gold dollars. That . question may be very exciting indeed, but it is also not one in which the dividing lines will lie between North and South, or black and white. True, the
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 193
Southerners owe a good deal of money and want cheap money very badly ; but the strong movement in that direction came, not from the South, but from New England. So far from this being a question in which the black vote is dangerous, the fact is that the blacks have divided most impartially on the subject, and it has more than anything else given promise of a new political shuffling of the cards, after which there will be no longer black and white sides, but a whole some intermixture.
It is true that the old question of State rights as against centralisation is now an active factor in American politics ; but, so far as I have been able to learn, the present vitality of the question entirely hinges on the disputed black vote. All else that has resulted from the war the Southerners have honestly and fully accepted. Most of the States have accepted even the black vote and made the best of it. There is no rancour and no secessional spirit left. The temper of the South is for the most part admirable. But two or three States still maintain the struggle as regards the free exercise of the black vote. It is that and -that only which raises the question of coercion, irritates the North, and leads to talk of the return of the i man on horseback/ If that were out of the way I can discern nothing in regard to which the South has any greater interest in the maintenance of State rights than the North and West. All would, no doubt, be glad to be rid of Federal taxation and the interference of Federal officers. The North and West would enjoy cheap tobacco
o
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just as much as the South. If it could be so ar ranged, all the States would be most glad to appro priate the drink revenue to their own purposes, and so dimmish the weight of direct taxation (for State and local purposes) of which they complain. In no other respect is there any question of infringing the State rights of domestic legislation and management in the South more than anywhere else. It was slavery that raised the question of State rights and brought on the war; it is this sequela of slavery that keeps the ques tion alive.
THE CASTE QUESTION.
There is one more view in which we must look at the question of black and white : I mean the separa tion of the people of America into two castes, which is becoming more pronounced than ever. Since the North has insisted that the blacks should be admitted to political equality neither North nor South has made any movement whatever towards admitting them to social equality ; in fact, the movement has been rather the other way. A certain friendly fami liarity and association was possible and common, more especially in the South, when the parties met on acknowledged terms of superiority and inferiority. Now the whites assert their superiority by social exclusion; and the blacks themselves, unwilling to accept the old situation in social matters, have much withdrawn themselves from associating with the whites on occasions which formerly brought the two
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races together. This is particularly noticeable in the churches. I am told that in former days almost every church had a recognised ' black quarter ; ' now the black churches are almost entirely separate from the white churches. It was not unnatural that this should have happened at first, but one might have hoped that prejudices would have been gradually got over. After all it is only matter of habit and custom, and that such a habit can be very completely over come is shown by the case of the public conveyances, especially the tramway-cars, so universal in America. I believe it is not long since no black could venture to intrude himself among whites. Now the habit has been established, and the humblest black rides with the proudest white on terms of perfect equality, and without the smallest symptom of malice or dislike on either side. I was, I confess, surprised to see how completely this is the case ; even an English Radical is a little taken aback at first.
There is generally no bad feeling or incivility attending the caste separation ; on the contrary, I saw nothing but good feeling and good temper in the daily relations between the classes ; only, like separate Hindoo castes, they do not intermarry, or worship or eat together. I fear there is not at present much appearance of any abatement of this caste feeling ; it is maintained and perpetuated by the separation of the children in the public schools. It has become almost the universal rule of the United States that none of the schools, high or low, are common to the two races ; the whites have their schools, and the
o 2
196 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
blacks have their schools, but there is no intermixture. The question was, I believe, much debated, and in some States it was not settled without much diffi culty; but I understand that the general feeling of the blacks themselves was in favour of separate schools. They hardly felt that their children could hold their own against the prejudices of the whites, if they were obliged to go to the white schools, and they preferred to have public schools established for their special benefit. This is now the case wherever the blacks are sufficiently numerous ; and the separa tion is complete in the higher schools and colleges as well as in the lower schools. The curious part of it to the eye of a stranger is the effect on children really white but tainted with some heredity of black blood. One sees some extremely fair children — sometimes fairer than the average of white children — among the ebony, woolly-headed negroes. It seems hard ; but when one says that, one is told that they are entirely accustomed to be so treated, and do not feel it. It is hardly to be expected that children brought up in ideas of caste will readily get rid of them when they grow up. Just like Hindoos, they maintain the separation in some things, but not in others. In many places I saw white and black children running freely about in one another's houses, and apparently on very good terms ; but still they know where to draw the line. In India we have managed to bring the different castes together in the same schools ; but it is not so in America.
must, then, accept the caste system as a fact.
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 197
I won't here discuss the advantages or disadvantages of its complete abolition, to the extent of permitting what is called miscegenation. It has, I believe, been suggested that forty millions of somewhat nervous and over -energetic American whites, in danger of wearing out their physique, as the sharp sword wears out the scabbard, might be improved by the small amalgam of four millions of easy-tempered, light- hearted blacks in the formation of a people of the future, fitted permanently to thrive on the soil and in the climate of America ; but the most pronounced philo-negro in the Northern States would recoil from such an idea ; so we need not mention it. Christianity may effect much to bring the races together, but not quite that for the present. As it is, intermarriage is now positively prohibited by law in most of the States — an extraordinary state of things among a people putting the equality of man at the head of all their Constitutions ! Another suggestion much more frequently, and, indeed, quite persistently made by very many people is, that, the races remaining se parate, it is not the whites but the blacks who will die out. ' They cannot take care of themselves/ it is said ; i they can neither take care of their children, nor manage themselves in sickness, nor bring them selves to sanitary laws and habits, now that the be nevolent eye of the slave- owner is withdrawn. It is a mere matter of time ; they must die out in the end.' It is really quite surprising how seriously this is said, when it is so directly contrary to fact. No doubt in the terrible disturbance and unsettlement
198 THE MANAGEMENT OF COLOURED RACES.
due to the war there was much negro suffering and a good deal of negro mortality in many places ; and even yet the increase of the coloured population is probably not so rapid as it was in the days of skilful and careful slave-breeding, or as it will be when the negro family system is better established and the negro population is more settled and independent. But all statistical figures available show that when ever a new census has been taken it is found that the negroes are not diminishing, but increasing more or less fast. It is patent to the eye that they are not a people who have the least intention of dying out ; on the contrary, there seems every prospect that as they settle down they will multiply with great rapidity, and will supply the population still so much want ing properly to occupy the Southern States. They are an inevitable fact, and it is incumbent on every well-wisher of America to make the best of them, instead of supposing that heaven will remove the difficulty.
To me, accustomed to see great communities in India, where varieties of caste do not interfere with union in a common social system — • where, on the con trary, caste but represents a variety of occupations and functions in that system — the existence of two castes in America does not seem to present any insuperable obstacle to well-being. In an Indian village there may be, and generally is, a caste of pro prietors, a caste of herdsmen, a caste of labourers, a caste of money-lenders and shopkeepers, a caste of blacksmiths, and a caste of carpenters, who all live
BLACK AND WHITE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 199
very well together, and support one another by each contributing their functions to the village existence. It is hard, then, if in the United States two castes cannot co-exist, supposing that means of amalga mating them are not found. No doubt it does seem cruel that no black or mulatto of the highest merit can overstep the line which condemns him to a society socially inferior. But very much is open to such a man ; there is a great black population among whom he may fulfil great functions. Till the blacks of the South are able to find among their own race professional men, merchants, traders, and other oc cupants of the higher places now almost entirely monopolised by the whites, it cannot be said that a coloured man fitted to rise has no field in which he may do so.
My own view, then, is extremely sanguine. I cannot see why the black difficulty in America should not be settled, and well settled, and why this great people should not retain among them a settled, industrious, and progressive coloured population, fitted to fill the portions of the country not adapted for the white race, and there to contribute to the wealth, the greatness, and the resources of the com mon country.
SOME OF THE CONTENTS OF MY JOUKNAL.
SOME OF THE CONTENTS OF MY JOURNAL.
THE ATLANTIC AND NEW YORK.
I LEFT England in the beginning of September. From my own experience, and what I have learned, I think it is better not to go much earlier than this. Many people make the mistake of going too early, and find it exceedingly hot in America in the months of July and August, or sometimes even in the beginning of September. I had it quite cool from the time of my arrival, and altogether found the uutumn season a delightful time.
I started from London very early in the morning, to arrange about my passage and get the steamer at Liverpool, but found on arrival that I need not have been in quite such a hurry. The steamers are timed to leave Liverpool in the afternoon, but they always take their final departure with the mails from Queenstown, in the Cove of Cork, the following afternoon."* They have to wait at Queenstown for the mails, and are therefore in no hurry. A man who wishes to save time, instead of starting in the morning may take the mail train to Dublin in the evening, and go on with the mails to Cork and Queenstown, and so make sure of catching the steamer there ; but it is rather hard travelling. I took my passage by the steamer Germanic, one of the finest of the White Star line. This line is certainly the most modern, and the quickest. The passage-money is not excessive, and there is a great saving in taking a return ticket ; this costs thirty guineas, which includes your board and lodging for
204 MY JOURNAL.
eighteen or twenty days — so it is not so very expensive travelling after all. I was very civilly treated. Passengers go on board by a tug steamer, and find the large steamer lying out in the Liverpool river. We got to Queenstown the next day, and started again with the mails at 4 P.M. The length of the voyage from Queenstown to Sandy Hook, the entrance to New York, is 2,800 nautical miles, and with good weather the White Star steamers do the distance in eight days ; but we must expect to meet some share of bad weather in the Atlantic pretty often. That was my experi ence. For three days we had a heavy sea, which much retarded the vessel. Then it calmed down, and finally we had two or three fine days, during which the vessel made from 360 to 380 miles per diem ; that is, from 15 to 16 miles per hour on an average. She did that easily, without apparent effort, and in some voyages she has not unfrequently done 400 miles in a day. I had never been in so fast a steamer before, and was surprised to find the ease with which these vessels go that pace. I thought the Germanic a very fine vessel, and the arrangements regarding meals and attendance were excellent. The food was quite good. Things were mostly arranged upon the American plan. Passenger accommoda tion is principally in the middle and forward part of the ship ; there is a good smoking-room, and a ladies' cabin, but no general drawing-room or writing-room. The ship was quite full. Almost all the passengers were Americans or else people going on business to America. I was fortunate enough to make acquaintance with some very agreeable people, several of whom I afterwards met in the States. After a voyage of eight days and some hours from Queens- town we reached the Bar at the mouth of the river at Sandy Hook, and found we had to wait several hours to get over it — there is not enough water at all times of the tide. Then after we were over we were again stopped at the Quaran tine Station. They seem to be particular about sanitary inspection in America. Thence to New York is a very short distance. We arrived there, and went straight alongside the wharf, being a little more than 8^ days from Queenstown
NEW YOKK. 205
and 9|- from Liverpool. It was a fine day, and the sight approaching New York very pretty. There is comparatively little tide on the American coast, the ordinary rise being only five or six feet — just enough to keep the harbour sweet and clean, and not so much as to give all the trouble that our tides give us. There is deep water all alongside New York, and ships lie close in, without the necessity for wet docks or other expensive arrangements. We landed without delay, and found the Custom House not by any means troublesome, everything being done in a quiet and orderly way. There was nothing to be seen in the way of cabs except great two- horse hackney coaches, exceedingly expensive ; but the hotel omnibus presently turned up, and we were beset by £ ex presses ' — that means in America light carts for forwarding luggage. After a little delay I reached the Windsor Hotel, where I stayed while in New York. It is a very good hotel -perhaps the best specimen of an hotel conducted on the American principle ; that is, of charging so much per diem for board and lodging. For a residence for a little time in New York I should certainly recommend the Windsor ; but for a passing traveller it is a little far off, in the fashionable quarter, the New York Belgravia ; and the well-known Fifth Avenue Hotel might be more central and convenient. The charge at the Windsor is $4 (say 16s.) per diem; and, con sidering the character of the food and the accommodation, I thought the charge quite moderate. Some of the hotels at New York and Boston charge a little more and others less ; the hotels in the interior of the country generally $%\ or $3. About $Z\ to $4 a day may be taken as the average cost of board and lodging at first-class hotels. You may have a room with a bath-room attached, but that is always charged a dollar a day extra. With this exception, there are very few extras, especially if you fall into the custom of the country and do not drink wine ; if you do you will have to pay high for it. If a man is content to find his way about by the aid of tramways and other native methods, he may live very well at a pound a day, all expenses included. Then say ten shillings a day for travelling — that would make about
206 MY JOURNAL.
thirty shillings a day for obligatory expenses. Of course he may spend money beyond this, but really there is not so much temptation to do so as in Europe. I should say that for 1501. a man may make an extremely good three months' tour to America. Besides the hotels on the American plan which I have mentioned, there are a few in the large cities which are conducted on the European principle — charging for what you have ; and I believe that if people do not want to be overfed, and manage economically, they may live in such hotels almost as cheaply as in those conducted on the American plan ; but they will have more trouble ; and if they want private rooms and such special accommodation, they have to pay very heavily indeed at such hotels as the Brunswick and Brevoort, at New York. At the Windsor the waiters are white men, which is contrary to the usual practice, most hotels having black waiters. I found the food really very good indeed — a great deal better than that which I afterwards obtained at most American hotels. My only complaint was that feeding was rather overdone : you were expected to eat too much ; and the waiters did not seem to have any mercy on you if you did not comply.
Most of the beds in America have mosquito-curtains, and I was terrified by the fear of encountering those old Indian enemies. Happily at the season when I was in America I did not suffer much ; but at some seasons, I believe, the mosquitos are very bad there.
On the afternoon of my arrival I ' did ' the Central Park of New York — an immense place, ever so many miles long, and very well kept ; called < Central ' because it is a long way off. Parks are very much the fashion in America ; now almost every great town has a fine park. A long stream of carriages of all kinds was going towards the park, but they tailed off and became rare in the further parts. T noticed even on Sunday a large number of vehicles going out there ; but I am told that these are chiefly filled by the foreign population of New York, which is very large. I should say that the park is a kind of cross between Regent's Park and the Bois de Boulogne. In the evening everything
NEW YORK. 207
seemed very dull. There are no books in the hotels; the streets are but indifferently lighted, and nothing seemed to be going on. There was none of the liveliness of a great European city in the evening. The following day I looked about the town, and delivered some letters of introduction, being very kindly received by some very agreeable people. That evening I dined with a very pleasant and hospitable old banker, who struck me as wonderfully English in his manners and conversation as well as in his table and arrange ments. I was much surprised to find that he had never been in Europe — which is a rare thing — but he had been very much in contact with Englishmen.
The appearance of the city of New York did not strike me as being very different from European cities. There are some fine buildings, but I should not say that the place impresses one very much. Upon the whole it is less un- English-looking than I expected.
The principal points in New York ways which struck me were the following: — The way of serving the dishes, the cookery, the food, and the arrangements altogether at the hotels. The rectangular streets, which one soon learns to find a great convenience, the number of the street giving you at once the clue to its whereabouts. Then the vehicles used, which are different from ours. The ladies' carriages are not very different; they are not particularly smart nor well set up — the fine ladies are generally content with coachmen, without footmen. But the light traps and everything that goes under^ the name of ' buggy ' in America are very smart and fast vehicles indeed, with a great many fast-trotting horses. I was taken by surprise to find that the spider-like vehicles which we rather suppose to be an American eccen tricity are in every-day use, not only in the towns but still more in the country and over the unmade country roads. They are made of hickory-wood, are wonderfully light, and seem to be exceedingly strong, judging by the work which they endure. They last quite as well as our heavy vehicles, and I cannot imagine why we do not follow the example in getting such-like traps.
208 MY JOURNAL.
The tramways puzzle one rather at first ; they seem slow, and difficult to understand ; but before one has been very long in America one becomes quite accustomed to them, and uses them continually. My only wonder is that such a high-pressure people as the Americans can stand such a slow mode of conveyance, for they are very slow. Really people in America do not give you the idea of being in a hurry.
One of the newest things to me was the Elevated Railway which has recently been started in New York. It seemed a most admirable arrangement. New York is a very long city- eight or ten miles long — avenues running the whole length of it. The plan is to establish, on two or three of these avenues, selected for the purpose, these elevated railways, which run upon iron girders above the heads of the people and the ordinary traffic, and are an enormous convenience to those who have to go the long distances that New York people go between their homes and their places of business. The astonishing thing is, how they could have got on to the year 1878 without having anything of the kind. They must have spent a large portion of their lives travelling five or six miles backwards and forwards in the trams. The Elevated Railway is, I think, infinitely cheaper and easier, and it is certainly very much lighter and more airy than our underground railways; and the facilities for travelling are quite as great, the only difference being that passengers go upstairs to the railway where we go down. There is no dif ficulty in carrying the lines along the long straight avenues ; but when you get into the older parts of New York (which are built more like European towns, and where the avenues are not continuous) there is much more difficulty. I was astounded to see how the difficulty of going round corners is overcome. The makers of the Elevated Railway have not gone to the expense of taking up large blocks of houses to make the way for their line ; they go sharp round right- angled corners, taking up, perhaps, only part of one house at the corner, and going round that in a way marvellous to behold ; but they do it without accident. The great outcry against the Elevated Railways was the damage to the amenity
THE NEW YORK COUNTRY. 209
of the houses in the streets through which they pass. The Americans do things in a more energetic manner than we do ; and having got the sanction of the New York Legislature for the railway, they made it first and thought about com pensation for the owners of property afterwards. No doubt it is not a pleasant thing some day to find that a railway is running before your drawing-room windows, but it will probably be found in the end that the character of the houses on the line is changed, not their value ; they will become places of business rather than residences ; but for business purposes the railway may add to their value. So perhaps the Americans are wiser than if they had given enormous compensation first, according to our plan. When I arrived the only experience of the elevated railways having been in summer, when they were not so much needed, the cry of the aggrieved householders seemed to be more heard than the praises of the passengers by the line ; but when I came back, in winter, the immense advantage and convenience to the general public of the railway had been so much appreciated that praise altogether predominated over complaints. I am very much impressed with the belief that elevated railways of this kind in Oxford Street and Piccadilly and such-like thoroughfares would admirably supplement the accommoda tion afforded by the metropolitan lines, which cannot be multiplied.
When I had spent a day or two in New York I accepted
the kind invitation of Mr. 0 to visit his place on the
Hudson River, near West Point, but on the opposite side. I had a most agreeable visit, and was charmed with the country I saw. I had expected to find the city of New York a fine place, but had hardly looked for the charming country which I found in the neighbourhood. We went up by railway, and immediately on getting clear of the city came upon a very pretty, undulating, and green country, abounding in summer residences. I understand, however, that this is an unusually green season, and that in most years the grass is a good deal burnt up for a few weeks in summer. However, grass is very much the characteristic of
P
210 MY JOURNAL.
the country near New York. It is mostly a dairy country — not flat, but abounding in pretty hills and undulations. In the country within easy reach of New York the wealthy citizens have beautiful places — not exactly of the nature of country seats in our style, but rather like large cottages, with
abundance of pretty grounds about them. Mr. 0 's
place is really a beautiful one, as are some other places in the neighbourhood. I never saw anywhere a prettier country or nicer houses. In the afternoon Mr. 0 — - took me over to the West Point Military Academy — very pleasantly situated. It seems that the cadets go through a very long and very scientific course of education for the American army, and are turned out accomplished officers to a far greater degree than can be the case under our military arrangements, where a boy is hardly a year at Sandhurst.
The next day Mr. 0 took me a drive through a pretty
country, very undulating, and even hilly. I enjoyed it very much indeed, as I did my visit in every way. In the morning I returned to New York by the steamer on the Hudson River. The river is very pretty indeed, and is much more in the style of a Scotch loch than a river. I again occupied myself for a day or two doing the sights of New York, and among them one of the magnificent steamers, which runs to Providence. It is impossible to imagine anything more luxurious than the American steamers made for inland waters. They are enormous buildings, with cabins tier upon tier ; and things are generally so arranged that you go on board, have supper, go to bed as comfortably as if you were in your own house, and arrive at your destination in the morning.
I was invited to pay another visit, in the country near
New York, to Mr. H , a distinguished member of the
American Legislature, who lives there with his charming family, and has something much more like a great English estate than you often find in America. It is an old property, on which many free blacks have been settled for generations.
Mr. H took me about the place, and I had my first sight
of the labouring population of America at home, both white
A SCAMPER THROUGH THE NORTH AND WEST. 211
and coloured. The latter were, however, of more or less mixed blood, and several of them have Indian blood, being a cross between negroes and Indians. All seemed fairly well- to-do, the coloured people, perhaps, of a somewhat lower class than the whites, but not very much so ; and they seem to live quite sociably together, the white and black children running into one another's houses ; only they do not inter marry. This is, however, a very exceptional estate. We drove a considerable distance into the country, and saw some of the farms and farmers. There is little but dairy farm ing in this part of the country. Mr. H and others
have also some good trotting stock, and part of the New York country produces this stock, I understand, largely. The farmers whom we saw universally owned their own farms, although a good many have mortgages upon them. The farms seemed to average about one hundred acres, mostly pasture, with some woodland attached to each. There is a great deal of wood all about this part of the country. The farmers seem a very good, plain, hard-working style of men. One farm was a good deal larger than the average, and the people seemed superior, the daughter of the house quite ladylike. The farmers principally live by selling butter, and also some pigs and apples. Apples are exces sively abundant in all this country, but I did not gather that much cider is made. They raise corn enough for their own consumption, but not for sale. I was struck by the quiet, respectable, handsome look of some tradesmen assisting a farmer to repair his house. They looked quite like the best artisans in England 5 there was nothing American about them.
A SCAMPER THROUGH THE NORTH AND WEST.
I now returned to New York, in order to start for Boston by the New York Central Eailway. I travelled in a Wagner drawing-room car. On each of the main lines a contractor, generally either Pullman or Wagner, supplies drawing-room and sleeping-cars. There is not much difference between the
p 2
212 MY JOURNAL.
contractors' cars ; there seemed rather a want of variety. The railway seemed to be well managed, and the country, as we went out of New York, much like what I had seen before in the other direction. We ran along the shore across the estuaries and harbours, and then passed through Providence and other New England places, where there seemed to be much population and traffic, and all the signs of a manu facturing district. It was dark before I got to Boston, where I went to the Brunswick Hotel, which I found com fortable, but very expensive — a good deal more so than the New York hotels.
Next morning I did part of Boston. It seemed a fine, substantial town, with good stone buildings and churches. After breakfast I took a steamer to Nahant, a small watering-place, frequented by the Boston people, where I made the acquaintance of a delightful family, from among whom a distinguished member of the late Liberal Adminis tration was almost in the act of taking to himself a wife, who will be a great acquisition to our country. I was pleased with this little American watering-place and the style of life there. The cottages seemed to be real cottages, with verandahs and creeping flowers and all sorts of pretty things. I was the more glad to see this, as I had not time to go to Newport, the fashionable seaside watering-place of the New York and New England people. I am told that it is really a beautiful place, and that many of the rich Americans have very fine houses of their own there. In short, I gathered that the place must be much superior to any of our watering- places — putting aside Brighton, which is a great town, and not a watering-place, and as ugly as Newport is said to be pretty. Americans seem to go to the seaside a good deal more than we do ; it is almost a necessity to them in the hot summer months, when the sea-breezes seem wonderfully to temper the heat. In point of society Newport seems to stand far above any other place ; but I gather that there is a great want of occupation for men. The season only lasts through the summer. The famous Saratoga is an inland place, and has, I understand, become far less select than
BOSTON. 213
Newport. In the latter part of the season, however, Saratoga has become a great resort for ' politicians ' and their families. All sorts of conventions are held there ; and it might be a very likely place at that time for visitors who want to learn something of American politics and institutions from very able men — and many of the American ' politicians ' are very able men. At Boston I was kindly and hospitably admitted to the Somerset Club, a very comfortable institution. Clubs have become very much an American institution ; I found them at all the considerable towns that I visited, and the members are always most kind in admitting strangers. Thus admitted one has both many social advantages and the run of English books and magazines ; sometimes even English newspapers, and that is a great treat, for throughout the United States there is nothing so difficult as to get an English newspaper of any sort or kind. I sometimes suffered for weeks together from a sort of c news-famine ; ' that is, as regards everything excepting the sensational paragraphs telegraphed to the American papers.
Boston and Boston Common and all about them have been so often described that I need not dwell upon the place. I shall only say that I found the character which it has for English-like people and English-like hospitality and kindness fully maintained. I went out by tram to Cambridge, to see the Harvard College there. The students have rooms in college, but are not compelled to dine there, and their dis cipline altogether does not seem to be very strict. Boston Free Library-is a wonderful institution — by far the largest in the world, I believe — and said to be very successful. All over New England the free library is a great institution ; but I found that in Pennsylvania and other parts of the country they do not seem to see the advantage in the same light. I am told that almost all the mills and manufacturing establishments in New England are joint-stock concerns. They are said to be successfully managed, and to be afflicted by few frauds. They continue to divide about 5 per cent, even in bad times. They say that the best and most thrifty working people are Irish and French Canadians. Americans
214 MY JOURNAL.
are neither so strong nor so industrious ; they want to live by the head, and not by the hand. I think, however, that this chiefly applies to the non-agricultural Americans. The American farmer is a very good, hard-working man.
There are a large number of distinguished literary men resident in and about Boston and Cambridge. The wealth of the Boston people is also large. So, combining brains and money as it does, no wonder it is a pleasant place. The climate, however, is, I believe, very cold in winter. I was only able to glance at the place, and must hope to return to it another time.
These Eastern cities have a great advantage in using only anthracite coal, which burns without blacks ; and so, from a combination of climate and coal, they are very clean and bright.
I left Boston for the West by the early express train through Massachusetts. The country seemed hilly, and not very fertile, but pretty and pleasant-looking, with many villages and factories. Connecticut, I am told, is a good agricultural country ; Maine is also a good farming State. At present all is excitement in Maine, on account of the majority given to the Greenbackers. General Butler, the great Greenback hero, is stumping Massachusetts, and alarming all the solid, old-fashioned people. I saw him on the stump — a wild-looking man. As we got on Massa chusetts becomes quite highland and picturesque. The highland country seems to be of much the same character all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico ; the only difference is that in the Southern States there is a large belt of flat, swampy country between the hilly country and the sea; whereas in New England the hills come down almost to the sea. As we pass through Massachusetts and get into the New York State, approaching Albany, the country becomes more flat and agricultural. Beyond Albany are the 6 Sandy Plains ' — poor and sandy, but well settled. Hereabouts was the old Dutch settlement. Further on, the sandy plains change suddenly for a fertile and green country, near Sche- nectady ; and from here up the Valley of the Mohawk is the
THE MOHAWK VALLEY. 215
finest country in the New York State, and the seat of the great cheese manufacture. The cheese is all made on the factory system, the factories generally being on a very large scale. The milk is raised by the farmers around, who bring it to the factories, where it is made into cheese. I stopped at Schenectady — a very nice country town — with the ap pearance of which I was much pleased. It is an American habit to line the streets of country towns with fine trees. They are very shady and pleasant ; and there seemed to be a great abundance of fine healthy young people, especially girls, about. This first specimen of an American country town very favourably impressed me. There is here one of the many excellent colleges which abound in America. I was
very pleasantly entertained by Dr. P and his wife, very
pleasant and intellectual people. We drove a long way through the country. It seemed a good, quiet, agricultural district. The most prominent crop at this moment is what is called ' broom-corn,' out of which brooms are made ; a very large quantity of it is raised in America. I cannot conceive how the world can consume so many brooms. The Mohawk and its Valley are really beautiful. In the evening I met a fine old lady, the widow of a great Abolitionist, and heard many stories of the ' Underground Railway,' and the ways by which the Northern people enabled many slaves to escape into Canada. I also met one of the largest farmers about. He has nearly 300 acres, and seemed a very intelligent man. I was soon quite at home with him. He might have been a good Scotch farmer. He said almost all the farmers own their own land. There is a very strong opposition to any renting system under a landlord. A good many large pro perties came down from former times under Dutch and English grants ; but the proprietors found it difficult to hold them as rented estates ; in fact, he said, in the case of one proprietor in that part of the country who tried to do so, and to maintain and enhance his rents, a good deal of burning took place. He says, however, that occasional short leases are not objected to. He raises and fattens much stock, and that seems to be a very growing industry. He himself goes
216 MY JOURNAL.
in for pedigree stock, to sell. The average farms hereabouts are from TOO to 150 acres. Some of the Mohawk Valley land is extremely valuable. He talks of values about equal to moderate English prices for land. There is an unusually fine apple crop this year, and apples are selling almost ab surdly cheap.
I have had a good deal of talk about religious sects in America. All seem agreed that Americans of different per suasions do not hate one another on account of religion. My informants much doubted black students being equal to white ones as they grow up. There are none at the College here, but there are at several Northern colleges.
From Schenectady I took the night-train for Niagara, via Buffalo. I met a man who had been visiting one of the famous Agapemones which is upon this line. He said that they affect to raise human stock on scientific breeding prin ciples ; but the whole thing he thought very disgusting. In the morning we found ourselves in the country near Eochester. It seemed flat and more agricultural than pastoral. From thence there seemed to be a considerable ascent, and then very flat again towards Buffalo. Passing Buffalo we ran down Niagara River to the Falls. There seemed to be very many orchards in this part of the country, principally apples and peaches. I stayed, at the Falls, at the International Hotel, upon the American side. The Clifton Hotel, on the Canada side, has by far the best view ; but then Groat Island and the best points for seeing the Falls from near can only be ap proached from the American side, and it is a long way from the Clifton ; so I think it is best to stop on the American side and go over to see the view from the other side. I crossed by the ferry under the Falls. It is quite easy, and there is no danger or difficulty ; but I was advised not to give in to the people who bother one to go down behind the Falls. I am told by many that the only result is to encounter a great deal of wet spray and a great deal of mud, and that there is nothing to repay one for it all. All the rest I did in quite the correct way ; but the Falls have been so often described that I need not go over it all. They certainly are a very
CANADA. 217
fine and unique thing. It would not do to travel in the country without seeing them. One day is amply sufficient, if the sightseer is active. From the other side I went a little way into Canada. It seemed a pleasant country. The population near the border is a good deal mixed ; but I am told that more Americans come to the Canadian than Canadians go to the other side. The taxation is now much lighter in Canada. I returned by the fine Suspension Bridge — saw a good many Indian women, who sat and knitted, and apparently are part of the show, but they did not beg. They look more fair and squat and Mongolian-like than I had expected. The village of Niagara is full of shops for the sale of Indian goods. I do not know why it is so much an Indian centre.
I took another look at the Falls in the morning — they well bear looking at twice certainly. I noticed that the hotel bill was very moderate. To be sure it is rather late in the season ; but perhaps the neighbourhood of Canada brings down prices. Certainly the hack carriages on the Canadian side are very moderate compared with American charges. From Niagara I went to Chicago, through Canada, by the Great Western Kailway, crossing the river by the Suspension Bridge. The country beyond the river was much like what I had already seen. We passed the Welland Canal ; that is, the Canadian canal, by which ships are taken round the Niagara Falls. It is now being re-excavated to the size and depth sufficient to carry seagoing ships ; so that vessels may sail direct from the head of Lake Superior to ports in Europe with cargoes of grain and timber, or rather will soon be able to do so. If the navigation were open all the year round this route would have an immense advantage, but unfortu nately it is closed by ice a great part of the year. I stopped a little time at Hamilton, in Canada. It seemed a decent- looking, newly-settled town, with many factories for agri cultural implements. It is at the head of Lake Ontario, but I did not see much shipping. I went to a fair and agricul tural show which was then taking place, and thought it really a very fine show indeed. It was full of Scotch people, or at
218 MY JOURNAL.
any rate people talking very decided Scotch ; indeed, there was so much of the Scotch intonation that if I had shut my eyes I might have supposed myself in Scotland. I am told that there are many Irish too hereabouts, and in one part of this country there are also Dutch. When I entered Canada I noticed that a superior class of coloured people came into the train. There seemed to be several parties of them, and among them several smart black ladies — very smart indeed. I do not know whether it was an accident seeing these people just as I entered Canada, or whether there are many well-to-do descendants of old refugees. In all the crowd at the fair there were scarcely any coloured people. I only saw two. All the rest looked very British. I was much interested in the agricultural show. There were plenty of good cattle, and horses, and pigs, but no sheep. But going away in the train I saw a good many sheep. Be sides the ordinary food-grains there were some very fine man golds, and a very magnificent show of apples, some pears, and very fine grapes ; but I am told that most of the grapes are grown under glass. There was a great variety of agricultural machinery. A man was exhibiting and much praising what he called sugarcane grown in the neighbourhood. I looked at it, and found it was only sorghum, and that what was called sugar was nothing but a kind of molasses. In the ba zaar there were many things of United States manufacture — watches from Illinois, enamelled ironmongery from St. Louis, silver from Connecticut ; but furniture was mostly Canadian, as also were a good many woollen goods, which did not seem to me very first-rate. A little further on I stopped a little while at London. Here again another fair and show was going on, and again I found many Scotch-speaking people. I am sorry to say that one or two with whom I specially fraternised turned out to be tipsy. However, that little weakness excepted, they seemed a good sort of Scotch people. I do not know whether it is because I am remarkably sober myself, but I seem to have a special attraction for Scotchmen who have had a drop too much — when I go abroad.
There was an hotel-car attached to the train on the Great
CANADA. 219
Western line, and in it I had far the best travelling meal I have yet had — everything warm and nice, and the prices moderate. These hotel-cars are an immense convenience. It is a great blessing, and greatly improves the digestion, to be able to take your meal at your leisure, without the con tinual fear of being left behind. Unfortunately, however, the hotel-cars are comparatively rare, and are only found on a few lines. On this line they go as far, I think, as Omaha, but they do not now run (as they once did) to San Francisco. For the rest of the journey passengers are obliged to get their meals at the stations, which must be a very great draw back to that long journey. I know nothing so trying in the American arrangements as the stopping and the starting of the trains. There are no porters to shout and no slamming of doors, because there are no doors to slam, and most fre quently no warning is given whatever. The train slides away quite silently, and until I gained experience I was once or twice almost left behind whilst standing on the platform, because I thought that the train going off in that style must be only shunting. However, you are always at liberty to run after the train and catch it, and get up as best you can. That is what a large proportion of the passengers do.
The country about London is very pretty and good ; to my idea as pleasant and home-looking an agricultural coun try as I have seen in America. It is undulating, and seemed to have much good grass, grazed over by fine stock, whereas in much of the New York country I gathered that the grass was much qftener cut as hay than grazed. In this Canada country there is much fine wood and many stumps in the fields, giving it a very newly-cleared appearance. Never theless I cannot help thinking that it showed more signs of good Scotch farming than anything I had seen in the States. In the night-train to Chicago there were a large number of sleeping-cars, and very many families and children returning from their summer outings. Sleeping-cars crowded in this fashion are not the coolest and pleasantest places in the world ; and what surprises one is, that whereas in America there is almost always separate accommodation for ladies,
220 MY JOURNAL.
^very hotel having a separate ladies' entrance, and even every post-office a special window for ladies, in the sleeping-cars there is no division at all — all sexes and ages are accommodated promiscuously. I do not recommend night-travelling when there is a special run upon the cars. With all this sleeping .accommodation and hotel-car and other luxuries, I was sur prised to find there was no smoking accommodation what ever, except a very filthy car filled with emigrants. There is much less provision for smokers in America than with us. On this line there is practically a third class, under the name of ' emigrant carriages.' During the night we crossed the St. Lawrence (or whatever the river is here called) on a steamer without being at all disturbed. The train is taken on board and everything managed in the quickest and easiest manner. They certainly do manage these things capitally in America. Their ferry-boats are much superior to anything to be seen in Europe. In the morning we found ourselves in the Michigan country, near the lake. It seemed there somewhat poor and jungly, and on the borders of the lake there were great sand hills. As we got on the country became somewhat better, but still a dead flat, with a great deal of marsh, and many of the houses built on piles. The lake was quite smooth : there were no waves beyond ripples. We duly arrived at Chicago. The railway station was burnt down in the great fire, and has not been rebuilt. The town, though still showing a good many blanks, has been rebuilt in a wonderful way, and is undoubtedly a very fine one, but rather dirty and smoky — not clean, like the Eastern cities, where they burn anthracite coal. The whole country about is a dead level. The town is laid out on, I think, rather too great a scale ; the distances are very great. Outside each quarter is a great park. I went to the Grand Pacific Hotel — not the largest, but it seems very good and well situated, and I was comfortable there.
I made the acquaintance of Mr. A , the President of
the Illinois Central Kailway, who gave me much assistance ; and I found one or two friends whom I had before met on my travels, and who were very kind to me. I spent the day in thoroughly doing the town. I went to one of the great pig-
CHICAGO. 221
killing establishments. It certainly was a wonderful sight. They kill and dispose of 8,000 pigs per diem. It takes three or four days to convert the pigs into bacon, but they are really made into sausages in the course of an hour. The bacon is put into railway cars in layers, without any further packing, and so sent to the Eastern States. I drove round the parks, which are not quite complete, and may be called the parks of the future ; but they are very well and hand somely laid out. There is a pleasant villa suburb called Hyde Park. Most of the Western cities have a ' Hyde Park. Here also there was an exhibition going on, which I went to see. American-made goods seemed to preponderate, the agricultural machinery, as usual, very prominent. I went to see one of the great elevators by which grain is raised by machinery, stored, and shipped. It must be understood that the elevator in America is not a mere machine for transferring the grain from one conveyance to another, but is, in fact, a great warehouse, where grain is stored sometimes for months, especially on the great lakes, where, owing to the suspension of traffic in the winter, it must often be kept for a consider able period in store. The system seems to be one under which a man does not necessarily receive back his own grain, but only a like quantity of grain of the same grade. I was not quite able to understand the nature of the interference exercised, but I found that at Chicago, and I believe at most American commercial centres, the produce brought to market is examined by official inspectors, who class the grain, and apparently ..nothing is allowed to be sold without being officially classed.
I met at Chicago and had much talk with Judge F ,
of Tennessee, a gentleman who has had great experience in the Southern States ; and also another gentleman, a Chicago lawyer, connected with the railway, a very clear-headed man. He told me that in all the States except Louisiana the law is based upon the English law. The Illinois Legislature meets biennially. The State Constitutions are. generally revised by a Convention — say about once in every twenty years on the average, but there is no fixed time. Each State
222 MY JOURNAL.
has its own civil and criminal law, and the State Judges dis pose of all cases except offences against the United States revenue laws, which are tried by the United States Judges. After the war there was a general bankruptcy law throughout the whole of the United States, but it has now expired, and has not been renewed. There is a local insolvency law in some States, but not in all. In all States there seems to be a regular system of public prosecution — a prosecuting attorney is always to be found, corresponding to our Scotch Procurator Fiscals.
Judge F being a Southerner, takes a somewhat
Southern view of things. He thinks the blacks will last for a time, but they cannot take care of themselves, and will die out in the end. Whether by nature or want of education, they seem to have a lower order of intelligence, and do not do well work requiring a fine hand, care, or thought ; he believes they do not succeed in factories. They have a few farms of their own, but very few. He admits, however, that they are the most good-natured of mankind, and do very well under white superintendence. Most of the cotton is raised by negroes under a system of cultivation upon shares — that is, the crops are divided between the proprietor and the negro who does the work, the negroes being well looked after. The larger estates in the South are now broken up into smaller farms, and more carefully worked than they used to be.
I went to see a great dry goods store. Dry goods are cloths and textile fabrics of all sorts, and, I believe, a good many other things besides ; but I cannot exactly define the term. At all events dry goods are not groceries nor iron mongery. In this Great Central Chicago Store they say that half or perhaps more of the goods are of American make; Of the remainder, perhaps, one-third are English, and the rest French and German, or from other foreign countries. Cotton goods they declare to be as cheap as in Manchester ; and they have many varieties to suit American taste, but woollens are excessively dear. Woollen clothes cost fully double what they do in England ; ladies' silks are also very dear. Woollen goods are now manufactured in almost every
CHICAGO TO ST. LOUIS. 223
State in America. The Americans evidently are pushing hard to come up to us in that trade.
From Chicago I took the night train through Illinois to St. Louis. This time we had the Pullman cars, which seemed cleaner and better than the Wagner's, in which I had before travelled. In the morning the train was detained for a time at Decatur. I had time to take a walk and look about the place on a charming morning, and I was much pleased with this Illinois country place. It seemed to be a kind of cross between town and country — large streets, laid out at right angles, and lined with trees in the usual pleasant manner ; nice houses scattered about, with plenty of room. Although there is little natural wood in Illinois the trees when planted grow luxuriantly. The soil seemed a rich black soil ; there is nothing like hills, but decided undulations. I now quite understand the rolling land we hear so much of. There was beautiful grass and clover in many of the fields, and plenty of stock of all kinds.. Many apple-orchards were planted, but they do not seem to thrive here as they do in the country further north. The wind, I believe, is too much for them. There was good coffee and refreshment at the station. There seems to be generally some sort of hotel at these country stations. At last we started, and had daylight for the run onwards to St. Louis. I was much interested and pleased with the country. Much of it is rolling, and more or less raised. There were occasionally what looked like small hillocks, but nothing amounting to hills. The country through which I travelled all consisted of what once was prairie, but is now cultivated and enclosed. There are only a few belts of natural wood in broken ground near streams and ravines, especially as we approached the Mississippi. All the land seemed well cultivated. The great crop is Indian corn. It is now standing on the ground ripe. In some of the barer parts the crops seemed of poor growth and the weeds very strong ; but other parts were much better cultivated, and the crops there seemed strong and good. We passed a good many wheat-fields, the autumn wheat already up, and the fields clean and well cultivated. I saw no root-
224 MY JOURNAL.
crops; and throughout most of the country at this season there is little appearance of plentiful grass — the fields seemed pretty bare — but a great deal of hay was stacked. We passed many villages and small towns. The people at some of these places seemed primitive enough. After running through a con siderable belt of wood we came to the Mississippi, with the city of St. Louis on the opposite side, and crossed by the great bridge, a very fine structure.
I went to the Lindell Hotel, a fine and large one. My first day at St. Louis was a Sunday, and I noticed there that, although the people seemed very religious and church-going, they were somewhat Continental in their views of Sunday. Here and at other places I saw the eternal American game of base-ball being played on Sunday. There was a boat-race ; and the Exhibition grounds (here, as everywhere, an agricultural exhibition was going on) were very full of people, the Sunday notwithstanding. All over America shops are closed on Sunday, as with us; but they seem to have no shutters to the windowsy so that they have not the same closed appearance. I stayed at St. Louis long enough to have a good look about the town. There seemed to be many fine buildings, but I should say it is hardly so pretentious as Chicago. However, it is almost as large, with very long streets running out into the country, and a large park.
I noticed in the St. Louis papers that in this State of Mis souri parties are so divided that the negro vote seems to be of consequence. The question of mixed or separate schools seems to be an important one here, and the advocates of mixed schools hope to secure the votes of the blacks. I went down to have a good look at the Mississippi, that great river of America, and I was certainly disappointed. After having seen other great rivers I was not particularly struck with this one. It may be larger than the others, but the size is not palpable ; the breadth is not excessive, and there is no appearance of a very strong current. According to the register it is now seven feet above low- water level, which, I suppose, is rather low. The Mississippi and Missouri join a few miles above this. The water looks muddy. It is a curious thing that there
ST. LOUIS. 225
seem to be no good fish in the Mississippi. There are no river-fish in the hotel bills ; those that they have come over from the great lakes or from the sea. I asked about it, and they said only a few inferior fish, called cat-fish, are caught in the Mississippi.
There are many steamers here, but none equal to the great inland steamers at New York. I took two trips of some miles each into the suburbs. On one route there was a park and a great many good villas, and on the other there were endless streets of poor men's houses. They seemed good of their kind. The country rises in a rolling way ; but there are no hills or signs of the mountains yet. I noticed that the driver of the tram in which I travelled was a Frenchman, and the conductor an Irishman. I am told that there are a good many French here, but there seem to be more Grerman signboards, notices, &c. I saw very little peculiarly Ameri can about the dress and appearance of the people, and did not even notice very much in their voices. In crowded tram- cars scarcely anyone said anything to anybody, and there was no roughness. Wideawakes are certainly more common than in England ; chimney-pot hats are comparatively rare. In the Exhibition I saw some very fine fat cattle. In the hotel there was a board with the various churches grouped under denominations. Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, and Presbyterian are the most numerous. Besides Presbyterian there are also a few ' United Presbyterian ' churches. One of the largest denominations struck me, being called simply 'Christians.'., On inquiry I was told that this is a large persuasion throughout a great part of the States. They are called ' Christians ' or ' Campbellites,' being founded by a certain Bishop Campbell ; they are said to have branched off from the Baptists.
After doing St. Louis I started for Kansas. The first part of the country is much like that on the other side of the river, but becomes more rolling as we go on. On all the lands formerly prairie a good deal of tree-planting has been done, and trees are now nowhere rare ; but they are not yet available for timber. The timber is chiefly imported from
Q
226 MY JOURNAL.
the lakes into Illinois and the neighbouring country. Hedges are becoming very common as fences. Getting on towards Kansas the country rolls more and more, and a good deal of stone begins to crop up. I was surprised to see the extent of cultivation. There is still nothing that can be called a real open prairie, though there are some grazing tracts. The grass is now not very green ; but here also immense quantities of hay are stored. Some hemp is grown, and also tobacco ; and bees are kept to a considerable extent. We passed a large bee-farm ; and in a very inchoate skeleton village I noticed a beehive shop. In parts natural wood becomes pretty common, principally oak, especially near the Missouri Elver. To see the open prairie you must go far back from the railways. I am told that far away out in the south-west of Kansas State, upon the Arkansas Eiver, is a very fine country of big-rolling prairie, with splendid soil, where a great wheat cultivation has been developed during the last six or eight years. Sometimes they suffer from drought, but usually there is rain enough for wheat. From all I can gather I understand that the rise to the foot of the Eocky Mountains is quite gradual, and that even when you come to the mountains the ascent on this side is comparatively gradual. Between this and the mountains is what was called the Great American Desert ; but it now turns out that the Desert is a myth — that there is no desert at all. Travelling along here I did not see very many cattle, but at all the stations there were pens and inclines for shipping cattle. I noticed a good many horses and many very fine mules ; oxen do not seem to be used for draught in this part of the country. The cattle-drivers and farm-hands ride with wooden stirrups. You may see a man on horseback fetching in a cow. I stayed at Kansas City, which, by the way, is not in Kansas State at all, but in Missouri, on the borders of Kansas. There were many vehicles of all sorts, well horsed. Everyone seems to keep a horse ; yet the price of a hack carriage is two dollars the first hour, and one dollar for every subsequent hour. The proprietors say they are obliged to take out licenses, which causes conveyances to be dear. I noticed here an ordinance
KANSAS. 227
against touting and soliciting custom, making it a misde meanour. Apparently this is a municipal ordinance published by the Mayor and signed by the town clerk. The innkeepers' notice regarding liabilities for losses is a Missouri State Law (Revised Statutes of Missouri, chapter 79). Kansas City is on the Missouri River. I was very much disappointed with that river ; it does not look very large. It is like an Indian river, with sandbanks in it ; but I understand it does not rise so much. There are no steamers and apparently no navigation here, except a few mud-barges and small boats for local use. In fact, the river is not much used in this part of its course, but it is more used higher up, and it is navigable throughout more or less. Occasional steamers pass up, and can go up a very long way — it is scarcely known how far. The Govern ment send steamers up by the river route for supplying their far-away outposts in the far North-West, where there are no other means of communication. Kansas City is mostly on high ground. It seems a thriving place, nothing very remark able about it, and is quite modern in its ways. I should not have known I was so far West. My hotel was the St. James's, on high ground, comfortable and moderate. I found that no paper is published on Monday morning, and I asked, ' Why, are people too good to print upon Sunday ? ' The answer I got was, ' No, but they drink upon Sunday.' How ever, I did not see much of that, and rather think that my informant was unduly severe on his countrymen.
In the afternoon I visited the stock-yards, and then went on the Kansas side of the small river which here divides the two States. There were many cattle in the yards, and most of them seemed to be very well-bred animals — not very fat, but tolerably so. I understand that they will go to the American butchers at once. The greater number come from Texas, many also from Colorado. The cattle raised in Colo rado are said to be the best-bred. Much good short-horn blood has, I believe, been introduced of late years. The cattle come here by rail. There is no grazing-ground along which they could be driven for two or three hundred miles from this. They are driven from Texas up to the railway,
228 MY JOURNAL.
and then trucked. These railways have certainly led to the cultivation and civilisation of the country in a marvellous degree. Where a few years ago all was uncultivated and bar barous now things are almost as civilised as in an English town, to say the least. The bad spirits who hover on the borders of civilisation have gone farther West. To see the real West one must go much farther than Kansas City ; but as my inquiries lie chiefly in another direction I have not gone farther.
In Kansas City, and still more in the suburbs in Kansas proper, the negroes are much more numerous than I have yet seen. On the Kansas side they form quite a large proportion of the population. They are certainly subject to no indignity or ill-usage. They ride quite freely in the trams and railways alongside of the whites, as I myself experienced, and there seems to be no prejudice whatever against personal contact with them. I did not hear them at all abused or slanged. Coming along in the tram-car a cart was found standing on the line, and detained us some time. When the owner at last appeared he was a black man. A white waggoner in London would certainly have been most unmercifully slanged by a 'bus-driver, and would have deserved it ; but our driver said nothing that I could hear. He may have moved his lips or said something low, but it was the negro I heard defiantly call out, c What do you say ? ' Altogether, for such a place as this, there is surprisingly little shouting or slanging. So many crossings on a level would lead to endless bad language in London ; but people in America seem much more on their good behaviour. The blacks are civil and attentive as waiters in the hotels and railway-cars, but sometimes ill-mannered. The black porter in the Pullman car on my journey here slept on the passengers' seats, with his boots on the cushions, in a way that not every passenger, and certainly not a white guard, would venture on ; and he washed his own dirty hands in the passengers' washhand-basin before my face, before doing something wanted. The white railway con ductors are generally civil and well-behaved, though they do not expect tips, as these ill-mannered blacks do. I am bound,
KANSAS. 229
however, to say that my subsequent experience did not con firm this view of the bad manners of the blacks.
Here the negroes seemed to have quite taken to work at trades; I saw them doing building work, both alone and assisting white men, and also painting and other tradesman's work. On the Kansas side I found a negro blacksmith, with an establishment of his own ; he was an old man, and very 'negro,' and I could only extract a little from him. He .grumbled just like a white man — he made a living; did pretty well : ' But things are dear.' ( Well, they are cheaper than they were.' ' But then you are expected to work cheaper.' He came from Tennessee, after emancipation ; had not been back there, and did not want to go. Most of the schools here are separate, and not mixed. ' Perhaps that suits best. Some black boys go, and some don't.' A black boy of about ten was standing by. That boy did not go. Could not say why. His father is a member of the School Board ; and though he has several children, never sent one to school. I also saw black women keeping apple-stalls, and engaged in other such occupations. In these States, which I may call intermediate between black and white countries, the blacks evidently have no difficulty. I am told that they work tolerably well, but, as it was put to me, they are not very ' forehanded.' They are content if they have enough for the time. However, my informant said there were a good many blacks in the further part of the Kansas State, who are doing pretty well, especially some who have small farms of their own.
The suburban cottages seemed to me very nice indeed, with trees and orchards, and shrubs and gardens ; but, as it generally happens in the interior parts of America, they have not gardens such as our gardens, only fruit-trees, cabbages, Indian corn, pumpkins, &c., but very few flowers. Things are not quite so smart in Kansas as in the larger cities, but quite good and comfortable, and in the same style. There is a singular uniformity about everything in America, both in the food and style of the dishes and everything else. There are always very many dishes on the bill of fare ; but in all places, and every day, they seem to be veiy much the
230 MY JOUENAL.
same. One gets sick of looking at the list. The Americans seem to eat their meat underdone to a degree which some what astonished one. I was always rather fond of underdone meat, but I dare not ask for it underdone, or ' rare,' as they call it here, when the question is put as it usually is, for it is far beyond me. American ladies will eat, in the sweetest manner, meat which I could not touch. Prices here in the West are more moderate than in the Eastern cities. Board and lodging is only two or two and a half dollars a day, and a single meal about fifty cents. They seem very fond of English names ; here, too, there is a ' Hyde Park.' At the hotel here the mutton is called c Southdown,' and the cheese c English dairy cheese.'
Next morning I started, on my return to Illinois, by another line, the Hannibal and St. Joe. This is one of the- many competing lines which run east and west in this part of the world. It is surprising how many of them there arer and how difficult it is to choose between their relative merits. I think I have said that there are no books in the American hotels, but there is a great provision of railway advertise ments, each railway not only advertising its merits, but en forcing them by a map, on which, by taking some slight liberties with geography, the particular line is shown broad, straight, tempting in every way, while all the other lines are depicted as mean, circuitous, and inconvenient. In default of any other literature one is driven to devote one's evenings to the study of these railway lines. We crossed the Missouri River and ran through the interior of North Missouri. The river still looks not very large nor interesting. There are many bridges on both the Missouri and the Mis sissippi above St. Louis, though none below on the united streams. On crossing the Missouri we ran througli some fine timber and some good green pasture, abounding in cattle ; then through a good deal of broken ground and some swampy tracts ; then a long tract of highish prairie country, very flat, with little roll, mostly cultivated ; but there were some large natural pastures, generally enclosed. Near the Mississippi we dropped down into a heavily-wooded country,
INTEKIOR OF ILLINOIS. 231
and through that to the river. I thought it beautiful. It is very broad and large, with wooded islands. To the eye it seemed to me larger than the Missouri. There were a good many steamers about, and I understand there is very much more navigation than on the Missouri. The river is na vigable up to St. Paul's. We crossed it on a good light iron bridge to Quincy, in Illinois, which seemed a good and settled town. The Illinois country near it is quite a garden. I noticed besides the ordinary crops a few vineyards, a good deal of tobacco, and many good grass-fields. As we went on the country seemed very much the same as the part of Illinois I had seen before. We crossed the Illinois, a con siderable river. Springfield, the political capital of the State, seemed a sort of exaggerated village, with rural-looking streets and houses. The roads are a great difficulty in these parts. There is no metal to be got, and the black soil, like the Indian soil of the same kind, is very good for mud-roads in dry weather, but wholly impracticable in wet weather. This accounts for the immense number of railways in this State. As long as we were in Missouri we saw a good many blacks. At one place the black passengers dined at a separate table ; but in Illinois, in a country settled by whites, the blacks are rarely found — only, in fact, as hotel servants and suchlike. I understand, however, that in the southern part of Illinois blacks are numerous. At Cairo they load the vessels and do such work. I had occasion to ask at the hotel who cleaned the boots, that I might tip him. c There is the gentleman,' said the landlord, pointing to a black, and apparently quite in earnest. It seemed to me that the rule of service is black men and white women. At the stations at meals as we came along to-day we were generally waited upon by nice quiet-looking white girls. I did not see black women much employed except as nurses ; and I am told that they make good cooks.
Coming along the Illinois country from Quincy to Cham pagne I was struck by the large number of passengers. There were many junctions, and people crowded out and in. It must be remembered, however, that there are generally
232 MY JOURNAL.
only two trains in the twenty-four hours. At Champagne, a small country town, there was a very decent hotel, very clean, and charges moderate. I stayed there for the night.
In the morning I found that Mr. 0 , President of
the Illinois Central Railway, had come down in his car with
Mr. A , the British Vice-Consul, and they kindly invited
me to take up my quarters with them. We went to see the Illinois Industrial University located here. It seems a very flourishing institution, devoted to agriculture and other useful arts. The President showed us over, and I was called upon to make a little speech. Most of the students are young men ; but there are also a good many young women. They have a model farm, garden, and stock-farm attached. The professor of agriculture gave me much information. There is a fine museum, with botanical schools and every thing complete. Talking of agriculture, I am told that here, as elsewhere, it pays better to cultivate a small farm, carefully worked and looked after, than a large one. Only stock-farms pay on a large scale. In California land has got into the hands of great holders, who cultivate by hired labour. There are few small proprietors, and probably to that is due the rowdyism which seems to some extent to prevail in Cali fornia.
All over this part of the country there is a disposition to pay much attention to live stock. Farmers pride themselves on their grass-fields, and believe that their grass is as good as ours. They raise stock here for the cattle-market ; but in the North of Illinois there are many dairy farms and cheese factories. Besides hay a good deal of corn is given to the cattle. We visited a small American farmer, and found his name to be Campbell. I noticed that he and his family pronounced it in the orthodox way, sounding the B, whereas all the higher classes of Americans, even in New York, in variably pronounce the name in the old lowland Scotch fashion as ' Cammel.* They appeal to the poetical authority of the song—
' The Campbells (Cammels) are coming.'
This is one of those cases in which the language and pro-
INTERIOR OF ILLINOIS. 233
nunciation of the working classes in America are more modern than that of the higher classes. My namesake had a good new barn, but a very poor house. They say that all thrifty farmers build an improved barn first, and an improved house afterwards. He had two pairs of horses, one hired servant, and a number of children. Of course he worked, and worked hard, himself.
We slept in the railway-carriage, and went on during the night to Kanakee, an Illinois country town, originally a French settlement. There seem to be now many considerable towns on this line of railway. From Kanakee we went along a new branch line now being made into a district not hitherto served by railway ; and, driving some miles beyond the point now reached by the rail, I had the advantage of seeing a good deal of the thoroughly rural class of Western farmers. The branch line is being made very cheap — it is only to cost 1 ,200L a mile. The farmers are very keen to get it ; they have generally given the land required free, and many of them have promised voluntary contributions to wards the undertaking, for which they have given notes of hand. When the time comes for payment they are said to be rather difficult to settle with ; they want to stipulate for very cheap rates and other advantages. The land about here is mostly rather flat ; a great deal of it, and indeed a great deal of Illinois land altogether, stands in need of drainage. In many places tile-drains are being put in. Altogether this country seems to have rather too much than too little rain. There is sufficient slope for drainage when it is attended to. A great deal of the land hereabouts was originally given to the Illinois Central Railway, and by them sold to farmers. Most farms seem to be small — a good many of them only 40 acres, very many 80 acres, some 160 acres. Those of 320 acres are comparatively few. The buildings seem generally to be rather poor — as if not very much had been done to them since they were built by the first settlers ; but a good many trees have been planted, good hedges and fences set up, and draining and other improvements are going on. The farms where the railway had been long
234 MY JOURNAL.
running generally had improved barns. I gather that the farmers have a hard-working time of it ; and unless a man has very special advantages he scarcely makes money very rapidly. During the Civil War prices were very high, and much money was made ; but now prices are far too low to bring much profit. The maize crop fetches but a very low price, and the farmers have not any very paying crops, unless they can make fat cattle pay ; but cattle are also at present very cheap in America. To improve very much it would require higher farming, which involves a good supply of labour ; but the continual opening up of new countries in the West takes people off so fast as greatly to interfere with the States already settled. The life of the farmers must be rather solitary and rough. I visited a German farmer who has been a good many years settled in America, but he had lived so much alone that he still speaks English very im perfectly, while his wife and mother do not speak it at all. I found a good many farms occupied by different members of a Scotch family of the name of Bute. They claimed descent from ' Lord Bute ; ' but that is a bad shot, as Lord Bute's name is not Bute. Most of the English-speaking farmers seem to be of American birth — generally men who had come from older States and taken up land in Illinois. One was an Englishman, originally a mechanic ; he had come from Lan cashire as a young man, had worked at his trade in the States, then tried farming in several places ; eventually settled in Illinois ; was lucky in making money during the war and in the possession of several strong sons — that is the best wealth in America — daughters don't pay — this man has now 320 acres here, besides a farm in Indiana, which he has rented ' on shares ; ' that is, to a man who pays him a share of the crop. He seems still a rough sort of man. I did not see much (here, at any rate) of the smart farmers' wives such as Mr. Dale lately described, but there are a few large farmers better off than others. They say that the Irish do not do well here ; those who have farms generally rent, and, as it was put to me, c they rent them too cheap to work them well.' There does not seem to be the same objection here to
INTERIOR OF ILLINOIS. 235
renting farms as there is in New York. A good many are- rented, but only for short terms and upon shares — generally paying one-third of the produce to the owner. There are no long leases. The share system is said to answer well enough. Such rentings, however, are only what I may call casual ; there is no such thing as an estate bought for the purpose of leasing out in farms. Many of the owners are in debt, and pay about 8 per cent. There is very good provision for educating the children ; the law requires that there should be a school every two miles. The schools are generally taught either by women or by young men just out of college and commencing their career. Many young women ' teach school ' before they get married, and many distinguished men have commenced life by teaching schools. Some say that the drawback to education is apparent in the too great number of young men who seek to live by their head rather than by their hands.
The land here is all marked off into townships of six miles square, and into mile, half-mile, and quarter-mile squares, with unmetalled rectangular roads dividing the squares, and generally hedges. The houses are of wood. The farmers have not much machinery. Indian corn is not reaped by machine, and the farmers can generally hire a machine to thrash out the grain when they require it. A very common institution on the farms here is the small American windmill ; it is used for pumping water, bruising corn, and for other purposes. Water is always to be had from wells within easy distance of the surface. This not being a fruit country, large fruit trains come up from Southern Illinois in the season, and apples come from the North. Prairie chickens are very common hereabouts; they by no means affect remote prairies ; on the contrary, they seem a domestic sort of creatures, frequenting the neighbourhood of roads, farms, &c. The small American rabbit is also com mon ; the large Jack rabbit, or hare, is found only in the West. There is a great abundance of wild ducks almost everywhere in America. A small forty-acre farmer had a little sugar-mill, such as the ryots have in some parts of
236 MY JOURNAL.
India, and his neighbours brought their sorghum to be •crushed into molasses. Most of the farmers grow oats for their own use, but I did not see anything of peas and beans ; that is, our peas. There are American peas and beans too, but they are of a different kind. In Canada I noticed that the best bacon was described as pea-fed. Barley does not seem to be a common crop in any of the States which I have visited, but there is plenty of rye and buckwheat. Illinois is par excellence the ' corn State ; ' that is, Indian corn, which is always meant when corn is spoken of in America. They have wonderfully improved varieties of this corn here. It shows what can be done by selection and cultivation. The flat or rolling black soil prevails throughout all the central parts, and indeed over most of the State; but at either end is a country of a different character. In the south there is much rocky and uneven ground, some of it poor ; but much wheat is grown in the south. In the north also there is an undu lating country, with lead mines and other minerals. There also is Elgin (they pronounce it ' Eljin '), where the Illinois watches are made. For fat cattle the Durham short-horn breed is preferred. For milch cows here and all over America they are very fond of small Jerseys, and affect that breed much more than is usually the case in this country.
All the land which is private property is taxed according to its value, whether it is cultivated or not; that is, for State, county, and local purposes. The county supports some county officers, roads, bridges, and the poor. I have been surprised to find that there is some sort of poor law in almost every State in America. The fact is, the law being English law, the English poor law has been imported, and is only more or less modified. The townships support schools and local roads. There are no commons properly so called; in remote parts there may be open public land not yet ap propriated, but it is not the practice to reserve any common pasture land in the settled townships. The townships here are merely local organisations for financial and adminis trative purposes ; they have no basis of common property, like the European and Asiatic townships or communes. The
INTERIOR OF ILLINOIS. 237
counties of some of these States are very numerous — as many as a hundred or more in a State. They are very little more than areas for taxation, and seem to have no county repre sentation or county meetings. The townships elect trustees, who correspond to the 'select men' of the Eastern States, and also town constables and some other officers. There is no county police; only in large towns is there any regular police force. When occasion requires the Sheriff acts with a ' posse.' Any considerable place is formally incorporated as a city, whilst smaller places are incorporated as villages. The people are very fond of meetings of the citizens; that is, gene rally the citizens of the townships. Oratory is taught at the Industrial College. They have also there a mock place of business, where the boys and girls do merchants' work with tokens of small value, and so learn to make and lose money. On looking into the laws of this State I find that it is op tional with each county to organise into townships for administrative purposes. They generally do ; as soon as the country is settled the township system comes into play. In order to avoid confusion incorporated towns, as distinguished from the district called a township, are now called either cities or villages. Any populous place of 1,000 inhabitants or up wards may become a city ; any place of 300 inhabitants or upwards a village.
To go back to the farmers : they seem to me a quiet and simple but shrewd sort of men, very like what small Scotch farmers might be. They generally take in a local weekly paper and an agricultural paper. Groing into the houses, some of them struck me as really very poor and crowded ; some had no separate living room, but these are the early houses first built in a newly-settled country, and they will improve, if the people are tolerably prosperous.
In these Western States I notice a good many French names of places, marking a time when, both in India and in America, the French almost outrivalled us. Ohio, too, which not so long back was a remote and unsettled territory, was the scene of French settlement and French military operations a long time ago ; and the present Pittsburgh, the great iron
238 MY JOURNAL.
centre in West Pennsylvania, was the Fort du Quesne of the French.
After this visit to the interior of Illinois I returned to Chicago, and there again made a short halt, and saw some more of the sights of that famous place.
I am more and more struck by the absence of the habit of drinking wine amongst the Americans. At the hotels here one sees no such thing, nor do they even have on the table at meals the lager-bier which is common in the country. The bars too seem little frequented, and to have little variety of drinks. At some of the railway stations in Illinois nothing was to be got to drink ; the sale was not prohibited, but ' Murphy had been round.' There is, in fact, a strong movement against drink, which has hitherto been much taken by the lower classes in the shape of nips at odd times. Ap parently this abstinence movement has had much success. I gathered that most of the intemperance was among what I may call the loafing population.
Among the uniformities of American ways I notice a uniform inferiority and saltness of butter. Americans do not seem to know bread-and-butter in our sense, and that probably affects their character. They are, I must say, very barbarous in their fashion of eating. They seem to order all their little dishes at once, and keep digging first into one •dish and then into another — mixing fish and beefsteaks, and swallowing every concoction of vegetables together at the
From Chicago I went, by the Chicago Fort Wayne and Pittsburgh Eailway, to Pittsburgh, crossing on the road a portion of Indiana and the northern half of Ohio. The railroad seemed a capital one, in excellent order, and very smooth. After passing the flats at the bottom of Lake Michigan we came to an undulating country, with a good deal of wood and abundant pasture. We passed a con siderable town called Valparaiso, the seat apparently of a thriving woollen manufactory. Soon after the ground again became very flat — too flat for drainage — and so continued for a very long way; in fact, as far as a place called Crestline. The
INDIANA AND OHIO. 239
ground was very much wooded, and only partially cleared, with a good many swamps, but no prairie-ground, except some large, open, swampy plains. The country here evidently suffers from too much moisture and want of drainage. I saw large stacks of draining-tiles at the stations. Still there was a good deal of cultivation, mixed with forest. Some of the country seemed to resemble part of what I had seen in Canada. There were some nice-enough looking places, and better gardens and orchards than in Illinois. The Indian corn an Illinois man thought not very good. There was a good deal of wheat ; cattle pretty plentiful, sheep few. On some of the clearings I saw many log-huts, such as I had not yet seen in real life ; but some of the towns are improving. They get a great deal of timber, and do a great deal of wood work. Evidently in all this part of America there is very great room for much further improvement. The country drains so far as it drains at all into Lake Erie, but there is a curious absence of running water. Crestline, where I stopped for the night, is about the highest part of the country, and immediately after passing it the drainage goes to the Ohio. I found a comfortable little hotel at Crestline. I took a walk about the town. It seemed a nice, clean country place, with good shops, neat villa- residences, and a quiet, decent- looking people.
In the morning I started again. Almost immediately after leaving Crestline the ground began to undulate, and eventually became quite hilly,- with a good many streams, running more or less, but for the most part somewhat sluggish. This is the character of the country till we get towards Pittsburgh. There is always a great abundance of natural wood, principally hard wood, ash and suchlike, but comparatively few pines. A very large proportion of the fields had still stumps in them, even those in the middle of considerable towns. As we got on, however, the homesteads improved and became better-looking than most of those that I had seen in Illinois. Much of the route, with fine woods scattered about, is extremely park-like, and the autumn .foliage is very pretty ; indeed, altogether it seemed as smiling
240 MY JOURNAL.
a country as one could wish to see ; that is, for a country only partially cleared and cultivated. I began to realise the beauty of the American autumn foliage of which one has heard so much. The leaves certainly turn to very bright and showy colours, such as one never sees in Europe. I saw some very good specimens of this kind of thing ; but in this particular respect I am told that I am not fortunate in the season, as there has not been the sudden change to frost which causes the most brilliant hues.
PENNSYL VANIA.
In the latter part of this journey we entered the State of Pennsylvania. As we came along towns and villages became more and more populous ; in fact, the last hundred miles or so into Pittsburgh was full of manufacturing places forming what might be called an American Sheffield country joined to an American Birmingham at Pittsburgh. The coun try here becomes very hilly. We came into the valley of the Beaver Eiver, then into that of the Ohio, then a little way up the Alleghany river, crossing which we came into Pittsburgh.
In the train I met a talkative old Pennsylvania gentle man, very like an Englishman in voice and manner — I think Pennsylvanians are often so. He had just come back from Iowa, which he thinks a good country ; but he saw there a good many emigrants moving further West, with their waggons, families, and household goods. He considers Penn- sylvanian farming first-rate ; but good land there is very dear — a man cannot make much by it. The best of the Penn- sylvanian country is in the eastern valleys. The western valleys are narrow and precipitous. The Pennsylvanian people grow wheat and keep a good many cows, but he seems to say that they do not go in very much for dairy-farming. The most paying crop of late has been tobacco : they have discovered that they can grow it. A very large proportion of the well-to-do farmers in this part of the country are Germans, called ' Dutch ' by the Americans. There are also many Scotch-Irish; but the regular Irish are not so good. The Germans still speak very much among themselves a local
PITTSBURGH. 241
German, different from the school German. They all under stand German. Most of them are Protestants. Here also the farmers generally own their own land ; but some rent, and in that case they prefer the share system. It answers very well with an honest man, but you are apt to be cheated. He has had experience of this system on a farm of his own, which has been long rented. The tenant gives him half of the corn and hay. He knows a farmer who gives two-thirds ; but then the proprietor supplies the seed and the working stock. In this part of the country they have no trouble or ill-feeling about religious questions, though Catholic priests want to prosely tise children when they can. I also talked to a German. He came out at the age of eighteen, and is substantially an American. He served in the Federal army during the war, and saved $500, also made a little money in other ways, and now bitterly regrets that he did not put his savings into the land. If he had he would have been safe and well off now- As it is he seems to have lost his money. He has a good enough place as traveller for a machinist, with $3 a day and expenses; but, as he says, there is no knowing how long that will last, whereas land lasts for ever. He says the Germans work well, and have the great advantage that the women work as well as the men, while American women will not work. In the West, howeyer, the women are comparatively few, and they have enough other work to do. German emigration has been much checked recently, but many Swedes and Norwegians come, and some people who are called Kussiaas. I fancy these are Mnemonites.
Pittsburgh is a very smoky-looking place ; but it is surrounded by pretty hills, on some of which are vineyards^ and altogether the scene looks a good deal like a European Continental town, the smoke apart. My guide-book directed me to the Union Depot Hotel, but I found it had been burnt down in last year's riots, and I went to the Seventh Avenue Hotel. The next day was Sunday, and it struck me that Pittsburgh was a singularly dull and uninteresting place on that day ; nothing seemed to be going on. The people seem respectable enough ; but very many men of various sorts were
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242 MY JOURNAL.
hanging about the streets in a moody kind of way. I can easily imagine it to be the sort of place for an outbreak like that which occurred last year. However, at present the place is as full of women and children as other places, and one sees wonderfully few signs of last year's destruction. The more I walk about the place the more smoky and grimy and dull- looking it seems to be. I observe many negroes about, many of the women in smart Sunday dresses. The relations be tween them and the whites appear quite good.
The next day a gentleman connected with the Pennsyl vania Central Railway was kind enough to drive me about the town and show me some of the sights. I now learned that there was a special reason for the extreme dullness and want of motion yesterday. It seems that a great Sunday-closing movement has just broken out, an old Act of 1794 having been put in force against the publicans, or saloon-keepers, as they are called in America ; and they in turn have put in force the law against everyone else. Almost all the street cars were stopped and every sort of traffic. The saloon keepers have established a ' Detective Association ' to deal with Sunday-breakers, and are now the great promoters of the closing movement, which is the great question of the day. There used to be very many saloons and much drinking in Pittsburgh ; but ' Murphy ' has been very active lately, and is said to have had a great effect. He is here now. I am afraid it seems inconsistent with what I have said in detraction of the Pittsburgh people, but I am told that this is a very Presby terian and Scotch-Irish place. Before the war many negroes took refuge here, but it is said there are hardly so many of them now as there were then.
This is a great railway centre. A very inconvenient pe culiarity of American freedom is the great variety of railway gauges, which gives much trouble in regard to the through lines ; but they have got over this difficulty by a system of hoisting the carriages off one set of wheels and putting them on another. This is very rapidly done ; and in this way, not withstanding change of gauge, carriages are run through for long distances. There is a very large traffic between this
INTERIOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. 243
place and Lake Erie. Ironstone is brought in large quantities from the Lake regions. We visited one of the largest iron works. Mr. J , the head partner, kindly showed us over
He seemed a very business-like and English-looking sort of man, though he had never been in England. From 2,500 to 3,000 men, of all nationalities, are employed in the works.
]V£r. J Says the Grermans are the only men who are saving ;
all the rest scatter. He thinks the riots last year were very much due to mismanagement, and that it was a mistake to bring in the military. ' These people think that they can reason.' The negroes do not become skilled workmen — they only work as labourers. Workmen's wages are very much higher here than in England — more so in some kinds of labour than in others. Ordinary labourers do not get so much more, but puddling costs almost three times as much ; that, how ever, is partly due to combinations. East of the Alleghanies the rates are not so high. Upon the whole the wages he pays to skilled workmen are, he says, nearly twice as high as those in England. Capital is much dearer in America. He himself long paid 10 per cent, upon very large sums ; now money is cheaper. In Pennsylvania the best iron-veins are thin, and a good deal worked out. Most of the good ore comes from Michigan — from the country upon Lake Superior. The advantage of Pittsburgh is the very cheap coal. They have their own mines almost immediately adjoining the works. Coal costs only about a dollar a ton. They do an immense amount of rolling bars, and also manufacture nails upon an enormous s«ale. They have some new and complicated machines that only Americans can work. On the whole he believes that American workmen do more than English work men. He was very much impressed by Mr. Lothian Bell, who had paid him a visit.
From Pittsburgh I took the train to Philadelphia. We very soon got into pretty suburbs, clear of the smoke, and passed through a smiling, undulating country, without any steep inclines, wood and cultivation alternating. Further on, as we got into the Alleghany hills, we passed through some deep wooded gorges and up some steep inclines ; but we still
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244 MY JOURNAL.
came upon towns and villages and cultivation, and saw several branch railways and some great iron works. Even after the last of the steep ascents we never lost the cultivated and inhabited country. There was nothing that could be called mountains. At the highest point, at Cresson Springs, the ground is nearly flat. There is here a pretty park, and the place is a sort of sanatorium in the hot weather. It is not very cool, but people say that at night they can always sleep under a blanket.
The steep part of the road was going down on the other side. There are eleven miles of a very steep incline — very wooded and very picturesque gorges, abounding in pines and cypresses — but there is nothing nearly so steep as on the Indian Ghauts. At the foot of the incline at Altona there are great railway works ; and an hour further we came to Huntingdon, a nice rural town, where I stayed for the night. I found that the bell was going for a Democratic political meeting, and I went there. The proceedings were opened by a brass band. It seems that a musical performance of that kind is an important part of American political demonstra tions. The people were very quiet and orderly. I heard them saying, ' The Democrats are going to have a good meeting.' There was not so much appearance of party feeling as there generally is with us. The people seemed very much like those of one of our country towns. I noticed one or two negro boys in the meeting. They seemed quite at home, and no one objected to their presence. The meeting was kept waiting a considerable time, and seemed wonderfully patient. At last the Honourable — Stinger, the member for the dis trict, entered, and was moderately cheered. A respectable elderly gentleman was called to the chair, and there was then a very formal nomination of vice-presidents and secre taries, but I could not make out that these functionaries had anything to do. The president made a nice little speech. Then the Honourable — Stinger came forward and made the speech of the evening. I thought it really very good and effec tive — well-reasoned, clear, and even independent, it seemed to me. I think he was a lawyer by profession. His great
A DEMOCRATIC MEETING. 245
contention was that in the days of Democratic rule the •country was prosperous, and they governed themselves in a contented way. ' You hardly knew,' he said, ' that there was a United States Government, except when you went to the post-office for your letters. Under the Republican Govern ment there is want, tramps, execution for taxes, and other evils ; ' and he accused the Republicans of extravagance, jobbing, scheming for office, and support of rings and mono polies. As to the Southern difficulty, he said ' the Constitu tional question and the rights of the negroes are settled — no one would go back upon that ; but, thank God, the Carpet baggers have been expelled from the South ; disturbance and murder are stopped — the rule is given to those who care for the rights of both races.' Military rule in the South had been stopped by Congress refusing appropriations for the army until the troops were withdrawn. As regards the money question he was very vehement, and denounced both the Greenbackers and the Silver-men. He wanted to give the working man a real and not a sham dollar. Afterwards, however, he somewhat inconsistently said that he would post pone return to specie payments till times were better. He had no objection to the silver dollar, if enough silver were put into it to make it worth a dollar. There was no talk of the question of protection — that goes of itself, I suppose. He then went into State Government affairs, but I did not dis cover that there were any burning questions except personal ones, and upon these he was very bitter. He accused old Simon Cameron of personal rule and all sorts of jobbing to put his son, Don Cameron, and others of his party, into office, with the view to raise money for election expenses. Another man followed, whom I did not think much of — he was more of a ranter. On the whole I should say the speakers were more demonstrative than with us, and the people less so. There was no opposition, and no ' heckling,' nor any vote at the end — merely moderate applause — and then everyone went away. The next morning I looked about the place. People were talking very quietly. ' I know nothing of politics,' I heard some say. None seemed strong or bitter upon the subject.
246 MY JOUKNAL.
I met a stoat American of these parts — a rough sort of man ; but he owns much land in various parts of Minnesota, and he wants to sell. Apparently land speculation has been some what overdone. The Pennsylvania Central Canal runs along side the railway here. I saw no signs of traffic upon it, but I am told that it carries a good deal of coal. There are some negroes about the town, but apparently none in the country. I saw no such thing as a negro labourer on the farms. A very important people here are the ' Dunkards,' a German religious sect. They are about the best and most prosperous farmers in this country, owning almost the whole of one rich valley. They are building a fine High School here, which they are to dedicate to the public. It will be taken over as a common school. There is a great deal of difference of opinion about the school system. One man denied that there are free schools, but I found that he meant that they have to pay taxes for them ; and he put it that if a man owns a farm he may have to pay $20, when a man of equal means, but who only rents a house, pays only one or two dollars. In this town there are as many as eight churches. The principal one is a Presbyterian church, the minister of which has $1,700 (say 350L) and a house. Next comes the Methodist church, the minister of which receives $1,200. The Epis copalians are few, and unable to support a parson. In vil lages, I am told, you will probably find only two churches, one Presbyterian and the other Methodist.
I took a long walk out into the country, and saw a good many farms. The land is not very good about here. There is much woodland not reclaimed, but it is being taken up bit by bit. Notwithstanding much emigration from this country to the West they do not seem to suffer from want of population. Most of the farmers hire labour more or less, and plenty of farm-servants are to be got. Pennsylvania seems to be a great country for raising humans. The prin cipal crops are Indian corn, wheat, and a good many potatoes. In all the gardens there are vines, but they do not always bear. All the country hereabouts is at this moment suffering very much from drought. I found that some farms belong to
PHILADELPHIA. 247
men in the town, who work them with hired labour. Some small patches are held by men who do other work as well. I talked to such a man who had eighteen acres of his own. The hired servants seem decent sort of people. On the whole I should not say that the people here are of a higher class than the average of our rural populations. Many of the children have bare feet, but that is probably due to the climate. The ordinary cottages seem very good.
Groing on by railway to Philadelphia we passed through a long narrow valley, without much population, and then came to Harrisburgh, the political capital of the State, and a great railway centre. The Susquehanna is a very broad, shallow river. From Harrisburgh we passed through Lan caster County. There the cultivation is very good indeed ; the fields well enclosed and carefully worked. I still notice the absence of root-crops. I find that this county has the reputation of being very highly cultivated ; in fact, Lancaster and Cumberland Counties of Pennsylvania are said to be the best cultivated in America. The land looked very much like good Scotch or English land without green crops. The farms are small or of moderate size, the great majority owned by the farmers. Renting, they say, seldom answers.
It was dark when we reached Philadelphia, and there were no cabs at the station, but admirably arranged tram way-cars, by which I reached my hotel without difficulty, the luggage being, as is always the case in America, brought separately by a man, who gives you a ticket for it. I put up at the Continental Hotel — very central, but expensive.
In the* morning I looked about Philadelphia. Like all other American cities it is very rectangular, but some of the streets are more European-looking and better filled than any I had yet seen in America. Chestnut and Walnut and such like streets run between the Delaware and the Schuylkill rivers, and at right angles to them run the numbered streets. The Delaware is not here a very large river ; there is a tide, but the water is fresh, it being a long way from the sea. There is said to be not less water in the river than over the New York Bar ; but the disadvantage is that the shallow
248 MY JOURNAL.
places are more numerous, and it takes longer to pass all of them. Evidently the port is at some disadvantage in this respect. Some of the larger steamers do not care to come up. In regard to the grain trade Philadelphia is much pressed by Baltimore ; there is great rivalry between the two places. I went to see Independence House and several other sights. Mr. B , a countryman of mine, to whom I had an intro duction, was good enough to drive me about in the afternoon. He took me through the famous Fairmount Park. A very fine large park it is. The site of the Centennial Exhibition was in this park, and certainly a very commanding and good site. Beyond the park both sides of a pretty stream have been taken up for a continuation of the drive, making it alto gether eleven miles in length. The country here is not hilly, but undulating and pretty.
I made the acquaintance of Mr. P , a most pleasant
old gentleman, and an excellent specimen of the best class of Americans of the older generation ; also his son, a prosperous lawyer, who has been much in Scotland. They took me to
see Mr. G. W. C , a very successful man, and a great
institution in Philadelphia, where he has one of the most successful papers in America. I found him most pleasant, and ready to assist me. The present American Minister in London is a Philadelphia man, and is evidently very much respected and looked up to here. The Philadelphia people seem very sociable, and very intimate with one another, and altogether very agreeable and kind to strangers.
In the evening I went to a political meeting of the oppo site persuasion from that at which I had assisted at Hun tingdon. The Governor of this State presided, a quiet, inaudible sort of man. Then came the Governor that is to be, who was rather dry and financial ; and after him another orator, who gave the Eepublican view of matters very well. As with the other side, party questions seemed to be very much personal ones. He pitched into the Democrats for having caused the war, which was the root of all the evils of which they had lately complained. Now they were recovering, and the great thing was to let well alone. If you could only
PHILADELPHIA. 249
let Congress sleep for ten years all would be right. It would be a scandal and a shame if, after all the sufferings of the country, the defeated Democrats were to come in again. That would mean the victory of the South, compensation for Southern losses, and so on. On the currency question the Eepublicans were as strong for hard money as the other side had been. The good dollar is the poor man's dollar. The working man is a creditor for the value of his labour, and wants to be paid in good money ; the bondholders are the widows and the orphans who have invested their little all in United States Bonds ; and German and Dutch people, who trusted the United States while the English fitted up corsairs to destroy our trade. (Great applause.) The Democrats were coquetting with the Greenbackers. That would never do. Protection might be good or bad for other people, but it was certainly good for Pennsylvania. He accused the Democrats of being in favour of a tariff for revenue, and said that would be ruin to them. This meeting, like the other, was quite quiet and orderly. There seemed to be less of row and less enthusiasm than in one of our political meetings.
The city seems a good and flourishing one. It excels very much in a great abundance of workmen's houses. They are generally held by the workmen themselves on a sort of quit-rent — what we should call ' feus ' in Scotland.
The next day Mr. B took me to see several of the
sights of Philadelphia. One very new institution here is the Safety House ; that is, fire-proof houses, with fire-proof receptacles, in which valuables are locked away. Anyone who wishes thus to secure his valuables, papers, &c. takes a little compartment, in which he puts them. I think the Philadelphia people were rather disappointed at my saying that it seemed a very good idea indeed, but that it had been very long anticipated in one country — viz., China — where almost every village possesses a safety house somewhat on this principle. Europeans generally call them c pawn-shops,' but they are really brick, robber-proof, and to some extent fire-proof buildings, where the Chinese deposit their valuables, which is the more necessary, as in "that country very few
250 MY JOURNAL.
houses are proof against fire and against thieves. As a means, however, of providing for the safety of valuables, securities, and other papers the improved .Pennsylvania safety houses are very useful indeed.
I interviewed two or three of the leading railway chiefs
here. Colonel S , the President of the great Pennsylvania
system of railways, seems a shrewd elderly man. I had a good deal of talk with him. He admits that the great dif ficulty in regard to very successful railways in America is, that they are so liable to the competition of opposition lines, that they cannot expect to pay very enormous dividends ; but, on the other hand, he says they are not afraid of most of these oppositions. These lines cost, according to him, very much more than they were estimated for. They do not pay now, and very likely never will. Others say, however, that the more recent lines are made cheaper than the old ones.
I also talked to Mr. Gr , the very sanguine President of
the Philadelphia and Reading Railway. All admit him to be a clever man ; but his railway is in a bad way nevertheless, and he did not seem to find many to share his sanguine estimates. He does not admit that the Pennsylvania iron is worked out or inferior, as I had been told, though he does admit that the iron ore from Lake Superior is better for some purposes. With regard to the relative merits of American and English iron, he admits that the English deposits in the Cleveland country are the greatest in the world ; but then he says that English iron is full of phos phorus, and won't make into steel. It cannot be so used unless some new chemical means are found for purging it of phosphorus. The American ore is free from phosphorus. Thus they have the advantage in making steel, which will tell the more if, in addition to steel rails, it becomes the fashion to build steel ships, as is now expected. As it is he says the English now make steel cheaper than the Americans, but that is only because the quantity required is compara tively small. If the consumption of steel in the world very largely increases, the English have not the ore to meet the demand. This is a great place for the manufacture of loco-
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motives and all sorts of railway machinery. There seems to be no doubt that the Americans export locomotives to foreign countries, which must be due to skill in the manufacture,
not to the material, which is dearer than with us. Mr. Gr
is very hot on a plan for inducing the ocean steamers to use the anthracite coal which his railway supplies. He says that if the furnaces were fitted for it there would be no difficulty, and they would then find it an immense advantage, the coal being very superior and so much cleaner. The difficulty, it seems, is to get anthracite coal to use on these steamers on the return voyage from England ; but he has specimens to show that there is very good anthracite coal in Wales which they might get. It seems that the principal consumption of this anthracite is now in New York, Phila delphia, and some of the other Eastern cities. There are immense deposits of it, but the area is very limited. It occupies an exceedingly small space on the coal-map of the United States.
I have got the statistical atlas of the United States, giving an immense amount of information. The Americans go in very largely for statistics. At the same time I have not been able to make out how they obtain accurate figures. They have no system of compulsory agricultural returns any more than we have. So far as I can understand their agricultural statistics are not founded on reports from farmers, but merely on the estimates of qualified observers in connection with the Statistical Department in the various par-ts of the country. Then as to the geological and coal maps. There are no general surveys of the United States ; that is not considered to be a function of the general Government, but of each State; consequently the older and more settled States are not surveyed according to any uniform system. The best surveys are those of the e Territories,' in which the land belonging to the United States has been surveyed as United States property. From what I could gather I should say that there are some inaccuracies in the statistical maps. For instance, I could not make out that the Illinois coal-fields are really so enormous as they
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are there depicted — certainly coal is not so cheap in Illinois as it is in Pennsylvania.
I understand that here joint-stock companies are not so common as in New England, and the reason which has been given to me is, that in Pennsylvania corporate bodies are taxed on all their property, while private persons are taxed on real property only, contrary to the practice of most American States which by their Constitution are bound to levy all taxes upon every sort of property, real and personal equally.
In the afternoon I went with Mr. P to his house,
which is within a few miles of Philadelphia, in a pretty, undulating country — something like our Kichmond, without the water. The Philadelphia people do not seem to have con siderable country places, like the New Yorkers ; only villas
and moderate grounds. Mr. P 's house and family I
found extremely pleasant and agreeable. As servants they have only quiet-looking maids, no men ; all seems very nice and simple. The boys, according to the American fashion,
live at home and go to school. I met a Mr. M , with
whom I had some talk about agriculture. He quite agrees with what I have before heard, that it does not pay to let land. He says that in the German counties the women will work in the fields — they like it, and will not be pre vented from doing so ; but no other women do this kind of work. Parts of New England, he says, are now much de serted and almost returning to jungle; the people have gone West to better land ; and the poor New England land, which sufficed for the Pilgrim Fathers, does not pay now. Even in Connecticut, where the land is better, he says its value is much depreciated. He compares the Yankees (meaning New Englanders) to Jews, who will not work with their hands, but expect to grow rich by their heads.
It seems that Mr. McCulloch (late Financial Secretary) has been holding forth on the deficiencies of American agri culture, comparing it to that of the Old World as very infe rior, and saying that agriculture is the only industry to which science has not been properly applied in the United States.
Some of the people here speak with great contempt of
PHILADELPHIA. 253
the * shoddy ' fine ladies of the oil regions and the Western States, but they admit that the St. Louis women are nice — there is a dash of French blood there. The Philadelphia people are different in style and ways both from Yankees and New Yorkers. They think the latter loud and purse- proud. Cincinnati, one of the pleasantest cities in the Union, is, I am told, very German. The Germans there go in very much for the pleasures of life according to their ideas, musical and other. c What is money without pleasure and comfort ? ' says the German. There is now a good deal of society in Washington, I am told, but it is somewhat formal, the foreign Ministers introducing formalities ; and there are many questions of precedence and suchlike.
People here say that the New England servants are quite different from theirs. There is more equality in New Eng land; there they have helps rather than servants. Many students, male and even female, go out to make a little money by service in the hotels during the summer, which accounts for the stories told of the waiter interposing to solve scientific or social questions discussed at the table. In the West there is much more difficulty about servants, and the ladies there are said to get prematurely old on this account. In the South people have had great reverses of fortune, and aristocrats were obliged to serve as waiters, while blacks sat in the Legislature and their wives rode in carriages. I gather, however, that this only happened for a time in one or two States.
Mr. M-— . — dwelt very much upon the risk of fever in the Southern States, and warned me very emphatically against it. My subsequent experience, however, did not confirm this. I did not make out that there was much risk of fever in most places in the South ; that is, where ' Yellow Jack ' has not made his appearance, as is unfortunately so much the case this year in the States of the Lower Mississippi. In all the lower parts of the Southern States there are tracts which are exceedingly feverish in summer ; but few white people live there at that season ; and now that the cool weather has come in they are quite healthy.
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Next day, on returning to Philadelphia, I went with Mr.
P to see the Courts. They retain the old English forms
to a surprising degree ; even old Norman terms which we have dropped. They have still ' Courts of Oyer and Terminer,' and shout out the old Norman ' Oh, yes ! oh, yes ! ' Grrand juries and all the machinery of English justice are fully maintained, but the Judges wear no robes. Unanimity of the jury is still insisted on. I was surprised to see the number of Courts at work. The United States Courts, besides dealing with breaches of the United States laws, decide cases between citizens of different States. The defendant is sued where he is found, and in that case the law of the forum — that is, of the State where he is — prevails. The United States Courts draw their juries from the locality, but from a larger area than an ordinary jury area. The Supreme Court of the State is only an appellate court; it has no original jurisdic tion. In Pennsylvania there is a Court of Common Pleas for each county ; and I think I have said that American^Counties are very numerous. Then in each township there are justices of the peace for the summary trial of civil and criminal cases. These justices do not always receive salaries, but are always entitled to fees. In this County of Philadelphia the Court of Common Pleas consists of a Chief Justice and eight Judges ; and in rural counties there are at least three Judges of the Common Pleas. There are at least a hundred such Judges in the State. I understand, however, that sometimes laymen are elected to sit as Judges in these courts. In Pennsylvania the pay of the Judges ranges from 600/. to 1,500£. per annum. These Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas hold their office for ten years, but they are often re- elected. I was surprised to find the number of jury courts which were sitting — about eight were going on all at once in the same set of buildings. In criminal cases not of the very worst class the prisoner may be called as a witness on his own side, but is not otherwise liable to examination. A man who has pleaded guilty can be called. They have two degrees of murder, for the first of which only the punishment is death. The sentence may be commuted by the Governor,
PHILADELPHIA. 255
who ordinarily acts on the advice of a ' Board of Pardons,* composed of the chief officials. The rules of extradition be tween different States do not seem to be very well defined. The Governor surrenders a criminal on the application of another Governor, but he must have prima facie proof of guilt, and may refuse, on the ground that the prisoner will not be fairly tried by jury, or that the demand is made for political objects. Just now there has been a polemical cor respondence between the Governors of Massachusetts and South Carolina on the subject of the surrender of an ex- Governor charged with embezzlement and other offences in his political capacity.
I went to see the proprietary Library here, which seems a large and successful institution. I understand that they have no free libraries in this State, and do not approve of them. I also hear a good deal of expression of opinion that there has been too much education. There seems somewhat a tendency to decry the Common School system. I am, in fact, surprised to find how much of that sort of feeling there seems to be here ; but I believe the Common School system was not indigenous in Pennsylvania. New England was its native land.
On the last day of my stay here I met Mr. M , who is
a great enthusiast for the coloured races, and who has written for me a number of letters of introduction to people and institutions in the South. Like many of the friends of the coloured people in these days, he has taken up the cause of the Bed Indian, whom he and many others declare to be exceedingly ill-used in the Territories where they still remain. He thinks, on the whole, the negro is more improvable than the Red Indian, because he is not too proud, and is willing and anxious to learn ; while the red man is very proud, and won't learn if he can help it, Also he says that the red men insist upon the tribal tenure of land, and will not have indi vidual property. A very important fact is, that white men go amongst the red tribes, marry red women, and are adopted into the tribes, and in this way the race is being crossed and may be absorbed; whereas the whites will not intermarry
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with the negroes nor even with the mulattos. He, or some one else whom I met, laments this, for the curious reason that in slave days these mulattos were bred from the highest and best blood of the whites, whereas some of the white people come from very low blood indeed.
I had a talk with old Mr. P about politics. He says
he used to vote Democrat ; but now, though he is not much of a politician, he votes Republican, for he thinks that on the whole it is the least dishonest side, and perhaps it is better to keep in the people who are in, and whose maws have been a good deal satisfied, rather than bring in a new set of cormorants. He says the original difference between the two parties was- the question of central power against State power, and some very distinguished men were in this sense great Democrats ; but now, he says, the Southern question must be settled, and he prefers that the Republicans should settle it.
There are a great many manufacturing establishments at Philadelphia, and a great variety of manufactures ; but I had not time to do much in this way. I was obliged to confine myself more especially to the things belonging to my own trade, and to keep the rest till I returned from the South.
There are some very sociable clubs of literary and intel lectual people here, who meet periodically at one another's houses, and I am promised the pleasure of assisting at some of these gatherings, if I return later in the season. Fashion able New York was quite out of town when- 1 was there, and Philadelphia still is so for the most part. The winter is the time to see something of the society of American cities.
BALTIMORE.
In the afternoon I started for Baltimore. We passed through a pleasant country, with many houses on the banks of the river. It was dark before we reached Baltimore. The general aspect of the place seemed to be, that in the lower parts land and water were very much intermixed. At Baltimore I stopped at the Mount Vernon Hotel. It is kept on the European and not on the American plan, and seemed
BALTIMORE. 257
nice, but on experience I was a good deal disappointed with it. They say that this European fashion does not suit people here, and that the hotel, which was once good, is not now well maintained.
Comparing the harbour here with that of Philadelphia and other places, I am told that the United States Grovern- ment undertake the charge of rivers, harbours, and works of internal navigation. They have made some bad essays in that line in Pennsylvania, and the system altogether leads to a good deal of jobbing. I am inclined to prefer our own system, under which each town and municipality undertakes its own improvements.
I have been reading an account of the insolvency laws of the different States, now that the general bankruptcy law of the United States has expired. In most States a debtor can not be released without the consent of all his creditors ; but, on the other hand, he has very great protection in the exemp tion from execution of his homestead and the tools of his trade. In almost every State a man's homestead — that is, land of a moderate value and acreage — is exempted from execution.
Late this evening Mr. K , a distinguished member of
the Society of Friends here, was kind enough to come over and take me with him to his house, where I met some pleasant people. Mr. K — - is a well-known philanthropist and friend of the negro. Talking of the blacks with the people I met, they seemed to take a hopeful view of the condition of the negro, and are not severe upon President Hayes' conciliatory administration. They recalled the time, less than twenty years ago, when slaves were openly marched down to be sold in the South ; when it was highly penal to teach slaves to read and write ; when a very excellent freed man was im prisoned for ten years for possessing a copy of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Now the blacks are secure in their freedom ; they have votes ; and one party or another will sooner or later want their votes. Much, too, is done for their education : here the blacks are kept to separate schools, but these schools are good. The religious position of the blacks is also very good ; they are excellent Christians. They have taken to
S
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work well. Here in Baltimore they have some branches of industry very much to themselves, notably caulking ships and brick-making. They have, I am told, a ship-caulking com pany composed entirely of coloured men, and managed by coloured men. I was sorry that in my stay here I did not manage to see something of this company, for this is the only case of which I have heard where black men have successfully managed anything of the kind. They do not own much land, I am told, but they work well on the land in the country about here, as well as in domestic service. They form about a fourth of the population here. I had a curious account of their Freemason and other societies. Freemason lodges are believed to have existed among them even in the days of slavery, unknown to their masters. The system is said to have been brought from the British colonies ; and the Freemasonry among them was, I am told, made very evident during the war.
Next morning I breakfasted with Mr. Gr , President
of the Hopkins University, a man full of information, and to whom I owe much kindness and assistance during my stay in Baltimore. This Hopkins University is a great recent endow ment, and conducted on the most modern principles. They have got over several Englishmen as teachers, including the
distinguished mathematician Professor S . I made the
acquaintance of Judge A , one of the United States
Judges, who has been much employed in the Southern States ;
and also of Mr. K , formerly a distinguished Confederate
officer, and now manager of a steamboat and railway com pany, from both of whom I had much assistance. Again I am told that the negroes are in a very good position in this State, and also in Virginia and North Carolina. The best security that they have is when there are two parties among the whites, each of whom wants the black vote. In North Carolina and Tennessee a great part of the country was Eepub- lican, and during the civil war went into rebellion against the Confederate Government. The poor whites owning no slaves never cared for the war. But now things are much more divided by black and white lines. The white man must now
BALTIMORE. 259
assert himself in some way as better than a black. If he does not need the black vote he can only do so by beating the black, and in some States he does that. My subsequent experience, however, leads me to think that this was rather a poetical exaggeration.
From this point Southwards — in the lower country, at any rate, and in days before the war — the system of small indepen dent farms was very much superseded by the plantation system. Virginia was a country of plantations ; that is to say, of estates cultivated by slaves. In some parts of the country, where the crops are not valuable, some of these plan tations are now a good deal deserted. In some of these places the negroes can live somewhat lazily on fish and crabs, but in most parts they now work well for their living. They can be had as labourers on the railways for fifty cents a day, and are very docile and good workmen. In South Carolina there has been more of extreme reverses and more bitter feeling between classes than in any of the States I have mentioned, and the difficulties there are greater. Greorgia has been from the first moderately managed, and is now in a good condition. There have not been many complaints regarding Alabama. Louisiana is said not to have treated the negroes harshly before the war. Mississippi seems to have been and to be the worst State. It is very difficult to ascertain what is now the state of things in some of the Southern States, because no Kepublican newspapers whatever are published there, No one dares publish such a paper, and if he dared he would find no one to read it, for want of education. In many of "the counties of South Carolina almost the whole population is black. There is still not very much education in the South. A good deal has been done by Freedmen's Schools established by the Northerners, and there is every where a State system of education more or less, but it is generally very imperfect. However, the blacks are very anxious to learn — more so than the lower whites. The Green back question, I am told, promises to be of great advantage to the South, because it is one in regard to which there is much competition for the black vote, and this brings about a
s 2
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wholesome state of things. In most parts of the South the negroes have no difficulty in getting land, if they can pay for it ; but in some places there is a difficulty, because the whites will not sell, thinking the possession of land a sort of patent of nobility, to which blacks should not be admitted ; and everywhere there is the difficulty that the negroes do not very much save money to buy it. Many rent land on shares, but they seldom own it. After the war their idea was, that every man was to have from Government twenty-five acres and a mule, but they have not yet got that. In Maryland a good many of the blacks do save, and they now have consider able sums in the savings bank.
I asked Judge A — - how juries are selected. He says that by the Constitution every man is eligible to serve on a jury, but every man is not drawn in regular roster. In fact, fit and proper persons are selected by the proper officer, to be put on the panel from which the juries are drawn ; and in some of the Southern States the blacks are almost excluded from the juries. In Philadelphia I noticed that on most of the juries there was one coloured man. It looked as if it was so arranged. I asked about the criminality of the
blacks. Judge A says they sometimes steal a great
deal in a small way, but they very seldom commit violent crimes. With regard to the accusations of rape, which have caused some very violent lynching lately, he says that in his experience he has known many such accusations, and many people lynched for alleged crimes of the kind, but very few regularly put upon their trial. He himself only remembers to have tried three such cases : in two the accused were certainly innocent, the third was a crazy sort of man. In South Carolina they have many prisoners, but fully nine- tenths of them are negroes, and the State authorities are making a great road with convict labour. It is even the practice to let out the convicts to private persons. As regards prison management there seems just as much com plaint in the United States as with us. In Philadelphia it certainly was so. They have county prisons, under county management, and State penitentiaries, under State manage-
BALTIMORE. 261
ment. Mr. G took me to see the Hopkins University.
At present they have not spent their money in building, but occupy a large house in the town. They teach every branch of knowledge, including ' Sanskrit and philology,' ' Romance languages,' ' classical languages,' 4 biology, chemistry,' &c. The endowment amounts to about a million sterling, left, I believe, by an Englishman long resident in the States.
I met here a Mr. A , a young man who is devoting
himself to the history of land tenure in the United States, especially in New England. It seems that the United States Government never claimed the land east of the Alleghanies. There it all belonged to chartered proprietors in the South and to townships in the North. Of the chartered estates many were forfeited for taking the English side in the Revolution. Connecticut was, as it were, settled by squatters, who formed independent townships, as little separate repub lics, and the State was formed by the union of these town ships. The other New England States were principally settled by associations, who divided out the land and gave charters to townships. Now in all these States almost all the land, whether reclaimed or not, is private property ; only some special tracts belong to the individual States, none to the United States. Some of the deeds constituting New England townships reserve certain lands for common use, but these have for the most part since been divided up. There are still, however, some places where there is a right of common pasture after the crops are off the ground, but as a rule there ^are no commons. In New England the counties were certainly a subsequent institution, formed by aggrega tion of townships. The county is now an important area for financial and judicial purposes, though not for purposes of popular government. It seems more like an English union than a county.
I have been very kindly made free of two excellent clubs here, the Athenaeum and the Maryland, in both of which there is very pleasant society and many material comforts. The Washington Monument is the centre of fashionable Baltimore. The women and girls in the street seem to me
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smart and well-dressed, without being too flashy. The country about is very well wooded ; the town is on mode rately rising ground — not on an amphitheatre of hills, such as I had been led to expect from the guide-book. The Sunday-closing movement, by enforcing old laws, is going on here also. I was told a story about the famous preacher Mr. Beech er. He was travelling in a car upon a Sunday, and said to the driver, ' Would it not be better for all parties if you gave up this Sunday traffic ? ' ' Well,1 the man said, ' there is nothing I should like better, but we cannot give it
up so long as that d theatre there lasts,' pointing over
his shoulder to Mr. Beecher's church. I went to see an Englishman resident in Baltimore. He thinks the Hopkins University most excellent and progressive. He says that in America there is now a strong tendency to Germanise educa tion, and young men go to Germany very much. President
G complains that the English Universities have not
encouraged Americans. He dwells upon the religious tests and other difficulties, and says that is why young men have taken to the Continent of Europe rather than to England. My English friend says that the expenses in America are really not so much as in London, if you go the right way about it. The people are not literary in their habits, but still English books are very much read and appreciated. He says that, though people in America try very hard to make money, upon the whole the possession of money is thought less of than with us ; a rich man is less looked up to, because wealth is less stable and certain than with us. Reverses are more frequent, and Americans who have been rich more easily return to humble positions. Many of the people whom one meets in good American society occupy positions much humbler than would be thought compatible with asso ciation with well-to-do people in England. Americans do not think it necessary to make provision for their children ; they consider that children may well provide for themselves, as their fathers did before them. With all their chances of wealth they are generally very ready to accept extremely moderate salaries, provided they are permanent — that seems clear.
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The weather is now most charming. It has been so, indeed, throughout my tour so far. This place is very bright, with nice residential quarters. A peculiarity of Baltimore, however, is that there is no system of under ground drainage ; all the liquid runs in dirty streams through the streets in open gutters, while the solid sewage is carried away in carts. The system is not very agreeable to the senses, but I am not sure that it is not much more wholesome than our underground system.
I passed a Sunday here. This is a great church-going place. Very many nicely-dressed people about the streets. I notice very many well-got-up negroes and well-dressed negresses. I still cannot make out who all these well- dressed blacks are. They are not clerks or shopkeepers. I understand that there are very few negro clerks or dealers. They are not generally superior mechanics. All I can learn is that they have certain special occupations, and that a great many of them are waiters, keepers of eating-houses, and so on.
I had a visit from two gentlemen of the Democratic per suasion, Senator W— — and Mr. M , a man who has served
in important positions abroad. Their opinion is, that the military occupation of the South enabled the Carpet-baggers to play dreadful tricks before high heaven — to falsify the elections, and so return the candidates of the minority. Now things are, they say, on a fair and safe footing ; the negroes are free and prosperous, and rights are secured to all — all that is necessary is to leave the Southern States alone. They say that after the war the blacks were helpless ; their old masters did everything for them, and enabled them to cul tivate the land upon the system of shares. The owners did so at a loss, but they were forced into it by circumstances, and before very long with much difficulty they succeeded in raising 3,000,000 bales of cotton, an amount which has since been very largely increased. The negroes felt that they could not live without this assistance. A friendly feeling sprang up again — in fact, it never was lost. During the first two years after the war the system was settling down very satisfac-
264 MY JOURNAL.
torily, and all would have gone well but for the new Con stitution forced upon the South by the victors, and worked by the Carpet-baggers supported by the military. Now these abuses have been terminated, things are improving, and the negroes are becoming tolerably prosperous and well-off. They are not kept bound to their masters by debt ; in fact, they get very little credit. Generally the plant of the farms, the animals, the seed, and everything else, is supplied by the master. I am told that in Virginia and Maryland the estates are not very large ; they are not what we should call great estates, but really large farms of from 600 to 1,500 arable acres. The great Valley of Virginia and some of the Western Virginian country is fine land.
The militia system of the United States is founded on the old English militia. There are some black companies, but not very many. In Maryland and all the States of the South townships scarcely exist at all. The organisation is by counties.
I took a walk with Mr. Gr to the high land overlooking
the harbour. The harbour here is in the channel of a small river. The Chesapeake is a short distance below. It is only a moderately good harbour, but then there are great facilities for getting to sea ; there is not the long and difficult river which lies between Philadelphia and the sea.
Talking of the public colleges I asked if blacks were admitted. I was told that the question solves itself, for if blacks were admitted the whites would not come, and therefore it is that separate colleges have been provided for the blacks. I have not found anyone who at all takes in the idea of the races drawing nearer by intermarriage. All seem to regard the blacks as a servile and inferior race.
Mr. M , whom I mentioned above, asserted that the laws of
Massachusetts and Connecticut still make mixed marriages illegal ; and others whom I have asked have not been able to deny the statement ; but I have not verified it yet. Mr. G— - lived three years in San Francisco. He says that the climate there is very superior to this. It is not nearly so hot in summer ; there is a delicious breeze, and the ther-
WASHINGTON. 265
mometer seldom rises above 80°, while in winter snow is very rare. There is a good deal of rain in winter, but the Californian climate is very dry in summer. The great Wheat Valley lies between the coast range of hills and the great interior range. The fruit country is upon the slopes of the higher range. Inland the summer is very hot — almost as much so as in the Eastern cities. California, in fact, is an immense country. It is almost as long as the tract from Maine to Georgia on the eastern side. There are a good many rowdy people in California, but society there is not nearly so bad as it is sometimes represented. In San Francisco there is pleasant society, and a great many people who go to church and are quite civilised Christians.
The last evening I spent at Baltimore I found a very
lively and agreeable party at Mr. R 's house ; the people
rather American in their style, but very pleasant for all that.
I have picked up here a good many ideas and opinions as regards the Southern States. It remains to be seen how far I shall verify them when I get there.
WASHINGTON.
Next morning I started for Washington — a little more than an hour's run from Baltimore. I hope to come back to Washington at the time that Congress meets ; meantime I have only gone there for two or three days on my way South. At the Baltimore station (or depot, as the Americans always call it) I found that the President and Mrs. Hayes were passengers by the same train. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to them, and travelled with them to Washington, thus having the opportunity of a good deal of talk with the President. He travelled without any show, like any other passenger, but an ordinary passenger-carriage was reserved for him and his party, and a little attention was paid to them by the railway officials. There was no crowd and no demon stration. Whatever may be said of the President's political character, I think that all who come in contact with him are agreed that he is what we should recognise in England as a
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gentleman, and that his wife is very much a lady. Socially they are certainly exceedingly well fitted to fill the position in which they are placed. I have heard the President spoken of as politically weak, but I am inclined to think that this opinion comes more from the members of his own party, who disapprove his measures of compromise, than from anyone else. It is not for me to express an opinion on this subject, and I should not like to retail all he said ; but this I will say, that I have not met in America a man more pleasant to talk to.
The Baltimore papers contained accounts of his Southern policy, said to have been obtained from him in interviews, and I ventured to ask whether these accounts are authentic. He said that for the most part the statements to which I alluded were true enough in one way, but that the accounts, of alleged interviews were not true. The newspaper people interview those who have come out from the President, pick up something, put into his mouth what they think he may probably have said, and so make up their stories. He was reported to have said that until quite recently there had been, under the present regime, very little violence and outrage in the South ; and I could not help calling his attention to some very serious outrages which had been reported within the last week or two. He says that my experience in that respect has been exceptionally unfor tunate : this is election-time, and the most is made of what occurs.
The President takes a very favourable view of the position and prospects of the negro. He thinks the present race of negroes are not equal to white men ; but then, ac cording to his views, the qualities of mankind are very much a matter of climate. Whether white or black, he thinks men are inferior in hot climates. The American blacks have not yet had time to develop the higher human qualities nor to acquire much land, but he hopes they will. As showing how improvable they are, he tells a story of a number of blacks who, in the last century, followed the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, when the latter got grants in Ohio, which
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is the President's own State. Eventually Ohio was declared to be free territory, and these negroes settled down as free men — they and their descendents have become farmers, and good ones — they are at this day liked and respected by their neighbours, and are in every way good and prosperous citizens. He hopes that the Southern blacks will do likewise in the course of two or three generations. As regards the misconduct and outrages sometimes attributed to blacks, he says that their character cannot be so bad as some would now paint it ; and as proof of that he points to the fact that during the war the Southern whites left their families and their property, and everything that was dear to them, in charge of and at the mercy of the blacks. Yet these blacks never rose against their masters' families, and, as a rule, never did any harm whatever, in spite of all the opportunities they had during a protracted war. I have since heard this statement repeated in the Southern States — sometimes, no doubt, with a view to showing how good the masters had been. But at any rate there seems to be no doubt of the fact that the blacks, generally speaking, never did rise for plunder and outrage till they were raised by the actual presence of the Northern armies. This reminds me of what I
was told by Mr. M at Baltimore, when I appealed to his
experience to explain why the negroes of the United States had settled down so easily to labour, while we had so much trouble in Jamaica and elsewhere. He said that the United States negroes are long domesticated, tamed, civilised, trained to regular work, and no longer savages from Africa. Some of the West Indian negroes are much more savage and uncivilised and, he believes, more difficult to manage. At some work at the Isthmus of Panama, where different classes of blacks were working together, the Jamaica blacks were notoriously troublesome. Also he says that the situation is vastly different in a country where, after all, the blacks are in the minority. There they learn to behave well ; but their conduct may be very different when they are in the great maj ority, with comparatively few white men. It will be remem bered that Mr. M is a Southerner ; and my subsequent
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experience of parts of the South where the negro population is very greatly in the majority hardly bore out this view.
A gentleman who travelled with us remarked that there is a curious clashing between the United States laws and the laws of the particular States, especially in South Carolina, where there has been a riotous interference with the United States laws. United States officers have arrested the ring leaders, upon which the local authorities have arrested the Re publican leaders, on accusation of offences against the laws of the State. There is, he says, a good deal of friction, not only on account of the difficulty of executing the electoral laws in the South, but also on account of the internal revenue laws ; and the difficulty is increased for this reason, that, owing to pro tection and bad trade, the customs revenue has been very much reduced, and the United States Treasury is more and more driven to depend upon the internal revenues.
Judge A gives almost as bad an account of the
Carpet-baggers as the democrats do. After the war, he says, all the Union soldiers who had property, or homes, or sweet hearts went home ; the bad ones, who had none of these ties, remained and undertook the government of the country. It really was necessary to take the Southern States out of such hands.
I asked the President as to the extent to which the white people of the Northern States had suffered during the late bad times from want of work, remarking that I had not seen so many signs of distress as I had expected. He said that things are better now that people thrown out of work have been absorbed, partly by going to agriculture, and partly because there really has been a turn for the better in business ; but during the worst times there was a great deal of distress even among some of the better class of mechanics, who actually could not get employment. I gather, however, from many quarters that most of the people who were very conspicuous for want of employment, and who appeared about the country as tramps of a very troublesome and dangerous character, were not so much honest workmen as a sort of people who, during the times of war and high prices, were able to get
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employment of a light and easy character. In these days people can only live by really hard work, and that is just what the tramp class wholly object to ; consequently very many of them have been thrown upon the country.
I had a good deal of talk with the President on the Silver question. He says that the American production is now greater than ever, not only on account of the discovery of new lodes, but because people have learnt to extract the ore so much better than they did. It is found that immense quantities of inferior ore which had been heaped up as refuse can now be worked so as to extract silver at a profit. Labour is also very much cheaper than it was ; and the New South- Pacific railway lines, going right into the heart of the metalliferous regions, will probably open up a good deal of new production. Altogether he thinks this year's production will be larger than it ever has been, and that the production will continue to be large. Mr. Hayes favours the plan of putting more silver into the dollar — this is the way to give honest money, without sacrificing their production of silver. Much gold is also produced in America, yet it is a fact that at this moment gold is coming from Europe.
I asked the President whether he shared Mr. McCulloch's views as to the want of good farming in America. He said there was, no doubt, something in them, but at the same time he added (and I think very truly) that it may, under certain circumstances, be better and more profitable to half- farm two hundred acres than to farm very well thirty acres. All depends upon the abundance or otherwise of land and the circumstances of the case. As it is, he says, in parts of Pennsylvania the farmers manure quite plentifully, and their agriculture is as good as could be desired. He says that they have very fine breeds of cattle in Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, and that beef promises to be a very important product and export. He mentioned a curious, and to me unexpected fact, that the most valuable produce of the United States is hay. After hay comes Indian corn, then cotton, then wheat and tobacco. As regards the complaints I had heard re specting education rates and the system of free education, he
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says I must necessarily come across grumblers. The well-to- do people, who can educate their children privately, do not like the heavy taxes they have to pay for education ; but the poor people would tell a different tale.
We spoke of the yellow fever now raging in the South, and of which such terrible accounts are in all the papers. I remarked that, though the mortality was very sad, still, used as I had been to reckon great calamities by millions, the total loss by yellow fever in the United States — now stated at about 10,000 — did not seem so great in so large a population. He admitted this to be true ; but then, he says, the yellow fever is principally a disease of towns, and it has struck with tremendous severity some particular places, such as Memphis and a few other places which he named. There has not been a great mortality in the country districts.
I remarked to Mr. Hayes that I had noticed the quietness of American meetings, the absence of interruptions, and the contrast in that respect to a good many meetings which I had lately seen in England. Neither the President nor Mrs. Hayes have ever been in Europe ; but Mr. Hayes had been in Canada, and he said that there he had remarked that the style of political meetings resembled what I told him of our English meetings. The Canadians seem to have copied us in that respect. He noticed that in Canada a great deal of noise and interruption took place, and that some of the speakers were unable to get a hearing.
The country between Baltimore and Washington seemed poor and uninteresting ; in fact, they say it is one of the poorest parts of the United States. The entrance to Washing ton is through a poor part of the town. The Capitol is very conspicuous ; from a distance it looks like St. Peter's at Eome. When we get well into the town it improves very much indeed ; very fine, wide avenues have been laid out, radiating from central points ; and there are some fine streets. The place was laid out by Washington himself in hjs capacity of engineer and surveyor. It seems that he had great ideas of the future, and a sort of mania for broad streets and mag nificent designs. The accounts I heard of him remind me of
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our engineer-soldier, Lord Napier of Magdala. Washington meant the principal part of the city to be on the side where it is not now, but land speculators took up the land and ran up the prices so high that people built on what he meant to be the back part of the town ; that is now the City of Wash ington, with the Capitol, as it were, looking away from it. Some modern Americans grumble about the width of the Washington streets, and say that the vastness of the place dwarfs the buildings. I must say that I think Washington was quite right. In this climate, where trees grow easily, broad avenues are very effective and pleasing ; and although the City of Washington was for upwards of half a century a complete failure, and until a few years ago was not at all suc cessful, it has made immense strides of late years, and now, to my taste, is by far the best city in America. It is not only well laid out, handsome, and clean, but it has that which is altogether wanting in all other places in America that I have seen, viz., good pavement. All the principal avenues and streets are laid down with excellent asphalte pavement ; so that instead of being the worst it is the best- paved town in the world that I know ; that is, so far as the principal streets go. There are a number of very fine public buildings, many of them of superb granite and marble.
I went to the Riggs House Hotel, one of the principal. It seems good, and is very central.
Judge A kindly took me to see some of the official
people. One of the first whose acquaintance I made was
General E- , the Commissioner of Education, a gentleman
to whose kind assistance I owed very much in my subsequent tour. Before we got to talk of education we had some con versation with a black preacher from the South, who came in on business. Like the few educated blacks I have met so far, he takes the line of saying that the negroes have scarcely had fair play. He says there is a combination not to let them buy land, also to keep wages unduly low. According to him, under the system of cultivation on shares it most frequently happens that after a season or two the cultivators quarrel with the proprietors, and go off somewhere else ; they
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are very migratory. This man, though he calls himself a preacher, is really a book-canvasser, and I doubt his being a very good authority.
Coming to the question of education, I was given to understand that a good enough education law exists in every State, or almost in every State, but it is not properly carried out. The excuse is that ' the Eadicals have spent all the money,' and there is none now available. The fact of the absence of money is in many instances but too true. Texas seems to have some peculiar views in regard to education. Wherever there is a large black population it seems to be preferred by both parties that both schools and churches should be separate, and not mixed ; only the street and rail way cars and political meetings are common to both races. At first a good many Northern men were opposed to eman cipation, because they thought that the emancipated blacks would overrun the North. As a matter of fact it has turned out just the contrary, many of the Northern blacks having now gone South : they prefer the climate.
General E 's opinion about the intellectual capacity
of the negroes is, that they are bright as children ; but when you get to the higher education they want the ratio- cinative and mathematical faculty, and are not the equals of white men intellectually. They would thus seem to be the op posite to the Hindoos, who have a great turn for metaphysics
and everything ratiocinative. Judge A , however, does
not agree with this view. He says that when he was a boy he had a black class-fellow who was the best mathematician in the class. The comparison, however, becomes very dim- cult, since very many coloured boys are really mulattos.
I am told that in the United States army there are still a considerable number of regular black troops — about two thousand of them.
I talked with Judge A about protection. He is very
strong against the present system, and says that it leads to interminable abuse. He tells a story of some interest which went in for protection of copper, and by pressing in the Legislature got the protection which they wanted ; but no
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sooner was that given than a host of other cognate interests started up, so that in the end this one protection led to new protection in no less than seventeen different cases. The falling off of the customs revenue is caused not only by the dull trade, but also by protecting to so great an extent as to kill much of the trade. It is the fashion in America to protect even raw materials, such as the wool which is abso lutely necessary for the American woollen manufacture, and which the country does not produce in sufficient quantity, and the iron which is so necessary for cheap ships. One protection leads to another, and so everyone is protected. People in America have hitherto gone in for clearness — high wages and dear living — not for cheapness ; and that is why newsboys and other distributors charge exorbitant prices. Evidently the Americans need some relaxation of their sys tem, both for the sake of revenue and for the moral effect upon the country of a little free trade.
Next day I went to see the Capitol. It is a very fine building, but the decorations are in somewhat old-fashioned style ; the columns are very florid, and some of the quasi- classical paintings inside might, I venture to think, with advantage be put into the fire. I also went through the markets, and saw some other sights.
Our Minister at Washington very kindly gave me some introductions. I called on Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of State —a spare, Yankee-looking man, apparently very shrewd and wide-awake. He has been in England and seen the world and a good many of the men of the Old World. I gather from his talk that the Americans would not be sorry to have Canada if it came into their arms. Afterwards I met the Attorney-General, who is, in fact, the Minister of Justice — a very pleasant-looking man and dignified lawyer, whose style and appearance would pass exceedingly well in the higher places of Westminster Hall. He was good enough to take me a drive in the afternoon. He tells me that American lawyers are almost all local. There is no considerable Bar at Washington ; and when important cases come up to the United States Supreme Court from a distance, the lawyers
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generally come up with them. He admits that the execution of the United States Revenue laws causes considerable friction ; but I afterwards found that the Eevenue officers will hardly admit this, and point to the cheapness and ease with which their revenue is collected. I have been much inquiring for some compendious comparative account of the Constitutions and laws of the different States, but I find that nothing of the kind exists. The lawyers seem to be a superior class of men, but very few of them know anything of the laws of any State except their own. There is very little regular codifi cation properly so called, only the Revised Codes, or rather compilations, which are published from time to time in most States. There does not seem to be very much publishing enterprise. I found nothing corresponding to our shilling almanacs — s Whitaker ' and the rest — with the mass of infor mation which they contain. Last year one almanac, called ' Spofford's American Almanac,' was published, at a much higher price, and certainly contains a good deal of informa tion arranged in a somewhat haphazard way. If the publi cation were continued it might be worked into the semblance of an English almanac, but it seems doubtful whether it is to be repeated.
In the course of our drive this afternoon we went through a very beautiful park attached to the Military Hospital. In this park the President has a good cottage ; it is his only official country residence. It seems that every United States soldier who has served for twenty years has the right to live in the Hospital here, on payment of a very small sum.
The following day also I spent in Washington. General
E introduced me to the Secretary of the Interior, Mr.
Schurtz. He is a German, and very German-looking, but has taken a very strong and high position in the States. The Minister of the Interior has under him the public lands and the Indians, as well as education, agriculture, and other departments. Of the Indians Mr. Schurtz has no very great opinion. He thinks they are very impracticable, and looks to their eventual disappearance or absorption. In many places tame Indians are settled quietly enough, but they do
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not improve much. The wild Indians have not a fair chance, for white people will invade their lands, and often treat them very unfairly. These are the Border white adventurers known as ' Squall Whites.' I have heard of many cases in which the Indians have been the aggressed upon.
I also made the acquaintance of General W , the
Commissioner of Public Lands, and got papers from him show ing the American system. A man who takes up a homestead or purchases at the low upset price must swear that he takes it for himself, and not to sell ; but no doubt these statements are sometimes false. In some of the further tracts large quantities of land may be taken up; and in the country marked ( desert ' a good deal has been done by large grantees, who have constructed works of irrigation. Members of Con gress sometimes manage to get Bills passed to sell certain tracts without reserve. In Oregon and some of the pastoral States, land not purchased is let out in large tracts on temporary leases. I am told that the fashion in those countries is to buy or take up as homesteads comparatively small tracts which contain the springs, without which the country cannot be settled, and then the holder feels pretty secure that no one will buy the waterless land which he holds at a cheap rate for grazing his flocks. I believe that a good many Englishmen have in this way settled in Oregon and taken to sheep-farming in the Australian style.
I observe that in all the public offices here, almost with out exception, everyone has some military rank ; not only the heads, of departments, but the very clerks are generals, colonels, and majors ; some are doctors. I fancy this is not only because, owing to the civil war, everyone had military rank, but also because in many cases office has been given as a reward for military service.
I visited the Patent Office, a very magnificent building ; but it has suffered from fire, to which everything seems subject in this country. The Americans are very proud of their patent system, which they think more effective than ours. The collection seems to be beautifully kept. I also visited the Smithsonian Institute, founded by an Englishman
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— a beautiful place, in beautiful grounds. I observe that in this country public institutions are generally very well kept. The natural history and other collections seemed to me to be an agreeable contrast to some of the rickety and moth- eaten animals of the British Museum. Also, whereas many of our libraries are very full of trash, obtained under the system which gives certain libraries a right to all books, the American libraries are made up exclusively of carefully selected books, and are generally very good indeed.
I visited the office of the Geological Survey, which is not only an office for surveys, but has a department for ethnolo gical and other specimens ; in fact, there is a great collection of the curiosities of the United States, including very many archseological remains. There are some very fine specimens of Indian pottery, and models of Indian houses and villages. The collection is in capital order. It is well worth another visit. I met Dr. F •, President of the Medical and Sani tary Society, and a great man upon anthropological subjects. He believes the negroes to bean inferior race. As regards the mulattos, though they are often fine and handsome, he believes them to be a sterile race, and not likely to last.
I went to the Treasury, and was introduced to Secretary Sherman. He was very civil and kind, and I had some talk
with him ; after which he handed me over to Mr. R , head
of the Internal Revenue Department, who told me a great deal about Revenue affairs.
Mr. Sherman avows that he is not in favour of a silver coinage. He keeps the coinage pretty nearly down to the minimum of two million dollars per month which the law equires. They can use, he says, fifty millions as small coin; and when they go beyond that they must either limit the issue or put more silver into the dollar, he thinks.
The Revenue officers seem confident in their internal re venue system. No doubt there is some friction and a good deal of smuggling ; but after all the revenue is collected at a cost of 3 J per cent. — less, they say, than it costs to collect the same revenue in England. Tobacco is more frequently smuggled than spirits ; but it costs smugglers more when they
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are detected. The duty on tobacco has been raised to 24 cents (say Is.) per pound. That does not seem heavy from our point of view, yet there is a good deal of agitation to reduce it. Leaf-tobacco is not taxed unless it is sold ; every man is free to consume his own production. In Ohio boys often grow a patch for profit, and no doubt sell it to their neighbours. The German Government have had a commis sion of inquiry here, but they are rather disappointed. They think the American system will hardly do for them, as they want to tax the leaf. They do not think they will get a sufficient revenue if they only tax the manufactured tobacco. If we are ever driven to fresh taxation of the people in India these inquiries of the Grerman commission would be very useful to us, for our situation there is very much the same. The difficulty of taxing tobacco in India is that it is so very commonly grown, and is scarcely manufactured beyond drying and pressing the leaf.
In the United States spirits are taxed 90 cents. ; that is, a little more than 3s. 6d. per gallon, as against 10s. in this country. Beer is charged one dollar per barrel of 32 gallons; native wine is not taxed at all, except some small tax on licenses for sale. There are taxes upon matches, patent medicines, and a few other articles ; but these yield only a very moderate income. In fact, the internal revenue is almost entirely derived from spirits and tobacco. It has gone on increasing till this last year, when there has been a considerable decline, which is attributed to bad times. The Revenue officers do not greatly attribute loss of spirit revenue to 'Murphy,' but they say that the people drink less than they formerly did, and if they drank as formerly the reve nue would now be doubled or quadrupled. Temperance has checked it. Mr. Sherman thinks that from a financial point of view tea and coffee might be taxed ; but there is a strong public feeling in favour of a free breakfast-table ; so they cannot demand this ; but they tax sugar, and that protects the native sugar-growers.
Of the public officers some are rather poorly paid ; but the army is, I believe, paid higher than ours, and officers have
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the advantage that the admirable education, of which I saw something at West Point, is given to them by the State gratis. Some, however, think that that education is too severe and monastic — it runs too much in one groove.
This evening, returning from the unfinished Washington Monument, I saw by far the most magnificent sunset that I have ever seen in my life anywhere, or ever expect to see. There was a lurid light in the clouds which I can only call tremendous, and the reflection on the windows of the city and the Capitol on the other side made me believe that they were on fire. I am sure the painter who painted such a scene would be set down as a madman.
Next day I called upon Dr. B , the Surgeon-General.
Yellow fever is, of course, the great subject of inquiry and discussion at present, but nothing certain is arrived at re garding its origin and propagation. I have noticed that there are places where strict quarantine has been established^ on account of the present prevalence of the disease ; but I gather that the quarantine rules are very local and unsettled. I am told that in the hotter Southern States, owing to the climate, the cattle suffer a good deal from diseases, Texan fever and the like, quite different from our Northern cattle diseases, and to which cattle in the North are not liable. These diseases affect certain breeds of cattle differently from others. In the South the short-horns are much affected, while the Jerseys are comparatively little touched ; and the Indian Brahminee breed, of which there are a good many in the South, are quite free from these diseases. Some of the States have established quarantine rules for Texan cattle.
I called on General Meyer, chief signal officer, a very important functionary among the new centralising institutions of the American Government. The office is, strictly speak ing, a military one, and the General has a corps of highly- trained men stationed all over the country, through whom he is enabled to establish a very trustworthy Intelligence Department ; but in reality the Signal Office is the great Meteorological and Weather Prediction Department — the greatest of the kind in the world, I imagine. In this office
THE WEATHER DEPARTMENT. 279
the infant science of meteorology is being worked out. The most important result is that prediction of storms which we have begun to appreciate. America seems to have a speciality for sending us storms, and the warnings we receive, nominally from the New York Herald and other papers, really come from the Signal Office at Washington. The officers of the department say that their predictions prove right in 80 per cent, of the whole, and that the balance is negative ; that is to say, they never fail to announce a storm or give warning of a storm which is not developed somewhere ; but, to be on the safe side, they sometimes warn places of storms which happen to miss the particular place. However, there has just been here a very great and rapid storm, which came down the coast from the South, and which I have not had occasion to mention, because it passed over Washington in the night. It does appear that the warnings which were given of this storm were rather too late ; and notwithstanding what we owe to the department in England, and the civility with which I was treated, I could not help delicately hinting at the saying, ' Physician, heal thyself.' It seems that most of the storms are born about the commencement of the Grulf Stream, off the coast of Florida ; and sometimes it may happen that, like a shell which explodes almost at the mouth of the gun, these storms may burst in upon the States before much warning can be given, as was, in fact, the case in this instance. The department here claims to be establishing cer tain laws as to the rotatory character and direction of storms. They haver a wonderful set of self-registering instruments, and produce daily charts of the weather all over the country, besides periodically making up weather-charts of the whole Northern hemisphere from observations taken at the same time, and transmitted by telegraph.
In the late storm the fall of rain here in a very short time exceeded three inches. The rainfall for the year is heavier than ours ; but though well distributed it seems to fall in heavier plumps than with us, so that there are not nearly so many hours of rain. During the late storm some of the crank American steamers were wrecked in the rivers and
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estuaries; in fact, large numbers of craft were wrecked in the river below this. The officers here know all about our meteorological observations in India ; and, in fact, I find that in all the departmental offices they have a very thorough knowledge of what we have been doing in India, and know well our officers and their publications. At Baltimore Mr.
G , to my surprise, turned up in his college library a
collection of languages which I made in Bengal.
I called upon General Sherman to-day, but missed him. I had, however, a talk with two of his staff — very pleasant gentlemen of the military persuasion. They have just been with the General on a tour over the far-away South- Western Territories, in which they were accompanied by a gallant member of our House of Commons and his bride, who must have done an amount and severity of travelling astonishing for a lady. They described New Mexico and Arizona as wretched Territories — Arizona, perhaps, a little the better of the two. The only inhabitants of New Mexico besides wild Indians are the miserable descendants of the old Spanish colonists who were found there — and very miserable they seemed to be. No Americans go there ; and some of the English who have bought Spanish grants and tried to establish sheep-farms do not seem to have been very successful. In the far-away Western Territories the Indians cause an im mense deal of trouble to the United States army, with the result, in fact, that that small army is really the most hard- worked in the world.
Mexico itself, these officers say, is a good country, but the people are hopeless. Most of them are priestridden, and those who have 'jumped off' the priests are brigands. They contrast Mexico with Canada, which they highly appreciate, giving a very favourable account of it, dwelling upon its loyalty to the British connection. They hear very good accounts of Manitoba. It has a splendid soil ; but there is no wood there, and the winter is too cold for cattle. They think that during the civil war, when it was expected that the States would go to pieces, the English were ready to ' gobble up ' their Northern Territories ; and the French Emperor
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undertook his Mexican enterprise simply that he might be ready to take possession of the Southern States. When the war was over, and they were ready for him with their har dened troops, he had not a chance, and they ignominiously expelled him without fighting. They do not seem to have any sympathy with the Afghans, and have no objection to our beating them. Camels, they say, have been tried in the dry parts of America, but have been quite a failure. There is always rain and mud at some season of the year, and the climate disagrees with camels.
Later I met General Sherman himself, who was very kind and civil, and gave me some introductions to his officers in the parts of the country to which I am going. He does not affect the style mttitaire, but is more of a good, shrewd Yankee, like his brother, the Secretary of the Treasury. He says they have had enough of war. The only war he would like to undertake would be one against the Mexicans, to make them take back New Mexico and Arizona. He talked of the Chinese, in whom he seems to take great interest. He has a very high opinion of the Chinese Minister who has come to the States.
I called on the Attorney-General. In his office — and, in fact, in most of the public offices of the United States Govern ment — there are some female clerks. They are described as being daughters of deceased members of Congress, or persons having similar claims upon the country, and are said to work very well. There are also some coloured clerks. The business connected with what is called the Court of Claims (that is, claims against the United States) seemed to be an important department in the Attorney- General's office. There is no Legislative Office for the drafting of bills — no Sir Henry Thring. There is a Pardon Office, where all questions of par don are considered. The Attorney-General says that the legis lation of some of the States is rough enough, but most of the older Legislatures are well provided with good lawyers, and new States very much copy the legislation of old ones — choos ing what they like best. I noticed a great mass of law-books, bound in the regular English law-calf, in the orthodox style.
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I visited the Supreme Court, sitting in the Capitol. All the Judges seemed to sit together, forming a very large Bench. Most of them are old men, and all elderly. They sit in a very large fine room, with a very small audience. A Californian case was going on — a question of title under a Spanish grant. A young lawyer, in a white tie, but no wig or gown, was arguing the case. He seemed to be a local Californian who had come up about it. In the evening, dining at the British Minister's house, I was fortunate enough to meet several of the most distinguished public men. They all seemed to be very strong in favour of honest money. I talked to the Chief Justice about the usury laws which still prevail in America* He seemed to say that though they do still exist they have little practical effect ; they are seldom pleaded in bar of action. If usurious interest is once paid it cannot be re covered ; and outside the law there is a kind of merchants' union to enforce contracts. Even in New York there are still usury laws, limiting interest to 7 per cent. ; but the merchants manage to defeat it. The situation of the great city of New York is somewhat peculiar, for the rural po pulation of the State a good deal exceeds the town popula tion, and is decidedly rural and primitive ; so that in regard to usury laws, restriction on the sale of spirits, and some other matters the country farmers control all the wealth and power of New York City. It is they who maintain the usury laws. The spirit-licensing laws are now the subject of much contention in New York.
The following day was my last in Washington, and after again looking in at some of the offices I left it in the afternoon. There is a very important Agricultural Office, where they collect all sorts of agricultural specimens and acclimatise and distribute new plants ; but the head of the department was absent, and I have postponed going particularly over it till my return.
Upon the whole my impression of Washington is that, in spite of the large amount of home rule which prevails in the United States, the central departments of the Government are upon a much more complete footing, with larger and more
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various establishments, than anything of the kind that we have. All these centralised departments are the creation of the last few years.
There seems to be very great freedom for the expres sion of political opinion, in spite of the victory of the North in the war. Looking over the books at a bookseller's shop, I came upon a popular school history of America in the form of a catechism, which gave the Southern view of matters in an extreme, I may say a violent, form. According to this children's catechism, at the end of the war General Sherman agreed to receive back the Southern States into the Union unconditionally ; but this pledge on the faith on which the Confederate army surrendered was basely repudiated and broken. Soon after, the assassination of Mr. Lincoln excited the passions of the Northerners, and by perfidious violence the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution were put in. It certainly seems very liberal to allow Southern children to be taught these things.
VIRGINIA.
Virginia is close to Washington, on the other side of the Potomac (pronounce it Potoomac, or you will be exceed ingly laughed at) ; but I had arranged first to visit the lower portion of Virginia ; so I went back to Baltimore, and there took the steamer of what is called the Bay Line. In the steamer I was treated with great civility, at the instance of
Mr. R . - I passed the night in going down the Bay in
as great comfort as if I had been in a luxurious house. The estuary of the Chesapeake is here called the ' Bay.' These American steamers are certainly delightful in quiet waters ; but the consort of this one was dreadfully mauled in the late storm, and very nearly went to the bottom. They are built too high for bad weather.
In the morning I landed at Old Point, or Fort Munro> near the country town of Hampton, in Virginia. There is a large hotel, used by sea-bathers in the summer. I had an in troduction to General W , the commander of the fort,
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where there is a large artillery school. General 1VL , of
General Sherman's Staff, most kindly took charge of me during my visit to this neighbourhood.
I notice that I am now quite in the land of blacks, espe cially here, where they collected in numbers during the war. In this district they are quite in a majority. They do all the work about the wharves, and most other work. I principally came here to see the ' Hampton Agricultural Institute ' for blacks. I went over it under the guidance of General Arm strong, who has charge of it, and has made it- what it is. It is not quite an Agricultural Institute, for it is more used to turn out schoolmasters than anything else. The justification for teaching them agriculture is that, as the schools are com monly open part of the year only, there is every opportunity for the practice of improved agriculture during the remainder of the year. Several trades are also taught. I believe this is the only place in the Southern States where black printers are educated. The Institution is primarily supported by funds subscribed in the North, but it is now largely aided by the State of Virginia. It is not a free school, not being looked upon as charitable. The students are expected to pay moderate fees, and by their work to earn something to wards their own living. Besides the negro students there are a good many Indians, sent by the United States Govern ment. They are Indians from the Western tribes ; and it is intended that, after being civilised and educated, they are to .go back, and to improve their countrymen. I was much in terested in these Indians. They are not red, but rather yellow, and not at all unlike some of the Indo-Chinese tribes to the east of Bengal.
I had a good deal of talk with General Armstrong about the negroes and about Southern politics. He is the son of a missionary who spent many years in the Sandwich Islands, but was a distinguished Federal soldier in the war. He thinks that the blacks are certainly inferior to the whites in intellect, but they are improvable. The Indians are decidedly stronger in intellect, but much more difficult to manage. The negroes have a passion for land ; it is their great wish to
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acquire it ; but they are wanting in saving qualities, pru dence and perseverance, to enable them to do so. Those,, however, who were the best hands in slave-times are now acquiring land — not very much, but they are getting on. If they are able to buy land they can get it. In some parts of the country there is a social prejudice against selling to them : that is, in localities where white people prevail, they do not always like to have negroes coming among them ; but at other places, where the population is principally negro, the whites are very ready to sell and go elsewhere. He thinks about one-third of the negroes are decidedly good ; one-third may be made good by good management ; and one- third are bad. Like most of the people I have spoken to, he has not much opinion of the mulattos. The race is not sterile, but it de teriorates. In most parts of the South the negroes rent land on shares ; but the master not only finds stock, but makes advances for food and other requirements, and at the end of the year the negroes have very little to get. They are very willing for education ; the great difficulty is about teachers and that want this and other institutions are supplying. Most of the Southern States, now that the negroes must have votes, are really adopting the policy of educating and civilising them. Virginia has honestly carried out the education policy so far as her funds admit. Altogether, Re publican that he is, he gives a favourable view of the situa tion. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina are decidedly doing well ; and in South Carolina, though some Democrats opposed Hampton, the present Governor, he is doing good. The worst ' bulldozing ' has been in Mississippi. In Virginia and other well-managed States, he says, people are quite will ing to give the blacks a minority representation in the State Legislatures, and do so. This district is represented by a black. In short, he fully endorses the policy of the present President, which most Kepublicans do not. The negroes, he says, in most States, really are allowed to vote, and do ; but whites will not submit to be ruled over by blacks, and where that is feared they audaciously false-count. They are afraid to excite the feelings of the North by open violence.
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With the view of giving a fair trial to the negroes a good deal of land here has been sold in small patches, which they have bought ; and a good many private proprietors, fol lowing this example, have done likewise, so that there is quite a large black proprietary, owning their own patches of land and their own cottages. The patches, however, are very small, but are said to be large enough to grow vegetables ; and there is so much fishing and easy living here, that the negroes are not obliged to work very hard. An immense quantity of vegetables is raised in this part of Virginia, to supply the winter and spring markets of the great towns of the North. The winter climate here is very mild ; they say that cattle can almost always go out all the year. In the fields about I saw turnips and Scotch kail ; and I find that root-crops are a good deal more grown in the South than in the North. The turnips, however, are rather poor. Green sorghum is largely used as fodder for cattle, as well as the leaves of the maize.
I visited the Soldiers' Home here, which seemed to me a folly — a place where disabled volunteer soldiers are kept in absolute idleness, with nothing whatever to do. I saw an old soldier who had fought against us in the war of 1812, and by his side an Englishman who, in much later days, had fought for the United States. I notice that in all United States books and histories, and, I may say, memories, the war of 1812 occupies a, prominent place, while we have managed to forget it.
I looked in at the Circuit County Court, which was then sitting. The trial is by jury. The Court seemed a decent one, and the lawyers energetic. During the recess for dinner, parties, Judge, lawyers, and all, seemed freely to mix and talk. The Judge was a regular old Virginian, ruined by emancipa tion. He says, ' Grod made niggers different from white men, •and nobody can make them the same.'
I hear much of the Freedman's Savings Bank, which failed with a loss of $4,000,000, which has never been replaced ; and the loss causes much distrust among negroes inclined to save.
General M took me back to Old Point in an outrigger
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kind of civilised adaptation of the outriggers one sees at Ceylon. I think they might with great advantage be generally adopted. They sail wonderfully, and cannot be upset.
I crossed in the ferry-boat to Norfolk — a pretty sail. At Norfolk I went to the Atlantic Hotel. In the evening I had a good deal of talk with the people I met in the smoking- room. They declare that this is the best harbour on all the Atlantic coast, and a good many other people think so too. It is thoroughly sheltered, close to the sea, with no bar, and direct railway communication with the Mississippi ; so that much cotton is shipped here, not only from the Atlantic States but from Memphis and the Mississippi country. The cotton is carried from Memphis for two dollars a bale, while it costs one dollar to New Orleans by steamer, is more roughly handled there, and costs more for the transport from New Orleans to England. Here, too, I noticed that the cotton- bales were very roughly handled ; and it is the same at Alex andria, Bombay, and all cotton marts. It seems strange that so valuable a commodity should be so much torn and scat tered about. It seems that the people who take samples must cut the bales and dig into them. There is dreadful wailing over the price of cotton : it is now nine cents a pound, or less. Wheat is also very low ; sugar is better than it was, but a Frenchman from the South seems despondent about it. Last year the early frosts made great havoc in the sugar-cane ; this year's crop remains to be seen, but prices are not very remunerative. They have lately commenced shipping from here very fine Virginian and Kentucky cattle for the Eng lish market. A man who sent a cargo is said to have netted 51. a head upon them ; many more are to be sent. I saw two or three fine English cotton steamers, and pens for the accommodation of cattle were being put up on the decks. There is, however, a good deal of risk, especially in thus sending the cattle upon deck. The insurance for cattle is about 6 per cent. The retail price of beef here is about '6d. per pound.
In the morning I took a walk about the town. I observe
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that here, as elsewhere, the suburban streets are pretty and well-kept. Fig-trees grow well. There is an astonishing trade in oysters here. Oyster-packing is one of the great industries, and all the roads are metalled with oyster-shells. The most successful farmers are the oyster-farmers.
In the list of churches I see here that the Episcopal churches stand first, then the Methodists ; there is only one Catholic church. I am told that though small in numbers the Episcopal Church in many respects takes a good position in the United States. They are said to have done more for the. Indians than any other Church, and Episcopalian chap lains seem more prominent than any other in the army. But Americans are very liberal on this subject. In the army the Government appoints chaplains — ministers of every sect are eligible — the best man is selected, without reference to the particular faith he professes ; and, strange to say, there seem to be no quarrels or jealousy upon the subject. I could only hear of one Catholic who had been appointed to the army ; but, among Protestant sects, a regiment or garrison has sometimes a chaplain of one persuasion, and sometimes of another. At Hampton Institute the services seem to be taken turn and turn about. I suspect that a great deal of approximation of sects is going on in the States.
The army, I believe, is very well supplied with good medical men ; but I am told that throughout the Union medical degrees are very easily got, and that there is a great want of security in regard to medical qualifications.
It is generally said by those whom I meet that in most parts of Virginia English settlers have not been very success ful. They have sometimes bought inferior land — they are not very good at managing black labour, and do not under stand tobacco farming and curing. The truth seems to be that the land of Virginia was a good deal worked out ; much of it is rather poor, and much of it had been improvidently farmed in slave times. The proprietors were heavily in debt, and would have ' burst up,' war or no war. Now things, are on the whole rather better ; fertilisers (that is, chemical manures) are much used. Many of the poorer whites have
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got land, and so have a few of the blacks. Still most people in these parts are not particularly hard workers, and they are only moderately prosperous. The import of food-stuffs from the West has very much diminished the profits of farming here, and land is worth less than it was before the war. The only prosperous country is the fine pasture land in the west of the State, where cattle are largely bred. Much tobacco now comes from other States, but the tobacco manufacture in Virginia is still very large.
From Norfolk I took rail for Petersburg, through a very poor country. We passed through the ' Dismal Swamp,' a capital specimen of the belt of swampy country which sur rounds the Southern States, consisting of large tracts of swamp, mixed with poor land covered with pines and scrub- oaks. There was occasional cultivation, but most of it seemed poor, and the houses were chiefly inhabited by blacks, A good deal of Indian corn is grown, and I saw many stacks of Virginia peas — a great cultivation in these parts. In the train I met a very pleasant man, Mr. Y , formerly a Con federate officer, now carrying on an insurance agency, in
which he has for his partner Mr. J , a Scotchman, of a
family whom I know. I met Mr. J at Petersburg, and
he was kind enough to show me about the place. He has tried several parts of the world — went at one time to South America, then came to Virginia and got a large farm. It answered tolerably well ; but he found the life dreadfully soli tary, and now has gone into business in the town. He still, however, retains his estate, a considerable portion of which he cultivates on his own account. He keeps two or three Scotchmen as permanent servants, and they get gangs of negroes to work by the day when they are wanted. The negroes like working in that occasional kind of way. Part of his land he lets out in small farms to negroes on easy terms as regards rent, but he makes it a condition that he is to get labour from them when he wants it. They generally owe the rent, and let him take it out in labour. He, how ever, does not think it a paying thing to buy land for the purpose of renting it out. Petersburg is a pretty town, and
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the country about is famous as the scene of great operations during the civil war. There are immense cemeteries in the neighbourhood, full of soldiers of both sides. There is a famous place — a sort of hole or small crater — where a large number of black Federal soldiers were surrounded and, I am afraid I must almost say, massacred. Petersburg now seems to be thriving. There is only one old ruin, and that is the English church of the early days of the colony. It is said to have been built of bricks brought from England, and the walls still stand. There are large tobacco manufactories here, and some cotton-mills. I am told that the blacks work well for a time, but are apt to leave capriciously — in that respect they cannot be relied on. It is also more popular to employ whites who are in want of work. I notice that generally most of the United States employes are blacks, while the State and municipal employes are mostly whites. For instance, the people who sweep the streets of Petersburg are all whites. They seem to get very low wages. Political contests apart, I gather that there is little bad feeling between the white and black castes ; they seem quite civil to one another. The different occupations are a good deal divided between the two. Most of the agricultural labour is done by blacks ; so that things seem to be somewhat the converse of that which I found in States further North, where the blacks are found in towns, and not in the country. I am told that the Virginian gentlemen of former days sometimes struggle on with their properties and make the best they can of them ; sometimes go to other States, where many of them have prospered in various enterprises ; and sometimes take to hotel-keeping and suchlike occupations in their own country. The hotel at Petersburg is kept by a General and ex-planter, who stands behind the bar, and seems to be a very pleasant, elderly landlord. They say the relations between blacks and whites are better in Virginia than in some other States, because in slave times the blacks were better treated, this being a breeding State. The people who raised negroes were kind to and careful of them ; and the only unpleasant part of the relation was the selling off when the stock became fit for
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the market. However, this was done through slave-dealers, whose avocation was held to be degrading, and with whom the gentlemen who sold the slaves would not hold social intercourse.
Mr. Y — — does not confirm the statement that a certain number of seats in the State Assemblies are allowed to the blacks by way of conciliation and minority representation. He says that whatever seats they have they only get by hard voting, and he admits that when the Democrats are hard put to it they sometimes manipulate a good deal in the count ing of votes. The negroes are in a very decided majority in the Petersburg Congressional District ; and, besides returning some members to the State Assembly, they have hitherto succeeded in returning a Republican member to Congress, a Norwegian, who seems generally admitted to be a very able man, and who has much influence with the negroes. The blacks have great faith in Greneral Grant, as the man who gave them their freedom, and they go to the poll as his sup porters. There are several companies of black militia volun teers in this State, with their own black officers ; there is one such company at Petersburg, said to be much better drilled than the white companies.
Travelling to Richmond I met an old gentleman, a Demo crat, coming back from canvassing, and had a good deal of talk with him. He was very hot on politics, and denounces the Norwegian as ; white without, but very black within.' He was full of currency questions, and a hot free-trader of a kind. His argument seems to be that if the tariff was more adjusted for revenue, then, with the aid of the larger customs revenue so obtained, they might get rid of the internal revenue, which he describes as most oppressive and expensive. He says that the present tariff kills trade ; that for every dollar paid to the State as customs duty on woollen goods the people pay $600 to their own manufacturers ; and for every dollar paid as duty upon cotton they pay $2,000 — all this for the benefit of two or three Northern States, especially Pennsylvania ; and even there, he says, the manufacturers are but a small minority now, and nearly played out. He dwells upon the much larger
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number of the agricultural population, and says they should be favoured, and not the manufacturers. He talks good Eng lish, and would pass as a very good committee-man with us.
I understand that Virginia is in difficulties about the State debt, and there are various plans for adjusting it by cutting it down. Some say that the people of the State could pay if they liked ; but the farmers do not like heavy taxation, especially in the present depreciated condition of their properties. In rural parts of the country the State and local taxes come to about 1^ per cent, on the capital value, and then there is a poll-tax of $\± and some other taxes. On each glass of whisky being sold a bell is struck, marking a register, and a tax is paid to the State, besides that to the United States. Some recent amendments have been made in the Constitution, introducing provisions de signed to hit the blacks. These provisions disfranchise all who have not paid up the poll-tax, and collectors are said to be sometimes very lax till the election is over ; moreover, they disfranchise for life every man convicted of larceny or other such offence, unless he is pardoned by the Governor. The blacks are tried for these offences by local justices of the peace, who are generally white Democrats. I think this rule is dangerous. Flogging is very freely used in Virginia as a punishment for larceny, the system being different from that of the States further South, where they prefer to imprison criminals and to hire them out at a profit.
At Richmond I went to see the Exchange Hotel, which seemed very good.
Next day I went to see Dr. D , State Superintendent of
Education. I had a good deal of talk with him, and went with him to see some schools, both black and white. Virginia is divided into ninety-nine counties. After the war an attempt was made to introduce townships, according to Northern ideas; but that has been given up, and now counties are divided into magisterial districts, which have not the same organisation as townships. The great difficulty in regard to education is caused by the embarrassed financial position of the State. Unfortunately, the Treasury is so low that it is
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very difficult to get from it the educational funds deposited there ; and then by law taxes are payable in debt coupons, and they get more of these coupons than cash. In this State one-fifth of the State assessment is set apart for education, as well as a poll-tax of a dollar a head, which it is optional with counties to increase to $1 J. Elections are very fre quent here. In Virginia the different elections do not take place at the same time. One year there is an election for Congress, and another year for the State Legislature ; while the elections for county and local officers take place at a different period of the year.
Some think that farmers now almost overdo expenditure upon fertilisers. These chemical fertilisers are sometimes rather dangerous, and perhaps good farmyard manure is the best after all. A curious feature of the law is that, in Virginia and some other States, the manure-merchant has a privilege or hypothec over the crops.
Dr. R — - thinks the negroes are generally inferior in in tellect to the whites, and not capable of sustained or skilful work ; but still they are very good within certain limits — they are very well-disposed, and much can be made of them.
Of public free schools there are three classes — Primary, Grammar, and Higher — but these seem to run very much into one another when they are in the same building, as was the case at Richmond. Almost all the masters seem to be mistresses. They follow the old Scotch system of schooling in the winter and farming in the summer. By the law of this State schools must be open not less than five months, but in Richmond they keep them open for nine. There is no compulsory law, but children come freely to the schools. The children of the upper classes are very well represented in all the schools, but there are also large private schools in Richmond. I saw one very large one. The private schools are principally of the lower grades, where the scholars of the public schools are of a very mixed class ; in the higher schools there are not so many of the poor, and the upper classes go more freely. Boys and girls are always taught together in the same class, but they do not sit together, and they are
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kept quite separate in playtime. The girls in the higher schools seem of a superior class, and there the girls very con siderably preponderate over the boys. Many of the boys of that age go into offices. As a rule in the higher schools the pupils take one foreign language — the girls generally French, the boys Latin or German. I did not learn that much science was taught. In the black schools I noticed some very fair mulattos — one girl in particular, who would have been very fair for a European, was placed among the blacks, many of whom are very black and hideous. I hardly knew before what an ugly race some of the blacks are.
I went to see a great tobacco factory. It is entirely con fined to the manufacture of chewing-tobacco. By far the greatest part of the labour is done by blacks. Tobacco seems to be specially their vocation. Most of the foremen are whites, and some of the work is done by white and black men mixed. I did not see any mixture of white and black women ; that does not seem to be allowed. Cigars, it seems, are not made by blacks ; it is one of the skilled things they do not do. The black labourers in the factory get about a dollar a day for moderately skilled work, and some times more ; they do not work very regularly — they average about four days a week. All seem to agree that negroes are fond of amusement ; they like to make the most of life. They go on excursions, fishing expeditions, and so on, and thus vary their hard work. In the tobacco factory the women were set to sing for my benefit, and they certainly do that very well. The tobacco-leaves are dried and packed in hogs heads by the farmers, and in that shape they come to the manufactories. The value very much depends on the way in which the drying process is done by the farmers.
I was invited to go out into the country with General
W , and went with him to his place, about twenty miles
distant. There was much tree-jungle on the way, and it did not seem to be a very fertile country. The houses were of wood, and did not look very good. He is a great farmer, and has some 1,600 acres under cultivation, but his is a very exceptional case. He is a somewhat rare instance of a Virginian proprietor
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successfully accepting the change of circumstances, and he has done so in a very good spirit. I rather gather, however, that
his farming does not pay particularly well. General W
employs entirely negro labour, with white foremen, one of whom I saw on horseback watching the ploughs. The fact seems to be that people accustomed to black labour do not get on very well with whites, and vice versa\ and so it is that where they were accustomed to slave labour they now employ blacks, and do not think of introducing whites. The Southern rail ways and other great works have been almost entirely con structed by black labour. General W is very fond of his
black people ; most of them were born and bred on the pro perty. He had many more before the war — perhaps 400 — worth, he says, about $150,000, and now there are in all about 150. Eighteen are permanently employed upon this block of 1,000 acres. Then there are the women and children, and some men who have a little land, and work occasionally for him. He seems to say that hereabouts the difficulty rather is for all to get work than for employers to get labour enough. He is clear that, so far as income is concerned, if he had got the value of his slaves by way of compensation he would be better off than under the slave system. The only drawback is that formerly you had the comfort of servants whom you could bring up to your ways and be sure of keeping, but now they do as they like. Others, however, say that, in this view, account is not taken of the increase of the negroes, which was the great source of profit in former days, and much recouped the owner for the capital sunk in slave property.
General W 's land seemed to be fine and easily workable,
but it needs manure. The principal staples are Indian corn, wheat, and artificial grass. I gather that much of the best land in river-bottoms and such situations is still held by the old proprietors and farmed by negro labour ; but these farms are generally not very profitable, and throughout the State there is much pecuniary difficulty. In the cattle- grazing tracts there are some really large estates. I heard of one very large indeed. I asked what the proprietor made of his land. The answer was, ' He lets out part of it, and turns
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cattle on the rest.' In the Southern States mules are almost always used for ploughing ; in some parts of the country oxen are a good deal used for draught. On all sides I hear that
General W is a very excellent specimen of the fine old
Virginian proprietor ; but then he is a man of means, and can do what most others cannot. He is a most polished and courteous gentleman. His place, however, shows no signs of ever having been a fine place in our sense. It is more like a comfortable planter's or gentleman-farmer's house, and there is no affectation of grandeur. The family seem very
English in their ideas and sympathies. General W stands
up for the character and capacity of the negroes, but he ad mits that they are not up to managing delicate machines. He says they are very trustworthy, and his doors never were locked during the war ; but they sometimes lay their hands on
petty articles of food and such things. Although Gen. W
was a Confederate general he seems to be in truth now nearly a Republican. His family appear scarcely to share his very hopeful view of the situation. Mrs. W— — is well known to have been the kindest of mistresses. She admits the horrors of slavery, but now thinks things are even worse, and that the blacks will presently be starved. Miss W— — thinks Washing ton made a great mistake in separating from England. Very many Virginians seem still to affect English sympathies. General W— - says that before the war farming was a profes sion as good as law or medicine. I gather that the proprietor- farmers ranked with professional men, not above them. The next day we came back to Richmond. I had some most agree able talk with the ladies of the party, and shall always have a very pleasant remembrance of this visit. They say that young ladies here are much more independent than the New York young ladies now are, the latter having begun to affect the European fashion.
I called on Major P , an ex-Confederate officer, and
now a lawyer. He was very civil, and gave me much assistance. He took me to call on the Governor of the State, Colonel Holliday, a bright and highly educated man, who is, I believe, a very successful Governor. He lost an arm in the
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war on the Confederate side. Like most people here, he de fends the institution of slavery, though he cannot defend the slave-trade between the breeding States and the consuming States. Accepting slavery as past and gone, he is all for re taining and making the most of the negroes, on whom he relies as the conservative element in the country, as contrasted with the communistic and troublesome among the white workmen. He says the blacks are so far quite free from trades-unionism and Communism, and they are very useful and good labourers. They are, however, neither mentally equal to the whites, nor will they do so much hard work in a sustained way — not so much as the Irishmen; they will take holidays and amuse themselves occasionally. The mulattos he thinks are superior to the ordinary negroes ; they are free from the odour which is a great drawback to the negroes in domestic service.
Colonel Holliday explained that much of the State debt had been incurred for internal improvements, which do not pay — railways, canals, and the like. The making of such works by the State tends to excessive ' log-rolling' in the State Legislature, and that is the origin of the clause re cently inserted in the Constitution of this and other States which prohibits the making of any internal improvements by the State. In Virginia they had no land to give to the rail ways, and they gave large money grants by way of subsidy. He did not seem much inclined to free trade, but rather hoped that Virginia might increase her manufactures. He thinks the state of the labour market is pretty satisfactory here — people can get work, and employers can get labour. All they want is to be let alone. He is very friendly to England, but dwells much on the ' Cassandra ' warnings of which we have lately heard, and especially on the great danger to England of engaging in any European war. In that case, he says, our commerce would be swept from the ocean, as was that of the United States, and we shall find the disadvantage of living in an island.
I went to see Messrs. B , bankers and merchants.
They tell me a curious fact : that before the war of a total of
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Virginian exports of some $34,000,000 close on half— viz., be tween sixteen and seventeen millions — was the value of slaves exported. In some parts of the South slaves were a good deal worked out, but generally the demand for slaves in the South was caused by increase of cultivation. Sugar has now de clined, but cotton has extended, and will extend. The present price of nine cents is not so very bad after all ; it is quite up to the average of the prices before the war. In those days it has been known as low as four or five cents. They do not think money is being lost in the cultivation of cotton, though it is not very profitable. A good deal of money is advanced to planters by people called factors, who seem to fulfil the functions of the Indian Mahajan. Even if cotton be not lucrative the people in the Southern States must grow it ; they have no alternative. They have no other great staple there. There has been considerable increase in the cultivation of cotton by small white farmers in the hilly districts, and a very great increase in Texas, a State which seems to be going ahead very fast.
I went to see some of the great flour-mills here. Most of the labour is black, but the really skilled work must be done by whites. I saw a good deal of work in which black and white men are employed indiscriminately, and are paid the same. There are said to be no signs of jealousy between the two races. The James Eiver is very rocky and rapid in its course up to this point. Above Eichmond it has been canal ised, and it is here applied to provide the great water-power by which the mills are worked. On the opposite side is a place called Manchester, where there are several cotton-mills. The river is very red and muddy ; this is no doubt due to the red soil which they have about here. This red soil ex tends a long way through the Southern States.
Here too there was a great agricultural fair going on. I went out to see it, but was somewhat disappointed. The grounds seemed too large for the show. There were two most enormous cattle, but the others did not strike me very much. The most frequent animals were small Jersey cows, pretty little beasts. Trotting horses were conspicuous. There seemed
VIRGINIA. 299
DO great show of fruits and vegetables. I may remark, now that I have seen a good many of these shows, that as an agri cultural show that which I saw at Hamilton, in Canada, was the best of them all. I suspect that Virginia is not at all up to the Northern States in agricultural enterprise. Coming back from the fair I watched the ploughing going on in some large fields. The soil seemed light. It was being largely limed, and green crops were being ploughed in. This is very much the practice in these parts. I waited for two ploughs to come round, to see who the labourers were, and found that one was held by a black man, and one by a white man.
Returning to the town, I went to inquire about books giving information about the State laws, and got an authori tative compilation, the ' Revised Code of Virginia,' in one thick volume, circulated by authority of the Legislature.
In the evening Colonel , son of the distinguished hydro-
grapher, was good enough to call upon me and introduce me to the Westmoreland Club, an excellent institution. After wards I went to the theatre. The principal object of the play seemed to be to satirise an American member of Con gress, a ' lady who had been abroad,' and an English tourist. They were very severe on the Congress-man, and attributed to him all sorts of corruption, which caused great laughter and applause. A ' civil rights man ' was introduced. It seems that a civil rights man is one who is in favour of com plete equality of blacks and whites. He tells that in New York he patronises a ' civil rights ' barber's shop, where they shave both blacks and whites, an idea which seemed to amuse the audience. The English tourist was a stupid and unin teresting person. The 'lady who had been abroad' was a caricature of the people we see in Continental Hotels, and she was held up to much ridicule. She was also the vehicle for exhibiting genuine Worth's dresses, which the Virginian ladies seemed to think a very interesting sight.
Next morning I breakfasted with Governor Holliday, and met a party at his house. He has an official residence ; and I noticed that convicts in chains were cleaning up the grounds in a way that very much reminded me of the practice in
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India in former days. The chain-gang is a recognised insti tution, and you may see them working in the streets any day.
The people whom I met this morning say that General W .
and his farm are far too favourable a specimen, and that most of the people in Virginia are not at all well off. Even in the best parts of the State much good land is for sale for less than the buildings alone originally cost. They think, however, that their geographical situation in the centre of the Union ought to enable them to retrieve their position, and they would do so if they were not ruined by the exces sive cheapness of produce imported from the West. They all defend the institution of slavery without reserve, and declare that it often happened that the masters had to work very hard indeed, while the black labourers had a life the hap piest, easiest, and most free from care that it is possible to imagine. There is now an income-tax in Virginia on all incomes, not derived from property, exceeding six hundred dollars per annum, the first six hundred dollars being in all cases exempt. All property is liable to the property-tax, and this income-tax is merely to catch people who do not pay property-tax, and who in most of the States are exempt from direct taxation. Some people of the town say that personal property is very fully taxed ; indeed, even more so than the land, the land being now valued at a very low rate. It seems that there is a good deal of evasion of the income-tax. The assessors are elected, and dare not assess rigorously. I talked to a member of the Virginian Legislature, which con tains a good many men of some substance. He has both won and lost his seat on the question of the dog-tax, which is said to be necessary for the protection of the stock-breeders, but is very unpopular. It is imposed in some counties, and not in others. Many people seem to hope that local and side questions of this kind will take people off from party divi sions and black and white factions. I observe that there are two or three independent candidates for Congress in this State. I am told stories of negroes who say they will vote for a man because he is a ' gentleman.' I learn one thing which shocks me — that blacks are here systematically ex-
VIRGINIA. 301
eluded from the juries. This seems to be avowed, the excuse being, ' They have got votes, and we cannot give them every thing.' In the United States Courts blacks are put on the juries, but not in the Virginian Courts. They say that there are many free traders here, but free trade is not an active question at present. The Southern States are much more occupied with reconstruction questions. They managed ta carry the last changes of the Virginian Constitution, which gave the whites some advantages, under cover of disputes with the Federal Government on greater questions.
I visited the Richmond Institute, a philanthropic estab lishment for the education of black teachers and preachers.
It seemed to be doing very well. Mr. C , the principal,
has a high opinion of the negroes, but he admits that they are not mathematical. He is a Northerner sent by Northern people to carry on this work. He admits that the men of Richmond behave very well to him, but says that the ladies are much more bigoted.
I visited Mr. V 's establishment for extracting the
juice of meat in a pure form, without heating or cooking. I believe that this essence has an extraordinary virtue for invalids.
I lunched with Mr. B , and met a large party there.
They were generally pleasant people. The Virginian ladies are very agreeable, but they denounce in very strong language General Grant and the Abolitionists and all their works. Mr. B is President of the National Bank here. He com plains that, the banks are over-taxed. They could lend money at 5 or 6 per cent., if they were not taxed, better than they now can at 10 per cent. These National Banks are a great question in the United States. At present a large party denounce them, saying that they have far too favour able terms. They are allowed to issue bank-notes on deposit of United States securities ; so that their solvency, so far as regards these notes, is always secured.
After dining with Major P I went with him to a
great gathering and banquet of the ' Confederate Soldiers of Northern Virginia,' where we heard a great oration, giving
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a military history of a part of the war from the Confederate point of view.
This day concludes my stay in Virginia, and ends a pleasant visit to Richmond. It strikes me that now I have got into a negro country the servants are more numerous than in the North. Their style and manners are something like those of native servants in India. I believe in former days the Southerners were more English in their habits than some of the Northerners. Ladies used to ride on horseback ; now they cannot afford many horses, and private property pre vailed here so early that there are not the open sectional roads that I saw in Illinois. Ladies who attempt to ride or drive complain of the endless number of gates and want of open country.
NORTH CAROLINA.
From Richmond I travelled to Raleigh, the political capital of North Carolina. It is about 8^ hours' run by rail. The country is more or less undulating. A great deal of it seemed rather poor, with a great deal of wood- principally pine, and some indifferent oaks and other trees. I am told that the original pine of the Southern country is a very good wood ; but when these trees have been once cut the second growth, which comes up spontaneously, is gene rally a tree of an inferior species. Most of the soil seemed to be reddish and rather light, but a good deal of it is culti vated ; and as we got South cotton became common. The cotton crop is now ripe upon the ground, and picking is going on. My general impression of the cotton I saw was that it gives one the idea of a great extent of culti vation, rather than of very high cultivation. I am told that the cotton-plant grows very well in this reddish, lightish soil ; in fact, it prefers a light soil, if it have only a little manure. This country is rather far North for its cultivation. The largest amount of cotton is by no means produced from the largest plants. Some very
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small, short plants are very heavy with cotton. There is a great variety in the yield ; some fields seeming very heavy, others very poor.
I noticed many very miserable huts scattered about in an isolated way among the fields and the woods. They seem to be mostly of one pattern, and were inhabited both by white people and by blacks. I remarked to my fellow- passengers on the wretchedness of these houses, and they admitted that the cottages are certainly very poor ; but they say in the South people are less in need of good houses, as the climate is more favourable. I understand that these isolated houses have been built since the war. Before the war the people — at any rate, the blacks — used to live together in planta tion settlements. Since the war both whites and blacks have got land who had it not before. The two first acquaintances I made both came into these Southern parts with the Federal army, and stayed at the end of the war. One of them is an Englishman ; they both seem to be on good terms with the people with whom they are engaged in cotton-buying and such business.
In the cotton-fields I several times noticed white people at work, but the majority of the cotton cultivators seemed to be black. White and black children seemed friendly enough together, but intermarriage is prohibited. It seems, how ever, that there has been a good deal of intermixture of races, and many of the coloured people are not pure blacks. I have heard it said with much truth, that since it is so there is much ground for legalising intermarriage. The cotton is all ginned by machinery, and what is called half- pressed. All over the country there are ginning mills and pressing machines, where the cotton is made up and sent to the great ports, where it is re-pressed for export. Much of the cotton seed is used for manure ; in fact, the seed makes the best manure for this crop. I am told the settlers who have come to North Carolina of late years have, in most instances, not succeeded very well ; they were very often cheated by land companies, and did not understand the busi-
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ness ; but there are some Northern farmers who have done very well.
There was a second class on the train chiefly occupied by negroes, but not exclusively so. I noticed an advertisement of a travelling agent, who wants ' 150 farmers to go to Texas,' and offers to engage them ' either on wages or on shares.' Both my travelling acquaintances, though in some sense carpet-baggers themselves, speak strongly of the evils of the carpet-bag government of the Southern States.
Kaleigh seems to be a pretty country place, with plenty of flowers and good vegetation. I went to the Yarborough House Hotel, which I found comfortable. Reading the local papers in the evening, I saw that most of the seats in Con gress for this State are contested. I did not see evidence of any great bitterness. In the papers I noticed an account of a local county meeting for Wayne County — not a popular meeting, but only of the County Commissioners, who are five in number. The subjects seemed very like those dealt with by our Local Boards. I remarked the following : — The poor- house and paupers ; the county gaol ; roads and bridges, and apportionment of labour — in these States the inhabitants are bound to work on the roads on the system which used to be called ' Statute labour ' in Scotland — ; spirit licences ; valuation of property ; registration of voters ; arrangement of school districts ; appointment of a local constable on a casual vacancy. It is mentioned that there are nine paupers in the poor-house — four white and five coloured — and then there is a notice of small allowances granted to out-paupers.
Later in the evening I went to a Democratic meeting, but it was very cold, and the meeting was thinly attended. The people were very silent and undemonstrative while the orator exposed financial questions. He went in for an ex tended currency, without precisely saying that he meant greenbacks. He was against protection. He said that the property of Massachusetts is ten times greater than that of North Carolina, but the United States' taxation is not in the same proportion. ' Money,' he said, ' was unjustly appre ciated, and everything else depreciated.'
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Next day I called on the Governor of the State, Mr. Vance, who received me very civilly, and with him I found an old Mr. C , of Scotch descent, and formerly a rich pro prietor, who had at least a thousand slaves, but who now talks as if he was terribly reduced. He said that what has protected people in this State is the homestead law. I after wards, however, heard that he is understood to be quite rich, and that he does not like the homestead law, because it pro tects debtors too much. That homestead law is certainly very
much in force here ; and Mr. C described it as saving to
a man just as much land as his neighbours choose to lay out for him under the valuation clauses, so that, he says, creditors have suffered more than debtors. I also made the acquaint ance of Mr. D , one of the principal residents, also of his
son, and some other gentlemen. Messrs. D claim to hold
their land under a royal grant, and are Episcopalians, but I understand that there are comparatively few Episcopalians in North Carolina, which was not so aristocratic in its origin as Virginia on the one side, and South Carolina on the other. Different parts of the State are still held by the descendants of the original settlers ; very few foreigners have come in of late years. The part near the sea was principally occupied by Englishmen, with blacks under them. Then a great part of the low-lying country inland towards the borders of South Carolina is occupied by a large Scotch -Highland settlement, who, I am told, still speak Graelic. They are a hard-working population, who never had many slaves, but worked them selves, getting out timber and growing corn and cotton. Materially speaking, they have not prospered exceedingly ; but they have educated themselves, and do well on the whole. They are said to have come after the rebellion of '45, and among them Flora Macdonald. They are Presbyterians. In another part of the State there is a strong colony of Scotch- Irish. Further West there are many Germans, and much of the mountainous country in the extreme West is occupied by Moravians and other such settlers, who used to live a very rough and isolated life. These people it was who, aided by a great many deserters and others, rebelled against the Con-
x
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federate Government during the war, as did many of the people in Andrew Johnson's country in East Tennessee. In those days they used to be called ' Bush Whackers.' They were influenced partly by the old Whig spirit, partly by a dislike of the war, and partly by a dislike of the compulsory service which it was sought to impose upon them. The black popula tion is most numerous in the low-lying lands in the eastern part of the State. In the rest, whites are more numerous.
Before the war the most valuable property consisted of slaves. The direct profit from their work did not suffice to pay the interest on the capital sunk upon them, and the real profit was in the increase of the slaves and selling them away. Old Mr. C — - says, with evident pride in his good management, that by feeding his slaves well and marrying them judiciously, he used to double their number in twenty years. After the war the people had neither money nor stock, and were very badly off indeed. Some of the low lands, protected by dykes which needed care and labour, have now been flooded and disused, and in that part of the country the negroes live by fishing, etc., and only grow a very moderate amount of cotton and corn. It has been found, however, of late years that the higher red land, which was not before supposed to be good for cotton, does grow it exceedingly well, and very much land has been brought under cotton which was not so cultivated before, partly by breaking up new land and partly by substituting cotton for corn, grass, and pigs. Bacon is now brought from the West very cheap. This change has especially taken place in the district about Raleigh, in which very little cotton was grown before, whereas Raleigh is now a very large cotton mart. I am told that few large farmers succeed, though some do more or less, chiefly those who have a knack of managing the negroes. Generally speaking, the most successful are the smaller farmers, who work themselves with their families. At first these people were obliged to get advances from factors and commission agents. Now they are getting more independent, and would do very well if they could only get a tolerable price for their cotton. Cotton is in these parts
NORTH CAROLINA. 307
the only crop that brings money, except tobacco, which is cultivated to a considerable extent in one part of this State. A good deal of the land has changed hands since the war, and every man who has prudence can get land. Still although some small people, both white and black, get land of their own, much more is rented on various terms. Many proprietors cultivate some land themselves, and rent out the
rest. Some proprietors (old Mr. C , for instance) rent out
the land in large blocks to white farmers, who pay them one- third of the corn and one-fourth of the cotton, and these white farmers again (who seem to be a sort of middle men) make arrangements with the blacks ; perhaps they find the mules, etc., and get two-thirds of the crop. Many blacks again take farms direct from the proprietors ; and these, Mr.
C says, are the best farmers. Very often rent is paid in
the shape of a fixed quantity of cotton ; there is very seldom a money rent. I have seen a good many cotton -fields near the town, and talked over the system of cultivation. One mule is sufficient, the plough being a light one. The crop requires much ploughing, and hoeing and labour, but little machinery. The seed is drilled in, then ploughed between the drills, and the plants are thinned out by hoeing like our turnips ; in fact, the cultivation a good deal reminded me of turnip cultivation. Manure seems to be very generally used. A bale1 an acre is a very good crop, but half or three quarters of a bale is more common. In the lower land further east they get more cotton to the acre, but it is inferior in quality to the upland cotton, and the farmers on the lowlands do not seem to be so independent. It is most frequently necessary for the proprietor to supply everything, and that system generally breaks down in the end. Here a small farmer can cultivate about twenty-five acres of cotton if he has a family to help him. By far the greater portion of the land round Ealeigh seems to be under cotton ; one sees large stretches of it. Besides the few blacks who possess farms of their own, very many own houses and small patches of land not large enough to make them
1 About 450 Ibs. x 2
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independent farmers, and these men work as lured labourers besides cultivating their patches. I hear no complaint that the blacks about here are idle. There is no decrease in their numbers, but owing to their careless habits they are not now increasing so fast as they used to, nor so fast as the whites. The disadvantage in regard to labour in these parts is that the female labour, which was largely available in slave times, is now lost, as the black women will not work ; they like to copy the whites in this respect, and the preachers have taken the side of the women. They cook and wash and do house hold work, but, excepting the cotton-picking at the picking season, will seldom do field work. Those of the lower class of whites who have no energy to rise above the position of hired labourers are no better off than the blacks, and are not paid higher, but by far the greater part of the hired labour is black. In the town, labourers get nearly a dollar a day ; in the country they are hired at eight or ten dollars a month with a house and rations, or fifty cents a day without rations. I hear complaints that many of the white people go West instead of improving the lands at home ; many of the High landers have gone west. Here also I am told that the only complaint against the negroes is that, though generally willing to work, they are too much inclined to take holidays and amuse themselves. That is said to be an objection to employing them in mills and places where regular labour is required. They are apt to go to church meetings or to market the produce of their little patches. They drink more than is good for them, but I do not gather that they are very drunken.
Good land can be bought in these parts at from five to twelve dollars an acre, but there is much poor land to be had for one or two dollars. In the hilly part of this State there is no limestone, and they say that lime is necessary to make bone and produce a good race of men or animals. At any rate, they do not fatten cattle very much, but they raise store cattle in the hilly parts and send them to Virginia. Indian corn grows well. I am told that it is not considered to be suited to a tropical climate. Even in the most
NORTH CAROLINA. 309
southerly States of the Union it is not so good as in the central States. The rainfall here seems to be very good ; it averages upwards of forty inches per annum, and is pretty regular. Perhaps three-fourths of the State is still covered with wood, and most of this might be cultivated if it were cleared, and manure were more or less used. A good deal of wheat is grown, but not much barley or oats.
Governor Vance, though now a Democrat, comes from the
Western hill country, and both he and Mr. C and others
whom I met seemed to be very well inclined towards the negroes, saying that they often make the best farmers, and generally the best labourers. The Governor says, that on the whole the black representatives sent to the Legislature are fairly selected ; illiterate they are, but some of them are quite well-disposed and sensible. He instances as one of the best a black carpenter who sits in the Legislature, and when not so engaged works well at his trade. Most of the skilled trades are in the hands of the whites, but there are black carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers, and the whites have not attempted to put them down. In the last State Assembly there were fourteen blacks, and there are still eight of them in the State Legislature. None of the State judges are black, but some of the county officers are. There is a black prosecuting attorney at Raleigh, but he is not very good. In this State blacks are allowed to sit on juries, and do to some extent, but not very many of them. There is still a very strong social prejudice against people with any tinge of colour, especially among ladies, who would not for their lives sit in the same room with a coloured man. I am told that the last Governor was obliged to give up his receptions because of the difficulty about the black members of the Legislature, for if they came no whites would come. The whites have agreed to accept the blacks for business purposes, but not for social purposes. This State was originally entirely against secession and war. It was formerly a very Whig State, and although afterwards the Democrats prevailed, when the quarrel between the North and South came North Carolina voted entirely against secession, till Lincoln's military measures for
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the coercion of the South excited the opposition of the more moderate Southerners ; then North Carolina took the Con federate side, and supplied a very large number of soldiers to the Confederate army. After the war there was a good deal of bitterness — carpet-bag rule lasted for some time, and there were Klu-klux organizations against it ; but now things have quieted down.
In the present election there are still some ' radical ' candidates, and some independent ones ; the result of the election remains to be seen. In this State, also, the blacks have two or three militia companies, but they are deterred from forming more by the expense. In the present Congress there is only one Eepublican from the State, a white man. He was formerly Governor of the State, and was well liked, but I understand that he is not to be re-elected. The blacks have put up candidates of their own, and are likely to elect a black man if they do not lose the seat by division among themselves, for two blacks are opposing one another ; one of them said to have been originally a West Indian. In the mountain regions the white people seem now to be generally Democrats. General Vance, the Governor's brother, is not opposed there.
As in Virginia, there has been a recent revision of the Constitution, modifying that imposed on the State after the war — much more so apparently than in Virginia. The State judges are still elected by the people, but the justices of the peace are nominated by a committee of the Assembly, and these j ustices elect the county commissioners, so that there is really no popular local self-government except in towns. However, it is said that things are fairly managed, and that by way of compromise the committee of the Assembly appoint some of both parties. Under this arrangement some blacks are appointed to office. The blacks are said not to have ' the same cohesion for purposes of public plunder as the whites.'
Up to 1830 the parties in the United States were Hamil- tonian and Jeifersonian, otherwise, Federal and Republican. Then they changed their names to those of Whig and Demo crat. But at the time of the war the Whigs gave up, and the
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present Republicans took their place, so that, in fact, the title of Republican has changed sides ; the Jeffersonian Republicans of former days now being represented by the Democrats, while the successors of the Hamiltonian federals are called Re publicans.
In North Carolina there was a property qualification for the franchise up to 1850, and before 1855 any free blacks possessed of property were admitted to the franchise. After those dates blacks were excluded, and all whites were admit ted. The system of taxation here seems very much like that in Virginia. Besides the property tax there is an income tax, from which the necessary expense of living, not to exceed $\ ,000 in any case, is exempted. There is a con siderable State debt, but no attempt is made to pay interest upon it at present. The roads are very bad; apparently there are no metalled roads in all the State, only the common earth roads made by the labour of the people themselves, and very indifferently made.
The town of Raleigh is, as usual, very scattered, with broad streets quite unpaved, and a good deal of ornamental ground about the houses. The population of the place is about 12,000. The Capitol is a fine building, in a commanding situation. I noticed a very large lunatic asylum, and there seemed to be a good many other institutions. There are many whiskey shops, and a good many churches. The cotton market is very busy ; the general market seems well supplied. The most common fish in these parts are what are called sea- trout ; but I do not think that they are our sea-trout, and they do not seem very good. I am told that in the streams in the hill-country there is very abundant trout-fishing.
In the evening I went out to take tea with old Mr. D
who has a very pretty place, with a very nice house, beautiful grounds, and a most pleasant family. All the arrangements seemed simple and unpretending, but very nice and com fortable. I had some more talk with the Messrs. D . They
say local bodies do not borrow very much, because no one will trust them in these days. A railway is now being made by the State through the mountain country, principally by
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convict labour. I saw in the papers that a man has been sentenced to death for burglary, and, on enquiry, I find that burglary is a capital offence in this State, though the capital sentence may not be very often carried into effect in such a case. On the other hand, corporal punishment is not used for minor offences, as it is in Virginia. It seems to be more profitable to imprison offenders and work them.
The next day I visited the State Agricultural and Geolo gical Museum, established in pursuance of a law which seems now to be the fashion in most of the States. The Agricul tural Commissioner seems to be an active man ; he has a very good agricultural collection, and appears to be doing his best to improve the staples of the country. He has also some very useful maps. This State runs a great length from east to west, and he divides it into three belts. First, the swampy country to the east, which is rich, but very much of it is under water or under jungle ; when reclaimed it is very good for rice and corn and such staples, but, owing to the disre pair of the dykes already mentioned, much of it is in a bad way. Then, in the centre of the State, is a country of sandy and red soil, much of it covered with pine trees, but also very much of it under cotton. This is, in fact, the cotton belt. Then there is the high country in the west of the State, •with a granite soil and an oak vegetation. There they grow tobacco and wheat, and raise cotton. They have also a good many minerals, and hope to have a good many more if the country is opened out. In the far western corner of this State is the highest mountain in all the Eastern States, nearly 7,000 feet high, I think. The hill-country is said to be very charming. In the Agricultural Collections in these States I noticed, what I also noticed in the Paris Exhibition, the absence of any collection of Indian products. I think our Indian Agricultural Department should supply these. I notice here specimens of the Indian Jawaree, the Nile Dhoura, and well known in Southern Europe under I forget what name. It is one of the most widely cultivated food-grains in the world, but the cultivation does not seem ta have taken root in the States. The specimens here are called
NORTH CAROLINA. 313
' Pampas- corn.' Sweet potatoes are a very great product in the Southern States ; they grow to an enormous size, more like mangolds. There are some good specimens of beet and mangolds, but I understand that they are not much grown. The turnips are very poor. Eed clover, I understand, grows well. For fertilizers, besides using the cotton seed, they have any quantity of good marl and phosphates from the Charleston beds.
I visited Mr. S , the State Superintendent of Educa tion ; he does not give a very good account of his department. Education in former days was at a very low ebb, and it does not seem to have been very much raised. The Constitution requires that the schools should be kept open for at least four months in the year, but, owing to want of funds and other causes, it appears from the last returns that the average time during which each school was actually open was not more than eight weeks. But there is some private schooling, and, perhaps, half of the grown white people can read and write. Very many of them, however, are quite ignorant, some even who hold good farms. The blacks were, at first, very zealous about education, but seem to be discouraged, and not to be so zealous now. The Education Department has the greater part of the State poll-tax, a share of the general property tax, and the swampy lands which still belong to the State. There seems to have been some difficulty as to the arrange* ments for spending the money, for the last report complains that there was a balance unspent in several of the counties. Besides the State schools the blacks have the benefit of a good manyfreedmen's schools, still maintained by subscriptions from the North. The public money for schools is equally dis tributed between the white and black schools, per capita, The blacks have about half as many schools as the whites. About half of the whole number of children are upon the school rolls, but the average attendance is only about one- fourth. In this State the majority of the teachers are males The Southern whites do not like to teach black children,, and it is necessary either to get Northerners or to employ coloured teachers.
314 MY JOURNAL.
Mr. D kindly arranged for me a little trip into the
country to see the farmers. The land generally seemed to be the light red soil which I before mentioned, undulating and with much wood about. Cotton is by far the principal cultivation. I thought it certainly not so highly-cultivated a crop as the cotton I had seen in Egypt, and the land here is infinitely less valuable than land in Egypt ; but in many fields there are this year very good crops, from three-quarters to one bale per acre. I was interested in a nice little farm of a black man, who produces in a good season almost twenty bales of cotton. He was a frank and communicative person ; he is totally illiterate, but seems to understand his business as a farmer. He pays 3^ bales of cotton as rent, but does not know how many acres lie has. His cotton crops seemed good, though much of the land has been sown with cotton seven years in succession. He also grows some corn and some hay for his mule ; has no cows, but some pigs. The owner only found materials for a very poor house, and he put it up. He holds from year to year without a lease, and says that as the owner will not improve his house and fences he thinks of trying to get land of his own. Much of the land now under crop he has himself cleared from wood, and his rent has been increased in consequence. Evidently much of the land in these parts has recently been reclaimed from forest. This man has one son working with him, who gets a share of the pro ceeds. His wife and daughters assist more or less at harvest times. He has only one mule. He has several other sons, for one of whom he has bought four acres of land on which the son has established a blacksmith's shop. Another son works as a farm-labourer at fifty cents a-day, and two others rent farms in another part of the country. A little further on we went over the farm of a white man. This is also rented. The house and farm buildings seemed quite good. The farmer was a decent man, but a brother who works with him looks dissipated and inferior. He has a wife and family. The children go to school. He has a good deal of wood on his land, and sells wood in the town. The family do not seem very communicative. I have generally noticed that the
NORTH CAROLINA. 315
wives of American small farmers are not very free-spoken, and keep in the background more than such women would in this country. Besides this brother, the farmer has two hired servants, one black and the other white ; they are paid the same, and he says that the black is the best. He too pays a rent in cotton — a fixed quantity. Further on we came upon a farm of about forty acres, owned by a black. He had a good house, but the land seemed rather slovenly, not so well cultivated as the rented farm. We then visited the farm of a considerable proprietor, who has also a business in the town. He cultivates himself between 200 and 300 acres, of which he has 115 acres under cotton. His old father looks after the farm here. He follows a system of rotation of crops more or less, but not very strictly. He sometimes grows cotton two or three years in succession without any change. He has a ginning mill ; a white man has charge of that. The rest of his labourers are black. He keeps a good number of Alder- ney cows, and raises them for sale. His land is all well fenced.
We met many men with carts bringing in produce, some white and some black ; they seemed very much on an equality. On the roads of the town I saw white and black men work ing together. I noticed that the favourite amusement with the negro boys seems to be to drill as mock soldiers, with sticks and flags and wooden muskets.
I visited Mr. T , head of the Shaw Institute, a college
maintained by Northern subscription to educate black teachers. _The buildings are good, and it seems a successful
institution. Mr. T says his pupils turn out well. He
is a Bostonian, served in the war, and is now rather bitter in his political talk. He takes a gloomy view of the prospects of the blacks, and is much in favour of their going to Liberia. He says there is no justice in the courts either for Northern men or for blacks, especially since the local self-government of places populated by blacks has been put an end to under the revised Constitution. He also says that the blacks are much cheated in regard to contracts and wages due to them. In these Southern States it is considered to be enough for a
316 MY JOURNAL.
debtor to say that he has no money. I fear there is much truth in the complaint about the frequent non-payment of
wages. Mr. T says he is quite isolated; he has no
sympathy from the people here. He has a bad opinion of the present State Government, but a worse opinion of the carpet-bag and negro politicians. He says the negro mem bers of the present Assembly are rascals, as are also their candidates for Congress. He would rather vote for a Democrat than for any of them. He has some building work going on ; the master-mason is a black, and two white men are among the workmen; but this is an exceptional case, and could not ordinarily occur. He thinks the blacks are rather slow in intellect and deficient in enterprise, but they are otherwise good. Many of them are very religious, but many others have very little idea of the Christian re ligion.
Every American State has a Secretary of State under the G-overnment. I made the acquaintance of the Secretary of State here. He is by birth a Mississippian, and was editor of a Democratic paper at Wilmington, the port of North Carolina. Journalists are not confined to their own vocation so much as with us ; they often rise to high political offices.
I also made the acquaintance of a gentleman of fine presence and highly civilized manners, who seemed to be a survivor of the higher class of proprietors. He seems to have preserved his fine estates in South Carolina in spite of the troubles, and he maintains a great stud of horses and other attributes of grandeur. He offered to drive me over to South Carolina in his four-in-hand drag, and to show me the humours of a Carolinian election. I thought I had at last found an opportunity of seeing one of the Southern aristocratic establishments, and accordingly accepted his invitation with joy ; but at the time when the final arrangements were to be made, he did not appear ; and, on enquiry, I found that people
talked irreverently of him as ' Spanish B ,' and hinted that
he had a good many chateaux in Spain. Next morning, he still did not turn upv «o I thought it prudent not to wait, and
NORTH CAROLINA. 317
followed out my own plans. This was the only c sell ' of the kind I had during my tour.
I have been looking at the revised Constitution of this State, and at the laws passed in the last biennial session of the Legislature — that of 1876-77 ; also those of one previous session — 1868-69. By this constitution jury trial may be waived in civil cases, and petty misdemeanours may be tried without jury, provided in such case there is the right of appeal. Judges and judges' clerks are elected for eight and four years respectively. No decree can be executed against the State. The revenue is to be raised by a tax on all pro perty, an income-tax, licence taxes, and a poll-tax on all males between the ages of 21 and 50, rot exceeding in amount the property-tax on $300, and also not exceeding two dollars per poll for the State and county together. Three- fourths of the poll-tax is to go to education, and one-fourth to the support of the poor. Towns are allowed to impose special taxes for schools, both on property and on polls. No more money may be borrowed by the State unless a special tax is at the same time raised and pledged to pay off the loan. Local bodies may borrow only after a plebiscite. The educa tion of blacks and whites is to be separate. The Assembly may pass a compulsory education law, but has not done so yet. The Assembly is to arm and keep up the militia. Black companies are to be kept separate from white ones. Property of debtors is to be exempt from execution for debt to the extent of $500, in the case of personal property, and homesteads to the value of $1,000. No deed for the sale of a homestead is valid without the consent of the wife. The session of the Legislature is limited to sixty days. Not withstanding the shortness of the session, the mass of legisla tion got through is marvellous. Perhaps in the two sessions I have examined it may be larger than usual because a Eevised Constitution had been passed shortly before each of these sessions ; but at any rate the Statute Book shows great activity and frequent dealing, in accordance with popular wants, with questions we should hardly touch by legislation. In the session of 1876-77, two hundred and nine-three public
318 MY JOURNAL.
Acts were pa?sed, besides one hundred and fourteen private Acts. In the session of 1868-69 two hundred and eighty-three public Acts were passed, and of these latter very many were large and important Acts. Among the Acts of 1876-77 I notice the following : — An Act to give effect to the new system of county and local government by nomination through a committee of the Assembly, as previously noticed ; several Acts regulating judicial functions, jurisdiction, and machinery ; consolidated revenue and school Acts ; a valuation Act ; an election Act ; an Act establishing hypothec in favour of landlords ; a strict Sunday-closing Act, without any bonafide traveller or other such exemptions, except for medical prescriptions (but I am told that the Act is a good deal evaded) ; several Acts to prohibit altogether the sale of liquor in certain localities, as, for instance, within two miles of certain churches and institutions, or other similar areas ; and one Act to enable the people of a particular locality to decide by vote whether liquor shall be sold or not ; an Act to regulate the employment of prisoners and the letting them out for hire ; several Acts to enable particular counties to levy special taxes; many Acts incorporating towns or amending and regulating the constitution of towns; many Acts to settle local boundaries, local drainage questions, and the like; several Acts to relieve the people of particular localities of any hindrance to grazing on unenclosed lands, restraining excessive weighing charges, and the like ; a good many Acts to relieve public officers, corporations, or indivi duals from pecuniary or other liabilities ; (most frequently these are to give indemnity to sheriffs, for proceedings not directly legal) ; several Acts to incorporate railway com panies ; principally to make small branch railways — some of them narrow-gauge lines — and to enable counties and corpo rations to subscribe to such railways. There is a curious game law to prohibit the exportation of partridges or quails, dead or alive, from counties near railways, on the ground that they are useful for the destruction of insects. There is very much game in this part of the country ; large bags of partridges are got. Some of the lands are ' posted,' that is
NORTH CAROLINA. 319
preserved ; others are practically free to sportsmen. There is another Act, supplementary to a former one, for the pro tection of deer in certain localities.
I have talked about this legislation with a lawyer who seems to be of the Conservative persuasion. He says that there is a great deal too much legislation — that localities and individuals get too much done in this way, and that there is too much meddling. Acts of this kind are settled out of the Legislature by bargaining and give and take, and the more general Acts are settled by party caucus before being brought into the Legislature. After they are brought in all Bills are referred to committees, and after being dealt with by them are generally carried in the Assembly without much debate. The cldture, or as they call it, ' the previous question,' is much used. The limitation of the session to sixty days is a recent change — it used to be longer. The legislation is, he says, very loose. The Eevised Code was very loosely passed., and both that and many of the subsequent Acts give much trouble to the lawyers. He seems rather a pessimist upon the subject. I have not been able quite to understand the difference between the public and private Acts, except that the latter are of a minor character, e.g., to incorporate small towns and villages and Masonic Lodges and other institutions. One is to establish a ' Camping Ground ' as a corporation ; apparently these camping grounds are kept for religious meetings. A good many of these Acts are about toll and ferry dues.
I spent the Sunday here. In the morning I went to a black church, but was not very fortunate, as there had been some division among the congregation, and the place was thinly attended. In the evening I found a better congrega tion at another church. The preacher was very loud, em phatic, and earnest, but there was not very much cohesion in what he said ; the singing was good. I went out with Mr.
B to see a large vineyard that he has started. He makes
very fair wine, but only the native American vines succeed — the French vines have quite failed — blight greatly affects them and other fruit trees. This does not seem to be much
320 MY JOURNAL.
of a fruit country. Talking about cotton, I am told that it is a very hardy plant, and does not suffer from occasional droughts. They say that not only has the cultivation of cotton in these parts increased in area, but that it is also much better cultivated than it was before the war. They now get here crops which before the war were only got in the Mississippi Valley. In the case of rented farms it is a matter of bargain who is to supply the manure. There are no leases and no tenant-rights — but unfortunately the manures of
commerce do not last much more than one year. Mr. B
says the black people are very good and moderate in their way of living. They do not eat too much meat — more affect a vegetable diet, and are healthy in consequence ; but they are very careless in cases of sickness, and wanting in kindness to one another when they are ill. In the Municipality of Ealeigh there are eleven whites and six blacks. The black
councillors do very well, says Mr. B . He himself is in
the Council, and having had occasion to differ from some of his colleagues had the support of the blacks.
I am surprised to see how little excitement there is in regard to the contested election which is to take place the day after to-morrow. There are no placards, and few signs of a struggle going on.
Next day I started for Salisbury, a place in this State considerably to the west. The country is still undulating, with a mixture of wood and cultivation. We came to the district where tobacco is largely grown, and stopped some time at Durhams, the centre of the tobacco manufacture. I had an opportunity of going over one of the factories — in fact, one of the largest manufactories of smoking tobacco in the United States. They also manufacture what is called snuff, but it is not really taken as snuff ; it is chewed. They tell me that a fine quality of this snuff is very much used by American ladies, who put it in their mouths on the pretext of its being good for the teeth, but they really chew it, and so consume large quantities. I never could get anyone to admit this practice, but so said the manufacturers. Here also almost all the work is done by blacks, but certain departments —
NORTH CAROLINA. 321
namely, the weighing and finishing off the packages — are ex clusively in the hands of white men. Employers never can trust the blacks with anything which requires careful atten tion and accuracy.
Travelling along I noticed both black and white men in the fields and cottages, but apparently the blacks are in the majority. They seemed to be the main labouring population. The country seems very raviney, and if the land is not cared for it is apt to run out into ravines, as frequently happens in the hands of careless tenants. I gather that it frequently happens that when land has been over-cropped it is abandoned to wood for a time — in all this country wherever it is let alone wood springs up.
I stopped at the Haw Biver to see the cotton mills there. They carry out the whole process of manufacture, from clean ing the cotton as it comes loose from the fields to the manu facture of the cloth and the dyeing of it, in the same not very large establishment. The mills are worked by water power, as is always the case in this part of the country. All the Atlantic States have the advantage of an unlimited water power, the country sloping from the Alleghanies to the sea with many running streams, and being in this respect a great contrast to most of the country west of the Alleghanies. In the mills all the labour is white — there are no blacks em ployed ; they are said not to be sufficiently careful. At any
rate it is not the habit to employ them. Colonel'H ,the
manager of the mill which I visited, first said that the labour was excellent, but coming to details he found a good many faults with his people, and said that he had just turned off several families for irregular attendance by way of example. I was surprised to hear that the working hours are twelve hours a day. That system is fully enforced. The people work from seven in the morning to half-past seven in the evening, with only half-an-hour for dinner. This really seems too much, and I gather that it is very doubtful whether more is done in twelve hours than by those who work only ten hours. This Southern master seemed to me to be more severe with his work people than an English master could be.
Y
322 MY JOURNAL.
Perhaps he is too much of a military man. The women earn about fifty cents a day, the men from seventy-five cents to a dollar. The Southern mills seem to have taken, in relation to those of the North, much the same position which the Indian mills do to those of Lancashire. They manufacture only the coarser qualities of goods, leaving the finer qualities to the Northern mills. They claim that they have a better climate in the South, with less extremes of heat and cold, fewer short days, and less need of fuel and lights ; and they have great advantage, they say, not only in the saving in the carriage of cotton, but also in that they are saved the serious expense of packing it. Their labour, too, is cheaper than that in the North.
Here I went out to see the farm of Mr. B ,aNew Jersey
man, who has lately established a farm of six hundred acres, principally with the object of breeding horses. The road, as
usual, I find detestable, but Mr. B • says the New Jersey
roads are good — they have a good gravel soil there. Pasture and cattle-breeding have been somewhat neglected in these Southern States, and he hopes to show them the way to im prove. He has a very high opinion of the black people — likes them as labourers, and thinks they only need to be treated fairly and civilly to get good work out of them ; in fact, they work as well as white men, and better : and the only complaints against them come from those who do not treat them fairly nor pay them regularly. He, too, says that there is great irregularity in the payment of wages. His only doubt is about the rising generation. He thinks the old ex-slaves who were accustomed to work do very well, but the children are not sufficiently under the control of their parents, and are growing up with an indisposition to work. He is strong on the excellence of the climate here about 800 feet above the sea. It is never so hot in summer, he says, as in the Northern Atlantic States. The thermometer does not usually rise above 80 degrees, and the winters are mild and good. There seems to be no doubt that there is a great change in the winter climate as one passes South through Virginia into the Carolinas and Georgia.
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I bad met in the train an old Scotchman, Mr. M ,
who has been upwards of forty years settled in this State. He is a builder by trade, and has done much work of that kind, but has now acquired land and settled down. He took
me to dine with a friend, Mr. H , who keeps a store at
Haw River, and who is married to a New England wife. This lady gave us a very nicely-cooked meal, very neatly served. Throughout the States it does seem that the New England
people are in many respects superior. Mr. M very
kindly insisted on taking me to his house at Salisbury, where I was most comfortably accommodated. In the morning we walked about the town, which seemed a nice rural place.
Mr. M 's wife is also a New Englander, but they are all
now thoroughly Southern in feeling, botli as to the war and
as to the question of slavery. According to Mr. M the
Northerners were the first slave-holders, and when they found that slaves were not a profitable property in the North they sold them South, and went in for abolition. In the war the North Carolinian people did not go heartily with the South till their feelings got embittered by the great destruction of property and other ill-usages to which they were subjected by the Northern armies. A sister of his own was burnt out by the Federal soldiers and died from exposure. He and his son-in-law, who is also a contractor for public works, told me a good deal about the blacks, whom they have much em ployed. They decidedly like them as labourers. In the North the white men get higher wages and do more work. There they will not allow the competition of the negro; especially the foreigners — Irishmen being most prominent — will not ; but the Southern climate is too hot for the Irish — they do not care to come South ; while the Southern whites not being anxious to work as hired labourers, do not object to the negroes performing that function. Thus the blacks are not bull-dosed on labour questions, and altogether get on very well. Wages in the South are certainly a good deal lower than in the North, and the negroes can live on much cheaper and poorer food than the Northern whites. Most of the Southern whites have land more or less, and many of
T 2
324 MY JOURNAL.
them employ, or hope to employ, negroes. They are always glad to hire them when they can afford to do so. The better and more moderate of the Southern whites certainly wish to conciliate and utilise the negroes.
Mr. M , while speaking so well of the negroes in
other respects, dwelt very much on that which I had before heard, their want of family affection and kindness to one another in sickness. He tells the story of a son whom he nursed through small-pox, and who was then set to nurse hi& own father who had taken the disease, but deserted the father and left him to die. There seems to be a general con currence of assertion, that in slave times it was necessary for the white masters and mistresses to see that the black children were looked after and that the sick were nursed. Now these things are much neglected.
Mr. M has a good deal of land. Part of it is farmed
by one of his sons, who is also a medical man. Part is let to a black man on shares, and part to a white man. The great difficulty, he says, is the tendency to let down the land. We visited a suburb almost entirely inhabited by blacks. Most of these people own their own house and patches of land — some one, some two, some three, some six acres, and they seem to get on very well. Many of them appeared to be of mixed blood. One man was quite fair with blonde hair, but quite woolly. Several among them are blacksmiths ; they affect that trade a good deal.
Having occasion to send a telegram here, I noticed the excessive charge — one dollar for eight words to New York. I have since found that this is so in all out-of-the-way places. The telegraphs in the United States are entirely in the hands of monopolist private companies, and they charge just in proportion to the absence of competition. There is no fixed rule with reference to distance, or anything else.
This is the day of the general election. I went to see the voting. There is a contest between two white candidates, but one of them is an Independent and seems to be supported by the blacks. There is little sign of excitement. The ballot-box is kept at an open window, and the proceedings
SOUTH CAROLINA. 325
are conducted in a loose sort of way. Half a dozen people, officials and other, are in the room behind the box. There is no pretence of secrecy in regard to the ballot papers. Papers with the names of the candidates are lying about. Each voter takes one and gives it to be put into the box. I understand they generally pride themselves on voting openly. The blacks seem to be voting freely ; there is no sign of intimidation. After breakfast I started for South Carolina.
SOUTH CAROLINA.
I entered the ' Petrel ' State of South Carolina on the day of the election, and the first station in that State that we came to was full of people dressed in the famous red shirt, which we also saw continually at all the stations as we came along. In this part of the State there does not seem to be a very serious contest ; it is only in the lower regions, where the black population is very numerous, that there is any doubt about the result of the elections. The constitution of South Carolina is still that which was imposed upon it after the war. It has not been revised, and is still of the popular character dictated by Northern ideas. All the county and local officers are elected ; there is no such system of nomina tion as prevails in North Carolina. Here the elections for Congress, for the State Assembly, and for the local offices, all take place together, — are all entered in one ' ticket.' Mr. Wade Hampton, the present Governor, is a moderate Demo crat, and his re-election is not opposed on this occasion. Where there is a serious contest it is in regard to the mem-
o
bers of Congress and State Assembly, and the local officers. Ked shirts now seem to be only a party badge. I saw no appearance of actual 6 bull-dosing,' but there were many signs of election-day — many people about, a good deal of talking and shouting and galloping about on horseback, and some few symptoms of whisky. There were a good many negroes about, and they did not look terrorised. There is
326 MY JOURNAL.
no need to terrorise them just here, as they have no chance — the whites having it all their own way. A few blacks go with the Democrats, and I saw one or two of them wearing the red shirt. On my arrival in Columbia, the capital of the State, io the evening, things seemed pretty quiet : the elec tion had passed without any serious trouble.
The country between Salisbury and Columbia is still much like what I had before seen, but it became almost hilly. The tobacco country was left behind a long way back. All this through which I passed to-day is principally cotton country. Much of the cotton plant is very short and small, but apparently very productive ; many fields are at this time very heavy with cotton. It is quite a profitable cultivation when an average of half a bale an acre is obtained. If some fields yield a good deal more, there is also a good deal of poor cultivation which does not yield more than a quarter of a bale, or even less than that. Cotton requires much weed ing, and if that is neglected the result is bad. On all hands I am told tli at the cotton cultivation has greatly extended in the upper country. It now grows right up to the ' Blue Mountains,' as they are called. Some is cultivated by whites, but more on land owned by whites, with the aid of black labour.
I met in the train a Canadian barrister taking his family to Aikin in Georgia. Some places in Georgia, and still more in Florida, are great health resorts for northern people. In the winter the climate there is said to be very good. This gentleman gives a very favourable account of the state of things in Canada. According to him they have a selection of the best of English and American institutions. They have free elections, and a fair representation of all classes, but the judges and most of the higher public officers are nominated by the Dominion Government. Xow-a-days, he says, almost no one in Canada is favourable to annexation to the States. The Church of England was disestablished in 1848. The clergy got life-rents of their incomes, and were allowed to commute. The Church in Canada is now exceed ingly well off. The proximity of the great lakes, which never
SOUTH CAROLINA. 327
freeze, makes the climate of Upper Canada milder than that of other northern regions, but rather damp. He is altogether against the idea of a Customs Union with the United States. He says the manufacturing interest in Canada is not very strong, but the people of the States are determined to ruin it by underselling them, and that cannot be allowed.
After one has heard so much about the deplorable state of things in South Carolina, I am struck with the good and prosperous appearance of the country towns along the road. Several new railways are in process of construction — one that I saw was narrow gauge — in fact, in America narrow gauge railways seem to be a good deal in favour for short branches and broken ground. In spite of all their misfortunes and of the constant complaints of want of money, people seem to be recuperating themselves wonderfully.
At Columbia I went to the Wheeler House Hotel, the principal in the place, a respectable hotel, but not quite up to the mark of those I had hitherto seen. I am relieved to find that mosquitoes have not yet made their appearance.
Next morning I found an account of the elections in the papers. As there are no Republican papers here, one cannot hear that side. The local papers assert that this has been the quietest election ever known. There has been no violence, only some attempts at fraud on the part of the blacks, which have been promptly and properly repressed. I observe, how ever, that it is admitted that at several places the United States supervisor, who is entitled to be present at each polling place, has protested against the rejection of black votes. At one place near this some young men are said to have done good service by putting a stop to the frauds of the blacks. It is suggested that some black employes who voted wrong must be dismissed. It seems to be assumed that all the elections in this State have certainly gone in favour of the Democrats. That was indeed a foregone conclusion.
After breakfast I went to the Capitol — there is always a Capitol in each State — and paid my respects to Governor Wade Hampton, to whom I had an introduction. He is generally reputed to be a very superior man, and evidently has
328 MY JOURNAL.
great influence. Originally a Carolina man, he had also large property in Mississippi, like a good many others of the rich people in this part of the country ; but he was quite ruined by the war. Cotton, being the great resource of the Southern States, was captured or burnt by the Federal armies, and he lost 5,000 bales. He now lives, I understand,, in a cottage in a humble way. All his conversation gave one the idea of a very moderate man. His private secretary and nephew, Mr. M , however (a gentleman who kindly gave me much infor mation), is a pessimist. He will have it that both in South Carolina and in the Mississippi Valley cultivation has on the whole decreased. The coast lands of this State, and the sugar lands of Louisiana have, he says, gone to rack and ruin, and he tells of the enormous depreciation of property in New Orleans and on the banks of the Mississippi. He admits, however, the extension of the cotton cultivation in the higher parts of the State, but says that there is a great deal too much of it, and it does not pay. Mr. Wade Hampton talks very strongly of the misconduct and fraud of the carpet-bag Government which was displaced last year. At one time, he says, 98 out of 124 members of the Assembly were blacks, and there was unlimited fraud and stealing. He gave me the report of the committee appointed to investigate these frauds. The debt of the State, he says, is not so very large — about seven mil lion dollars ; he would rather pay than repudiate. Meantime, while the matter is under the consideration of the Legislature, the money for the interest is lodged in the Treasury. Al though the county officers are elected, it seems that the jus tices of the peace are nominated by the Governor, and are now mostly Democrats, but some of the other side are nominated also. Some blacks are put upon juries, but not many. ' We
give them more than they gave us,' says Mr. M .
The Governor speaks of the black population in terms similar to what I had heard before. He says the better class of whites certainly want to conserve the negro ; the lower whites are less favourable, and will not admit them to social equality ; but the bitterness is only political and not carried into labour questions.
SOUTH CAROLINA. 329
I had a good deal of talk with several gentlemen in the office, or who happened to be about the Capitol. They all admit that the ballot at elections is an utter farce, and that there is no pretence at secrecy. A common dodge is to print tickets in imitation of those of the enemy, and to foist them upon illiterate voters of the other side. More fre quently the ballot is 'stuffed' by putting in several thin tickets wrapt together. The rule is that if more vote tickets are found in the box than the number of voters the excess number is drawn out by a man blindfolded for the purpose. He can very well distinguish the tickets of his own party; they are generally on a different kind of paper. They gave me one of the Democratic tickets used in the present election for this county of Eichland. It is a piece of the thinnest tissue paper, about a couple of inches long by an inch broad, upon which are printed the names of the whole of the can didates for the various offices and seats in the Legislature. This ticket comprises the vote for the Governor, Lieutenant- Governor, Secretary of State, State Superintendent of Edu cation, Comptroller - General, Adjutant and Inspector- General, State Treasurer, Attorney - General, member of Congress for the third district, one State Senator, five representatives of the county in the State Assembly, Local School Commissioner, and three county Commissioners. They say there never was an election without fraud, and some, no doubt, there was on this occasion. A young man, evidently one of those referred to in the newspaper para graph which I have mentioned, says he went to a polling place about six miles distant. The negroes were very dis appointed in the belief that they were losing the election, and there was much fear of their becoming violent and smashing the ballot-boxes. Fifteen or twenty young whites banded together for the protection of the boxes, lighted a fire and sang songs. Presently the negroes, finding they could do nothing, came round and joined in the songs, and so all went well. They speak very bitterly of the indepen dent candidates. They say more stress is laid on the election for Congress than on those for the State Assembly, because
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the next Presdential election may depend a good deal upon the majority in Congress. The negroes are amenable to the whites in all things except elections. In election matters they have taken an independent line, and insist upon voting Republican. The preachers influence them very much, and also the negro women, who are very strong Republicans. These women used to believe that if a Democratic governor were elected they would not be allowed to wear veils, and that is a privilege of freedom which they prize greatly. My informants account, however, for their victory in the elections by saying that they managed to influence many of the blacks. They agreed among themselves that each man should bring at least one negro to the poll and as many more as possible. They suggest that many negroes, though ostensibly voting Republican in order to deceive their wives and preachers, really voted Democratic, their own inclination being that way. They say the red shirt was merely a political emblem got up in mockery of some phrase about ' bloody shirts ' used by an Indiana senator. It never meant any thing more serious. The Klu-klux was at one time bad, but not so very bad ; they sometimes tarred and feathered, but seldom murdered. In short, South Carolina is altogether not so black as it has been painted, according to their account.
After the labours of the election campaign the Governor is going out hunting for two or three days, and I have not had the opportunity of seeing very much of him, but he has been very friendly, and has given me introductions to the county of Beaufort, where the negroes are thickest, and where he advises me to go if I want to see a negro county. What they call hunting in America is not hunting in our sense, but shooting ; either ordinary shooting, or drives for big game. This hunting expedition turned out very dis astrous for poor Governor Hampton. Riding to a place where he expected the deer to pass, he was thrown in the forest, and his leg smashed in a frightful manner. He was entirely alone, and remained on the ground for hours before he was discovered, though he managed to keep firing his gun
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to attract attention. He was long in a very precarious state. I much hope that he has quite recovered.
Walking out in the neighbourhood of the town, I got into conversation with a coloured man, apparently connected with the city waterworks, and I talked to him about the election. He says the Democrats were to win in this dis trict : that was known, but it was done by the fraudulent stuffing of the ballot-boxes. The Eepublicans really have a majority of 2,500, and the coloured people have voted steadily on the Eepublican side, but they are cheated because they have not the control of the ballot-boxes. He too explained the mode of stuffing the boxes and the other dodges as I had heard them before. He says that while the Eepublicans were in power they allowed a fair representation of the other side, but now that the Democrats have got into power they control all the returning officers, and take every thing, leaving nothing for the other side. He seemed a very sensible, intelligent man, and his story appears at least as good as that told on the other side.
This place suffered terribly when it was taken by Sher man's army, and it is a hotly-disputed question whether the firing and destruction were done by Sherman's troops or by the Confederates themselves to prevent the cotton, &c.? falling into Sherman's hands. My black friend attributes the injury to Columbia to the Confederates, but does not put it in an unreasonably wicked light. The town seems now to have very much recovered from the destruction. It has been much rebuilt, and looks very well- Many of the best houses were built by the carpet-bag officials. The Capitol seems a fine building ; all the public offices are in it, as is usually the case. There are wide grassy streets lined with good trees, many of them magnolias and other southern plants. The houses have pretty grounds about them, and I notice some particularly thriving deodars. The situation of the town is pretty, upon a considerable river. The country about is very well wooded, and the woods are now beautifully coloured, the autumnal tints being at their best. I notice several varieties of fir trees. Cows graze freely about on the
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grassy avenues. There are several iron works here, where they make small engines and do other such work. It is remarkable how the iron trade seems to be developing throughout the States. I understand that in all these works except one, they employ exclusively white labour. There are no mills on the fine river here, but there is a small canal which it is proposed to enlarge as a State work in the hope of establishing mills. Apparently, there is not in this State the prohibition against undertaking public works which has recently been put into the Constitution of a good many States.
I looked into the Penitentiary: the system seems rather loose, and intramural labour does not pay. There were from ten to twelve black men to one white, but they all work together.
Lotteries are prohibited in most of the States, including this; but I saw that the Louisana State Lottery, drawn monthly, is everywhere largely advertised.
Mr. T , Superintendent of Education, kindly took
me out for a drive. The place seems altogether very nice, and the climate very good. The carpet-baggers have now almost entirely disappeared, and the best of the houses are for sale cheap. A good many have been bought by Northern people, who come to reside here for the sake of the climate.
Mr. T gives a tolerable account of the education in
this State, but besides the difficulty of obtaining efficient superintendence and efficient schoolmasters, there is a very great difficulty about money. The schoolmasters are paid by certificates of indebtedness, and thus are heavily in arrears. While Southerners can hardly be got to teach blacks, good Northerners will not come on these terms, especially as they .are only employed for a few months in the year. Such as they are, the schools are open for three, four, or five months.
A very sad thing here is the beautiful university build ings and college-close, like one of the best of English col leges, but now quite given up. It seems that before the war this University was exceedingly good and had a high repu tation, but the funds were lost or stolen, and of late years it
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has been a question with the Legislature whether to provide for the payment of debts, or to spend money on education. The former policy prevailed, and education has been neg lected. There is still kept up the beautiful college library, and the fine old ex-president of the college gets a small living as librarian. He says that the difficulty about setting up the college again arises from this — that the people of the- different churches have set up sectarian colleges of their owny and are against this general college.
For want of funds the Agricultural and Survey Depart ments, for which the Constitution provides, have not yet been started in this State. Mr. T says that the school poll- tax is not half collected, and the property tax is very irregu larly collected — and what is paid is generally paid in debt- certificates or notes of a bankrupt State Bank. By this con stitution non-payment of taxes does not deprive of the right of voting. The negroes are zealous to learn and are getting on a good deal, but, like others he says they are decidedly inferior to white men beyond a certain point. The carpet baggers at first tried mixed schools, but even they did not continue that long ; it was found necessary to separate them.. Some of the mulattos and free blacks were better off before- the war than they are now. They suffered in their property like everyone else during the war. The enfranchised slaves- do not care for them, and none of them now are leading men. One great difficulty about school? is that the local school managers are continually changed at every election — even without change of party, people often change their local officers.
I visited Dr. C ,the Northern President of the Benedict
Institute for blacks. He seems a very fair and moderate man. Talking of the elections, he says that the blacks saw that the tide was going against them — they had no leaders and no organisation, and had no funds for election purposes — it is characteristic of them under such circumstances to show no energy. They have caved in and allowed themselves to- be beaten by fair means or foul.
He, too, thinks that the intellect of the blacks is inferior
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to that of whites, but among the blacks there are some who are very superior, and the mulattos are better than the ordinary blacks. He understands that in slave times the slaveholders used to distinguish between different races of blacks, some being intellectually as well as physically superior to others ; but they are now so mixed up that the races can hardly be distinguished. I walked out with him, and saw a large negro location. In most cases houses and small patches of land were owned by the people them selves, and they seemed tolerably well-to-do. Dr. C ,
however, says that they do not save much ; they are certainly wanting in thrift and prudence, spend money as they get it, and live from hand to mouth. We came upon a row of very nice regular houses, and on inquiry I found that after emancipation these houses were given to the negroes by
their late master. This master was a General P , whose
acquaintance I afterwards made. He is about the most charming old gentleman I have yet seen in America — Eng lish of the best kind in speech and manner. He has been intimate with many of our most distinguished men. He claims that, if they had been left alone emancipation would have been brought about in a beneficial way in course of time. As it is, there have been frightful upheavals and great injustice in achieving that object ; but he now hopes for the best. The negroes hereabouts have, he says, sometimes difficulty in finding work. They cannot get on without the white man's guidance — with that they do very well.
I had also an opportunity of conversing with a coloured preacher, a clever and influential man. He seems, however, very extreme in his views. He says that during the election there was gross intimidation, and much unfair influence, but in spite of it all the blacks voted Eepublican as solid as ever. Nevertheless, the boxes were stuffed and the majority stolen. The election commissioners are all on one side, and so are the newspapers, and they openly published violent threats. The negroes will never get justice ; there is nothing for them but to go to Liberia. There is an extreme party here
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opposed to Mr. Wade Hampton, of which General Geary is the leader. He openly says that the blacks were made by God to till the soil, and may do that, but they cannot be allowed to vote and hold land, else they would be masters, and the whites slaves. Wages are, he says, low here. In some country parts labourers do not get more than six dollars a month, besides rations, and that is not paid. He does not think much of Wade Hampton. He is only a politician, and is moderate for the sake of place. He does not deny that, politics apart, white and black people get on together well enough ; but the latter will never have their proper share of power. He says juries are not fairly constituted — nine-tenths of them are always whites. Even under the Carpet-baggers all the Judges were white. Throughout the United States all elections and all administrations are corrupt, and not likely to be better — all is bad.
I have been inquiring about the tenure of land. Here, as elsewhere, large farms seldom succeed. Most of the whites have land, more or less. Some are good, but others are a poor lot, uneducated and unthrifty, especially a class, of whom there are many in the district near this, called ' Sand- hillers.' They are said to be the descendants of assigned convicts of former days. They have poor farms and poor soil ; what little work they do they do themselves ; they have no servants. They bring wood into the town for sale. I saw a good many of them, and certainly they are a poor- looking set. About forty per cent, of the white voters here cannot write their names. The blacks have as yet got com paratively little land of their own, and chiefly cultivate as tenants on various terms, generally on the share system ; but, as I have elsewhere noticed, they have very frequently houses and small patches. There is now great abundance of land for sale in this State ; but wages are very low, and, under the Carpet-bag Government, taxation was very high, so that there was not much chance of saving, and few have money to buy land. The black preacher says a good many blacks have bought land and paid for it, but have been cheated out of it, the titles proving to be bad.
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I have been talking about the Churches, asking whether the black and white Churches go together under the same system of Church government. It seems that most of the churches here are Baptist, and chiefly on the congregational system. The Methodists have a Church system, but they are divided into North and South, and black and white Churches, There is no general organisation common to both. The Presbyterian black Churches, however, send delegates to the General Presbyterian Assembly.
There seems now no doubt that the Democrats have carried all the elections throughout this State. There has been no sort of compromise ; they have taken everything — Congress, State, Assembly, and all the county offices, except ing only in Beaufort County. Those districts where the blacks are ten to one have now returned Democrats.
I gather that the United States election supervisors were a poor lot — often coloured men ; and they were frequently hustled and insulted. One of them was arrested on some frivolous pretext. According to one Northerner nothing but United States troops at every polling- place will prevent a strong and embittered minority from triumphing over a weak majority. In this part of the country the Republican or Radical party is dead for the present. The victory of the whites is now so complete that there is certainly peace such as there was not before.
I travelled from Columbia to Charleston through the night in a very comfortable sleeping-car belonging to the local railway. In the glimpses of the night I could only see that we passed through a great deal of pine-forest. At day light I found that there were many tall pines near the route ; but approaching Charleston the country became more open, with fine soil and good cultivation. Strawberries, cabbages, sweet potatoes, and common potatoes seemed to be largely grown. The potatoes are not yet killed by frost. I went to the Charleston Hotel, which was comfortable. After break fast I walked about the town. The site is flat, and the country not striking, but the vegetation is extremely fine — very much of a semi-tropical character. There are many
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orange-trees in full bearing and other fruit-trees and shrubs. Many of the houses are extremely good, and very prettily arranged, with gardens about them. The climate here is said to be very good ; the hot weather is tempered by the trade- winds and sea-breezes. In summer the thermometer rises to about 90°, and there is little hard frost in the winter. The magnolias and evergreen oaks are fine trees, and very abundant.
I called on Colonel T— — , a gentleman engaged in the cotton business, who gave me much assistance. He introduced me to the Carolina Club, and to several gentlemen there, with whom I had a great deal of talk. They say they had hoped the negroes would have turned out good small cultivators and paid rent, and that they, as owners, would have had an easy time ; but the negro fails in that respect ; he is improvident
and careless, lets down the land, and spoils it. But Mr. S ,
a gentleman who manages a large rice estate, and lives there, happened to come in. He gives quite a different account ; he says that the higher part of the estate is let out to negroes who really cultivate exceedingly well, and raise cotton much better than he could have expected. He charges $30 to each family, and they cultivate as much cotton and corn as they can, he undertaking to take out half the rent in labour, and in practice generally taking out the whole in this shape by employing them at fifty cents a day on the rice-lands, and setting off the wages against the rent. When I put to the other gentlemen the contradiction which this account seemed to imply to their views they said that these were especially good negroes; that they came from the upper country, where they had been mixed with whites and accus tomed to labour. It seems that during the war there were large migrations. Many from this part of the country went up with the Northern armies, and many up-country negroes came down with them. One gentleman said he had heard of a large number of negroes from an estate in this neighbour hood who settled up-country, and, he is told, now all own land. It seems generally agreed that the negroes are very good labourers, and do well when they have white men to
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look over them and set them an example. The native whites manage them better and get more work out of them than any Northerners or foreigners. When, however, the negroes get together in masses and out of the control and direction of white men they are apt to go back. These gentlemen instanced a case of some blacks on estates within their own knowledge, who were good mechanics before the war, but now are worth very little. There are few blacks among the higher mechanics, but some of them earn very high wages here as stevedores for lading ships. In the cold weather a good many white people have come up to work here, but they do not seem to have been very successful. Some Irish come, but I do not gather that they are here now. Irish women, however, much improved and civilised, one finds everywhere. The housemaid at the hotel here is an Irishwoman, and seems very decent and good. She came originally from Dublin, married an American, who was killed in the war, on the Con federate side, as was also her brother, and now she has settled down into service.
The people I have met to-day are much interested in rice, which is cultivated in this part of the country. It had gone out very much. Since the war some estates have been quite abandoned. For instance, I hear of one estate which was worth 500,000 dollars before the war, and for which after the war 275,000 dollars was offered and refused; it has since wholly broken down and fallen out of cultivation, and was bought the other day for 6,000 dollars by some gentlemen who are trying to resuscitate it. On the other hand, a good many estates, the owners of which were able to hold on and keep up the cultivation, are now doing pretty well. The truth, however, seems to be that rice is only grown in the United States by the aid of an exorbitant protective duty, and it is used in America only — none is exported. The Indian rice beats it in foreign markets. People here say they are no longer for free trade ; there is nothing like pro tection. The jute-bagging used for rice and cotton is highly protected. Here they have only one jute-mill, lately erected, but they hope to have more. They are trying experiments
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to grow jute, and jute-seed for the purpose has lately been distributed.
The Sea Islands, on which the long cotton grows, or used to grow, lie along the shore in this neighbourhood and south wards to Savannah. They are not islands out in the ocean, but flat tracts along the shore, more or less separated from the mainland by narrow channels. The soil is very good, but the only culture to which it has been hitherto very spe cially devoted was the long- staple cotton, the cultivation of which has now greatly declined. These cotton lands form the outermost belt next the sea ; behind them are the rice lands, which usually lie along the rivers and fresh-water estuaries. Behind the rice lands and the pine-belt come the upland cotton lands. All the cotton grown in this part of the world, except the Sea Island, is classed as upland. New Orleans cotton is classed separately, and seems to be a better and stronger staple. There is still more cotton shipped from New Orleans than from Charleston or any other port. The long cotton, or Sea Island, is a different variety of the plant from the common cotton. It requires more careful cultiva tion, and produces very much less cotton — generally only a third or a fourth of the quantity that is got from a good field of short cotton. It still fetches a very much higher price than the short cotton, but not so high in proportion as it did before, and in consequence comparatively little of it is raised.
In the evening I went a little way out into the country. There seems to be an immense cultivation of strawberries here for the Northern markets. One sees great fields of strawberries. There is a good drive, metalled with oyster- shells and lined with fine magnolias, called Magnolia Avenue. The beauty and fashion of Charleston were out for the even ing, principally driving fast-trotting horses. I am told that there were and still are some French mulattos in Charles ton in a much higher position than the ordinary coloured people — like those in a considerable position in New Orleans — but they form an exclusive class by themselves, and are not so well off as they were before the war, in which they lost
z 2
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heavily. Altogether the ' genteel ' coloured people keep very much to themselves.
Next morning I called on Mr. A , a gentleman who
was most kind in assisting me. He is interested in the Phosphate Beds, and he showed me a large collection of fine fossils found there, in excellent preservation. I also called on the City Superintendent of Schools, who is at the same time the Episcopalian clergyman. He lived in a poor house, and did not seem a prosperous parson. He is a Carolina man, and does not think much of the blacks ; but the city schools are, he says, good. I saw many nice-looking girls and young women going to school, with their books. The Charleston people generally impress me favourably. The place is not what it has been, but on the whole it is wonderfully well maintained, and the citizens make the best of the situation.
To-day I made the acquaintance of Mr. W— — , a lawyer, who has just been elected to the State Legislature, and is a very pleasant and well-informed man ; and also of one or two other gentlemen. Talking over South Carolina affairs, I gather that the principal people of this State were not so far gone in difficulties before the war as those in Virginia. Many of them had great plantations in Mississippi, to which they transferred large bodies of their surplus slaves ; and at one time they made a great deal of money, in consequence of which they took to expensive living, keeping racehorses and other fine things. When cotton fell in price their profits diminished, but they looked for future improvement, arid did not mind some debt. After that came the war and great destruction of property, especially of cotton, the stores of which were captured or plundered, while the whole of the slave property was lost by emancipation. Land became a drug in the market, and they had no means of meeting their debts ; and so it was that many of them have now become very poor. There seems to be no doubt that many ladies who were once well-to-do now fill almost menial offices or take in sewing ; and the estates and places which were finely kept have now deteriorated, especially those in the low country, where, since long cotton has gone down in the world, they
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liave not succeeded in finding other suitable staples. The Charleston people say that if only this low country could be restored Charleston must still flourish. The negro labour is very good, and there is great abundance of it ; but the negroes like regular pay, and do not care to be kept in arrears or paid by cheques, as is too often the case. A cheque is an order on the employer's store. If the negro is in debt it is eet off; if not, he is kept waiting for his money, or is obliged to take goods on the truck system.
I went to see Mr. D , a pure negro and notable charac ter. He has been in England and in Africa, and has seen the world. He is now a justice of the peace here — Trial Justice, they call it. He was appointed by Wade Hampton. He seems a very characteristic, pleasant, amusing sort of person, and talks well. He was educated in the North. He is in favour of Wade Hampton, who, he says, appoints black men when they really are educated and fit. I hear he quite holds his own as a justice.
I also made the acquaintance of E , a model Demo cratic negro and friend of the white man. His story seemed to me a little too much as if it had been rehearsed. He tells very fluently how he was a slave, and bow he was educated by his mistress ; and how after emancipation his master and mistress, being reduced to poverty, he supported them both, and eventually buried them both — he lays great stress upon the burying. He stuck to the whites in bad times amid the persecution of his own race, and now is a prosperous livery- stable keeper, and a friend of the party in power, while his own race have also become friendly to him.
Mr. W invited me to go over with him to his house,
on the other side of the river, in what is called Christ-Church parish, where I should see blacks in great abundance ; and we started together. A parish is a mere popular term for a tract of country ; it is not now a real division, civil or ecclesiastical. Since I have come into the land of blacks I notice signs of the abundance of labour. Instead of having to carry one's own bag and take care of one's self, as one has in the North, one is constantly beset by blacks who want to
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carry one's things and do all sorts of services for one. Cross ing over, I talked with a large fruit and vegetable farmer, who raises for the Northern markets. He employs nothing but black labour, and finds it very good indeed ; but, again, he has something to-say against the blacks, alleging that they are loose and immoral in their ways, and dishonest in small things. Women work as well as men. In this Christ- Church parish the negroes are almost fifty to one. The whole of this part of the country outside of the town is almost entirely a negro country. This is part of the county which Mr. W — — is to represent. He seems to be on ex tremely friendly terms with the people, but frankly admits that he cannot get them to vote for him. In the evening we went out and saw the negro population making their pur chases in the village. The people do not seem to be of a high type — rather inferior, I thought, to those I had seen up- country, but very good-natured and cheerful. They seem to have got very much into the ways of white people, and do their shopping much as white people do in other parts of the world. The only difference seems to be that they are black, and perhaps a little dirtier than the average of civilised mankind. The storekeepers are Grermans — they seem almost to monopolise that sort of business ; the negroes scarcely ever rise to keep stores. Mr. W— - talks and shakes hands with the blacks, and they reciprocate and laugh immoderately when he tells them that he has beaten them this election, and means to do so again. Certainly there does not seem to be any of the bitterness which one might have expected, after all one has heard of South Carolina, especially considering the way in which this election has been carried.
Next day I went with Mr. W a long expedition into
the country, which is of the Sea Island character. Much of the land is what is called 'old field ;' that is, land which was once cultivated, but is now overgrown with wood. I am told that after the war many Northerners came up, expecting to make large fortunes by buying good land cheap in this part of the country, and they began by attempting high farming, with high-class stock and so on ; but they almost all failed
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and went back. The live-oaks and magnolias are really very handsome trees, large, round, and spreading. There is still a good deal of cotton cultivation — almost all long cotton ; short cotton does not answer here. It seems that short cotton tends to grow long here, while long cotton grows short up- country. The negroes cultivate it tolerably well. We saw one considerable planter's farm superintended, as bailiff, by an Englishman from Birmingham. Like most improving farmers in these days, he is trying to introduce better breeds of cattle. We came across a good many small negro farmers. They generally rent land, paying as much as four dollars an acre for it, but this is on account of the vicinity of Charles ton. Further away in the country they can get it for two dollars an acre. It is said that the rent is very troublesome to collect, and that this same land is sold at eight to ten dollars an acre. We heard the usual tenant's complaints : that though the rent is so high the proprietors do not keep up the house and fences, &c., as they ought. Many of the blacks, however, have their own houses and little patches of land, renting as much more as is necessary to make up a decent farm ; and most of them go out as labourers besides, more or less. I understand that in most parts of the low country the proprietors ate willing and anxious to sell plots of land to the negroes, because that fixes them to the soil and secures a supply of labour when it is needed. I feel sure that this is the right policy. Here the negroes are generally well off, when they can get employment and are really paid. The difficulty seems, rather, to be to get em ployment, than for employers to get hands ; but I am told that any man who works well and steadily, and is honest, is sure of employment. There is much complaint about their stealing chickens and such things ; otherwise they seem to be a good sort of people. I am again struck by the easy, laugh ing familiarity between Mr. W and the blacks, and the
free chaff which passes about the election. One disagreeable result, however, of the less independent character of the negroes in these parts, and of the electioneering which has been going on, is, that very many of them seem ready to
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beg for assistance in one shape or another. On the other hand, they are always ready to give any little assistance and to do odd jobs whenever they are asked to do so, and are perfectly content when a little tobacco is given them in return. They certainly seem a remarkably easily-managed, good-natured set of people. The next day was Sunday ; we went out to visit a rural chapel in the woods, and found the congregation in full and tremendous chorus of psalmody ; one could hear them half a mile off. The whole thing was very pleasant, I thought. Afterwards we returned to Charles ton, and I went to a black church in the city — rather a fine one. The preacher was as black as night — a typical negro — and perhaps a little ridiculous in his manners ; but I thought him a stirring and effective preacher. Every now and then during the sermon some of the congregation grunted out devout ejaculations in token of assent or by way of emphasising the preacher's good points. I was greatly disappointed, however, to find that instead of the fine, bold singing which I had heard in the country, there was a choir and a poor, thin imitation of civilised singing.
The following day I went to see Dr. B , the United
States postmaster, a coloured man, and said to be the best specimen of his class in this part of the country ; in fact, according to my informants, the only man appointed by the Kepublicans who is not hopelessly corrupt. He seemed a dapper, pleasant, well-educated man, and reminded me of some of the more educated East Indians in Calcutta. He is quite a Northerner. He admits that the blacks have not come much to the front in any way, and that in commerce they do not keep stores or attain any considerable position, but he explains it all by saying that the social prejudice against coloured people is so great that they have not a chance. Like many of his class, he favours the idea of Liberia, and the great Black Republic that is to be there.
I paid a visit to my namesake Mr. C , the indepen dent Democrat, who stood for State Senator for this district, but was defeated. He is a lawyer, and all agree that he is a very superior man. I found him very moderate, and not at
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all inclined to be vituperative, although the election was bit terly contested. He says that he represented the principle of Conciliation against those who would not yield anything. The election was won by simple cheating ; that is, by stuff ing the ballot-boxes. At one polling-place not more than a thousand voted, but there were three thousand five hundred papers in the box. There was not much intimidation, but only cheating.
Afterwards I went over to James Island, to see a good long- ootton plantation, still maintained on the high farming sys tem by Mr. H . The cotton-fields seemed really very
fine ; they are highly manured, and give a large yield to the acre. The cost of raising it in this expensive way is, how ever, so great that it seems doubtful whether it pays very well. Like all who have to do with them, he speaks very well of the blacks as labourers. He is trying experiments in raising jute, but does not seem to know how to grow it. At present he has it only in single rows, from which he hopes to get seed ; but it is doubtful whether that will ripen suffi ciently. I spent the evening at Colonel T 's ; a very nice
house and pleasant party. I had a good deal of talk with
several people, among them Capt. D , an Englishman,
who came out as a young man, fought in the war on the Con federate side, and is now editor of the principal newspaper here. They say that in this lower country they have always been for conciliation, and have supported Wade Hampton in that policy against Greary and the violent white party who are in the upper country. They point to the unopposed acceptance of Wade Hampton in the present election as a proof of his success.
As a general result of all that I have been able to learn about the elections in this part of the country, I may say that there does not seem to be the least doubt that they were won by the most wholesale cheating. That is avowed in the most open way. Most people seem to praise the negroes, and to be on very good terms with them ; but they all admit that, while the blacks will do almost anything else for them, when it comes to voting they cannot be influenced, and insist
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on voting with their party. At one place that I visited, where a considerable number of Eepublican votes were recorded, an old Democratic gentleman jocularly remarked that this had been the only honest poll in the whole district. They say the Kepublicans made the election law to suit their own purpose of cheating, and had arranged the electoral districts so as to swamp the whites with black votes. Now they are hoist with their own petard, and serve them right. The blacks seem to have accepted their defeat as a foregone conclusion, and therefore it is that they are quite good- natured over it. Perhaps, too, they really have to some de gree accepted Wade Hampton and his policy, and are not so anxious to fight as they otherwise might be. Both parties seem to assume as a matter of course that whichever con trols the machinery of the elections will win the elections. I am told that Wade Hampton generally appointed two De mocrats and one Eadical as election commissioners ; that the radical was always corrupt and could be bought, and that therefore the Democrats always had it their own way. The Democrats of Charleston have done something to conciliate those blacks who accept the Democratic ticket. In this dis trict seventeen members are sent up to the State Assembly, and of these three are Democratic blacks. The county offi cers are whites, but there are some blacks in the Charleston municipality. For the State Assembly the Republicans adop ted a fusion ticket, including the five best of the Democrats. Hitherto three Congressional districts in the black part of South Carolina have been represented by black men, and I am told that they were all very fair specimens. The re presentative of the Charleston district was a well-educated negro, from the North. The Georgetown district was repre sented by an extremely polished black gentleman, who was formerly a very popular barber in Charleston, and is not at all a bad sort of person. The Beaufort district has long been represented by General S , who, while a slave, was em ployed as a pilot, and in the war distinguished himself by carrying off a Confederate vessel and delivering her to the Federals. He has now great influence among his own race,
SOUTH CAROLINA. 34
and is not unpopular among white people. He behaved well towards his former master's family and assisted them. In spite, however, of this favourable account, there is a general accusation that under the Carpet-bag Government all were corrupt, both black and white. Honesty was a thing un known.
I observe that in a great number of the elections for county and local offices in these Southern States the oppor tunity is taken to provide for the veterans of the Confederate army who are not eligible for pensions. I saw several notices of elections of one-legged and one-armed ex-soldiers to county offices. These offices are profitable — if not paid by salaries they have considerable fees.
Looking over the accounts of the elections in other States, of which the papers are full, I observe that Governor Nicholls, of Louisiana, is said to be conciliatory and to have followed the same policy as Wade Hampton ; but there the negroes fought more successfully than here ; and in some cases the Democrats carried the seats in Congress only by adopting a fusion ticket and giving the blacks a good many county offices. There seems to be more ' bulldozing ' in Mississippi than anywhere else. That is called ' the Mississippi plan.' South Carolina seems to be the only State which carried everything solidly Democratic. In all the others there has been more or less success of Republican or inde pendent candidates.
I have heard a good deal here about the late exodus to Liberia, which was such a wretched failure. The upper class of blacks do not go themselves, but preach to their country men the advantage of going. There seems no doubt that the unhappy people who went found themselves much worse off than if they had stayed at home. There seems to be a much more promising field for emigration from Mississippi and the States in that part of the country to the back parts of Kansas and the Territories where land is to be got free. The negroes seem to have been less domiciled in Mississippi than they were here, and since emancipation they have been more migratory. They are now entitled to homesteads on the
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same terms as white men; and if they can manage the means of cultivating virgin lands in the Far West they will •do very well.
I have been looking over some of the legislation of South -Carolina. It does not seem very different from that which I have noticed in other States. There is, as usual, a good deal of legislation on small subjects, such as an Act to legitimise .a child, and another to make an adopted child an heir. There is a regular poor law, providing for a poor-house and out door relief. Nothing is said of able-bodied paupers. The relief seems to be confined to really necessitous cases. The joad law gives the option of contributing either labour or money for the making of roads. There is a provision for in specting and classifying flour and some other things, the same as I noticed at Chicago, and a limit to the rates for grinding flour. There is a 7 per cent, usury law ; but I understand that in practice it is almost entirely evaded. Few people can get money here at 7 per cent, the credit is so bad. There is a law of limited partnership for sleeping partners, but companies seem to be only incorporated by special Acts, of which there are many. There is not now in South Carolina any law prohibiting the intermarriage of white and black people.
I have had a very pleasant visit to Charleston, and have
received much kindness here. Mr. A , whom I have
already mentioned, and who has throughout given me much assistance, has kindly arranged for me a visit to the country. I am to go to a son-in-law of his, who has an estate in the rice country.
Travelling in this part of the country is sometimes very difficult, if one has to stop at places on the way, for there are seldom more than two trains, sometimes only one, in the course of the twenty-four hours, and they seem generally to manage to arrive and depart in the very middle of the night. However, by getting up very early I made a start from Charleston. The country through which we ran seemed mostly forest, with occasional cultivation. At Grreenpond I was met by Mr. W , who drove me through the forest to
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his rice plantation, some miles off. After breakfast wg had a long and pleasant ride over his land. He has a very large extent of fine rice-fields. His farm is nearly a thousand acres, and he has several neighbours who have also large plantations ; so altogether there is in this part of the country a rice district of which the cultivation is well maintained.
Mr. W has a very elaborate system of tidal canals for
the irrigation of the rice. The salt water is banked out, and the fresh water is regulated by sluices, the land being irrigated when the tides rise to the necessary level. The rice seems large and fine, and the yield is said to be large — sometimes as much as eighty bushels of unhusked rice to the acre ; but the expense of the irrigation and other arrangements is considerable. Still they would do well if it were not for the competition of Indian rice which has been invading the American market. The planters keep the rice-lands in their own hands, and, beyond a little fodder for their mules, &c., grow little else. The higher grounds they give over to the negroes, who cultivate corn and vegetables for themselves, and a little cotton. In lieu of rent for the land they give two days' labour in the week, and generally work two days more, at fifty cents a day. In most cases they are put upon task-work. In this part of the country the women seem to work as freely as the men, both in the fields and in the thrashing-mills. The negroes keep a large number of cattle
and pigs ; but Mr. W says that is a serious difficulty,
as the animals increase too much, and the proprietor is ex pected to find grazing for them. The fence law is a great subject of dispute in this part of the country. The question is, whether the owner of the land is bound to fence cattle out, or the owner of the cattle to keep them in. Each county decides for itself, but it seems to be a burning
question. Mr. W speaks extremely well of his negroes,
and they appear to be on very good terms with him. They have quite a respectful manner, and in this out-of-the-way place the little negro girls curtsey like English Sunday-school children. There has only been one strike in this neighbour hood, but that was a bad one. The negroes struck for more
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pay for harvest-work, and very violently drove away others
who wished to work. Mr. W was away, and his manager
could get no assistance from the Radical Government ; so he was obliged to yield for that time, but he has since come back to the old rates, and all has gone smoothly ; there has been no more trouble. During the war the people of this part of the country suffered very much from the destruction of property by raiding parties from the Federal fleet ; and after the war, when the Federal people established the Radical rule, their feelings were apt to be hurt by their being arrested by black soldiers, and so on. However, they do not seem to have suffered very severely ; and now, if money were only more plentiful, and there was a better demand for their produce, they would do very well.
Talking of these arrests, I may mention that arrest means very little in the United States. Under their old- fashioned English laws every process, criminal or civil, is com menced by arrest, followed by bail. De Tocqueville instances this as showing how an English law favourable to the rich, who can give bail, has prevailed even under Democratic institutions.
Mr. W has laid out a good deal of land in lots, which
he offers to the negroes for sale. Some of them have bought, but most have not the means. He, like others, speaks of their immorality and want of fidelity to their spouses. They are religious in their way, but have their own peculiar ideas of religion, and do not appreciate some of our theology.
In this lower country, so much peopled by blacks, who can stand the climate, the whites are generally obliged to go away from the plantations, in the hot weather to healthier places. In slave days the white overseers were a bad set, and little educated. They had no accounts, there being no money to pay, and they were mere slave-drivers. Now Mr.
W has two or three educated young men under him, and
they take it turn and turn about to stay during the unhealthy season. He has also some property up-country, and he says that the blacks there are more intelligent, speak better English, and often make good farmers. On the other hand,
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the low country people are more simple and more easily managed ; and it is a great advantage that the women work here.
There is plenty of game about here. Mr. W gave
me venison of his own shooting. These Southerners habitually eat sweet potatoes, and hominy made of Indian corn. One sees very little of potatoes proper, called 4 Irish potatoes.'
I enjoyed this visit very much ; and the impression left upon my mind is, that the relations between a planter and the negroes upon his property may well be pleasant and satis factory. A little more money and profit only is needed to make things go along very satisfactorily.
The following day Mr. W— - drove me to Kusaw, en route for Beaufort. All this is quite a negro country. There never were many whites ; and after leaving the rice planta tions we find that most of the planters have disappeared since the war and the decadence of long cotton. We saw nothing but scattered negro huts. The negroes seem now never to live in villages ; they have left the old slave lines and set up isolated houses on their farms. At the meeting of cross-roads you may find small stores, generally kept by Germans.
At Kusaw we went over the Phosphate Company's works. They seem to be very active and energetic. The material (composed of animal fossils) is dredged or dived for in the river, and is then cleaned and crushed and prepared for
export. All the labour is black. I talked to Mr. C ,
the son of the former proprietor of all the land about here, and now a manager of the Phosphate Company. He speaks very highly indeed of the free negro labour, and I myself saw the negroes working as well as any men in the world can work. Evidently these people are not wanting in physical
capacity, and make excellent hired labourers. Mr. C
says he has tried Irishmen, but he found them no better workmen than negroes, and very troublesome, so he got rid of them. The blacks, however, only do the manual labour ; they are not what is called ' responsible,' and not to be trusted with machines or anything of that kind. There
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are, however, some good black carpenters and blacksmiths, Most of these black labourers have land of their own over on the Islands. After doing their ploughing and sowing they leave the women and children to hoe and weed and come over here. They get a dollar a day, and some of the better men a dollar and a quarter, but they seldom save. After they have made a little money they like to go and spend it. They drink, but not to such a degree as to in terfere with their work. They go home and get drunk on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday, and generally are back at their work on Monday. He has had only one small strike. The men stayed away on the Saturday, but came back on the Monday. He carried on his work all through the Radical rule, but has had no trouble on account of political difficulties. He could always get on with the black labourers. All that the negroes require is to get their wages regularly paid in cash. On the day of the election they would not stay at work. They all went off to vote at Greenpond, which was the regular polling-place ; but when they got there, fifteen miles off, they were told that there would be no poll.
I was kindly sent on to Beaufort in the Phosphate Com pany's little steamer, which took me through the river- channels. The appearance of this flat country, in which land and water are a good deal intermixed, reminded me very much of the lower parts of Bengal — the tall pine-trees take the place of the Bengal palms, looking in the distance not unlike them. The Sea Islands are situated very like the ' Soonderbun ' tracts. Two large islands lie between Kusaw and Beaufort, and we threaded through the channels separating them. Before the war these islands were filled with large plantations of Sea Island cotton ; and here, too, after the war, Northerners came and spent much money, but were disappointed ; so the land is now entirely given up to the negroes.
The steamer landed me at Beaufort. It is a remarkably nice-looking place, with good hotels and many comforts. I went to the Sea Island Hotel, and was comfortable there.
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The town seems very pleasant and cheerful, with no signs whatever of the tyranny of black rule. It is one of the oldest settlements in America. When it was the centre of a slave population it was used as a summer residence by the neighbouring planters, who had nice houses here. These planters are described as having been very good gentleman- farmers ; they were well educated, and were especially fond of good libraries. In the early part of the war Beaufort was occupied by Federal troops, and many negroes congregated under their protection. Several of the black regiments which were raised by the Federals were stationed here. Being so occupied, the place escaped destruction and plunder, and that is why it is so well preserved. It now seems pretty pros perous, with good stores, cotton-ginning mills, phosphate dealers, and so on ; but the old race of planters is gone or dispersed. Many of the houses are occupied by their widows and daughters, in a sadly impoverished condition. A good deal of long cotton comes in, grown in a small way by negroes, but nothing like what there was before. The great majority of the population of the town, and almost all the population of the surrounding country, are black ; so that the Democrats have found it impossible to wrest this one county from the Eadicals, who still elect the county officers and send members to the State Assembly ; but the Democrats have succeeded in conquering the Congressional district. The houses are surrounded by orange-trees and pleasant vegeta tion, but they are not so well painted and neat as they used to be. Many of them were sold for arrears of taxes ; and a good many of the smaller ones are occupied by blacks, who have thus much better quarters than they usually have. Some land in the neighbourhood is still owned by whites, but most of it by blacks, who purchased it after the tax sales. Everything seems in order ; there is no squatting without title, but some of the titles are incomplete, the instalments of purchase-money not having been made good. The blacks cannot have a better chance than they have here, and I am very anxious to know how they are getting on.
A very fair and moderate medical man, Dr. S , has
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kindly taken me a drive about the place and told me much, He was in the Confederate army, lost everything in the warr and with difficulty borrowed money to buy back, at a cheap price, his own house, which had been sold up ; but he re covered his profession, and now he speaks very kindly of the blacks, and gives a very favourable account of the state of things on the whole. The people who survived the war seem to have got on well enough. There has been no serious trouble or disturbance except at election times; and the worst outrage of which I heard was that an impudent black woman made a lady take the wall in passing. Dr. S — drove me out among the negro farms in the neighbourhood of the town. They are generally ten and twenty acre lots ; but the soil here is very sandy and light, and scarcely bears any other crops than cotton and sweet potatoes. It needs ma nure, of which it does not get much. Some of the patches seemed tolerably well farmed, but most indifferently ; and, as most of the people near the town depend much upon the work they get as hired labourers, these were hardly a fair specimen. A little further off, where the soil is better, and the negroes must depend more upon agriculture, I am told that they do better. We talked to some of the small black farmers, and a good deal to a well-spoken black woman, the wife of one of the best of them. She keeps poultry, and makes a profit by that. They have no children of their own, but keep three, whom they have apparently adopted. On
the other hand, Dr. S says he believes that the blacks
now have fewer children than the whites, and often do not want to have children. They think it a useless trouble. A day or two ago a black woman said as much to me, adding, ' I know when I grow old they won't take care of me.' Dr.
S says, as others say, that their connubial morality is
very loose indeed. In other respects he speaks well of them. Times are bad for all, and they can just get along ; they have no money to spare to increase and improve their farms. No doubt most of them are improvident. They drink a good deal, but not enough to incapacitate them for work or to create any serious scandal.
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I asked how the people of Beaufort were situated as regards the black domination in the Government during Carpet-bag rule ; but they do not seem to have suffered much from that. The Judges have generally been white, and some of them decent men. Some white men were allowed to be on the juries, and of the county officers and justices of the peace some were black and some white. The Mayor of the town, or 'Intendant,' as he is called, is a white man, and so are some of the Aldermen, but the majority of the latter are black. There are no black militia here ; the blacks have not got up a company, but there is a white company. In truth the whites never have been much oppressed, except that they felt that they were living under a corrupt Government — the taxes were heavy and the State debt increased. The blacks now feel that Wade Hampton has relieved them of much taxation ; only more money is wanted to improve the situation. I asked if, with the advantages they have had in this part of the country, many of the blacks have raised themselves in the world. He says there is a kind of black aristocracy here ; but when I inquire who they are it seems to consist chiefly of officials and two or three coloured lawyers in criminal prac tice. No black men have become merchants, or considerable storekeepers. There is only one very small store in the town kept by a black, and even the small stores in the country are kept by German Jews and suchlike people. Before the war the blacks had one or two decent tailor's shops in a small way, and there are still such shops ; also a small harness-maker ; and there are some good carpenters and other tradesmen, some of whom will undertake small contracts. The blacks own most of the hack carriages. All their preachers are black, but no medical men. One Northern coloured man came and tried to practise as a doctor, but he was very extortionate, and distrusted by his own race, and he went away.
In the evening, talking to some of the people in the hotel about my future plans, I found that they thought Florida was the place for a tourist to go to. That is a great resort for people in search of a good climate in the winter. Jacksonville and other places on the St. John's River are
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described as very charming, with a beautiful climate and a great cultivation of oranges. The scenery is said to be quite tropical. I have come to America for things more utilitarian than tropical scenery, and my plans will not admit of my going to Florida, even though I hear that in some parts of the State there are some very good black settlements upon the land.
Next day I went again about the town of Beaufort. I
made the acquaintance of a Mr. B , a coloured lawyer,
who came up here from New York. He seems a very amus ing person, and has the English nomenclature very ready. He says there are here about six white and six coloured lawyers, the latter principally confined to criminal practice. He complains of the quality of the justice administered. Things have been in one extreme or the other. At one time most of the jurors were blacks, now there are hardly blacks enough upon the juries. He showed me round the town, and pointed out all the good and large houses belonging to whites, the small and inferior ones to blacks. After all, he says, ' intellect will tell.' I visited the coloured school, which seemed to be doing pretty well. The master of one class claims to be a reduced planter who was rich in his time. However, most of the whites in these parts seem to have been rich planters and still to be generals. They say that in old times the imported slaves generally claimed to have been kings in Africa. In the school besides the planter there was a very nice young New England lady and two female coloured teachers, all doing their best ; but the school has only just reopened after a vacation of some seven months. The New England mistress says that black children do well, but they are not so regular in attendance as Northern children.
I called on Colonel E , a lawyer, and one of the prin cipal residents, to whom the Governor had given me an intro duction. He says the blacks in this neighbourhood are doing pretty well, but they sell their cotton improvidently below its value and buy grist when they might raise and grind it them selves. The best specimen, however, of successful black set tlement is, he says, in St. Helen's Island, on the other side of
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the river, where they have their own lots, and have had a good deal of education given them by the Northerners, as well as some good example. There, he thinks, they are improv ing, getting tidier houses, and altogether rising in the world. He admits that the black members of Congress from this State are pretty decent men, but says those now elected by this county for the State Assembly are very bad. He admits that the blacks have generally conducted themselves very well under the circumstances of recent years ; and now that the whites have got the control of the Legislature he seems pretty well satisfied. He spoke of the riot on the rice plantations to which I have before alluded, and says that it certainly was a serious riot, but was to a great degree attributable to unfair dealings with the labourers, and paying them by cheque in stead of cash. They are now behaving extremely well. He takes, altogether, a favourable view of the situation. He is said to represent Mr. Wade Hampton's views and policy. Others, however, express doubt whether there is much real and sincere disposition to conciliate in the Governor's party.
I also made the acquaintance of General S , the negro
Congressman for this district, who has just been ousted in the recent election, or rather will be ousted in consequence, for the American arrangement in this respect is very peculiar. In the session following the elections the old members will still sit till March ; and unless there is an extraordinary session the new members will not take their seats till a year hence.
General S is the hero who carried off the gun -boat
Planter from the Confederates. He is a robust, burly, dark man, now in the prime of life, and very popular with the blacks. After the war he became a General of the National Guards, a Congressman, and a considerable person. He at tributes the loss of the present election entirely to fraud and intimidation. He denies that any considerable number of blacks went over to the enemy. In these lower districts there was not much actual violence at the time of the poll, but there had been intimidation and serious obstruction to his canvass and his meetings before the election. The
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Kepublicans, he says, have an enormous majority in this and the adjoining districts, if they only got fair play. Now, the Democrats have elected the bitterest of their party ; there has rarely been any compromise. They are sending two or three black Democrats to the State Legislature from the Charles ton district ; but that is quite an exception. As to the remedy for the frauds which have deprived him of his seat he says he might lodge a petition in Congress; but, if he does, he must bear all the expense of the petition and the witnesses to support his case, and then he would not have a chance as long as the Democrats have the majority in Congress. He does not seem to be supported by any party organisation in or out of the State. He takes a favourable view of the condition of the coloured people, and is against Liberia. Though they have been so unfairly treated in the elections, they are the best-natured people in the world, and bear no malice. He complains very much of the want of justice. There were eight hundred political murders committed by the Ku-klux and other Democratic organisations, but not a single white has been hanged nor a single one sent to the Penitentiary by the States Courts — only a few imprisoned by the United States Courts. He attributes the difficulty to the rule requiring unanimity of the jury, which still prevails. The whites, he says, have sworn to their clubs never to convict. As long as there is one of them on the jury they never will. The United States Chief Justice tried one case which was as clear as day light, and he expressed himself as dreadfully disgusted that
the jury would not convict. General S admits that there
was very much abuse during the eight years of Eadical rule in this State. They were led astray by bad men. He de clares, however, that the black members now sent to the State Assembly from this county are good men ; two of them are well educated, and the third, though illiterate, is a good
Christian farmer. I like what I have seen of General S .
Next day I spent in an expedition to Ladies' and St. Helen's Sea Islands, to see the negroes settled there as farmers, and was very much pleased with what I saw. I went with General S , the Congressman, who kindly chaperoned
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me, and put me in the way of seeing the people. These islands are so far islands that they are surrounded by water- channels. They have good soil and plenty of fresh water. Most of the land was sold for taxes and bought by the blacks, and a good deal of what remained as private property of the white planters is being gradually disposed of to these same blacks, as the owners here are very happy to sell it to them — so that now they own the greater part of the islands, and rent what remains, with little exception. They have thus no planter rivals. The whites now on these islands are Northern people, who fulfil functions which the blacks cannot yet un dertake. Some white merchants grow and buy their cotton, and others keep the stores necessary to supply their necessi ties. The better class of schools are maintained by Northern and English ladies. General S — - seems to be on very popular and pleasant terms with the people. They all salute him heartily, and ask him all kinds of questions, and he has always something to say to them. On one of the islands this was a kind of fete day — the Baptist Preachers' Convention was being held, and the people attended in large numbers, the women especially, in their best clothes. The whole scene was very pleasing and cheerful. In the Convention everything was entirely managed by the black people themselves, as much as if no whites existed on this continent. The preachers ob served much parliamentary form, but the Court was appa rently an open one — the black ladies sat round and assisted. These country people seem to have many carts and nice ponies. Their houses are tolerable, and altogether they seem to be comfortable. The farms seem fairly cultivated, especially the cotton crop. The houses have all been built since the war, and some of them show signs of decided improvement.
I visited Miss T , the head of the Northern schools
which I have mentioned. She is a lady of independent pro perty, who has devoted herself to this work. I had a good deal of talk with her. She gives a very favourable account of the negroes, and says they are generally out of debt. The system of advances which at one time prevailed has now
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ceased, and all their transactions are for cash. They even pay in advance for any land that they rent. She lets out some land herself, and finds that they pay punctually in this way. Many of them to her knowledge are saving money and buying farms for their sons. They are especially anxious to set up their sons in this way. She and others with whom I have talked in these islands decidedly differ from the accounts I had heard elsewhere, and say that the blacks as a class are kind to one another and generally ready to assist relations and friends in distress ; but it is admitted that they are still very loose in their connubial relations, that being a relic of slave times, when marriage was not regarded. Miss T — says that the blacks are temperate. Their children rather look down upon those among them who have any white blood, and point at them as ' Secesh ; ' that is, secession people. The people sell their cotton and eat sweet potatoes, corn, and bacon, importing some of these things. I had a good deal of conversation with Mr. N , the principal cotton mer chant in the Islands, and with one or two storekeepers. Their accounts very much tally with that which I have already stated. Merchants and ginners look a good deal after the quality of the seed, and distribute it among the small farmers, in order that the plant may not deteriorate. The cotton cul ture gives the people employment for most of the year, and after the crop is gathered the women have much employment in the ginning factories. The long cotton requires much more handling than does the short. The people are very regular and good as regards their dealings at the stores. Besides the superior education given by the Northern ladies, State schools are kept up, but for want of funds are not very efficient, and sometimes are scarcely open more than two months in the year ; but the people do a good deal for them selves in this way, and are getting on very well.
I was amused to see the way in which the women fell upon General S — - on the question of the title to their lands, in which a flaw had been alleged, which has much alarmed them. They demanded assurances that they should not be turned out. As to politics the blacks seem very ignorant, but very
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hearty upon the Eepublican side. People here deny that there is much drinking among them ; in fact, until recently there was no whisky-shop at all upon the Islands. The black preachers seem to be a sort of Christian Brahmins among them, but still they are very democratic in their arrange ments. The people like to have a large voice in all their religious affairs. These preachers, as I saw them gathered together to-day, are rather a funny-looking set, with their black faces and white ties, but they seem hearty and plea sant. They have often other trades besides preaching.
General S pointed out one of them who is a first-rate
wheelwright.
Altogether I have much enjoyed seeing this example of a negro ' Eyotwar ' community, who, having had a fair chance, are really doing very well. Originally these people were among the lowest, most ignorant, and most enslaved class of negroes ; and they have gone through political con vulsions and excitements which might well have unsettled any people ; yet they are now quite settled down.
I still like General S on further acquaintance. He
is not very highly educated or brilliant, but is a thoroughly representative man among these people, and seems to have their unlimited confidence. He complains that the present Government has taken away the arms from the National Guards, of which there were two regiments in these Islands. They were disbanded, and only the volunteer militia com panies remain. Of these only in Charleston is there a black
company. Colonel E , however, does not admit this
statement. He says the National Guards were fairly treated, and every chance was given to them to become efficient. They were only disbanded because they were hopelessly in efficient. The Government gives arms to the volunteer companies, but they must pass muster as efficient and pro perly clothed. General S , on the other hand, says that
the white volunteer rifle companies are really political clubs, and that they are constantly brought together by their own will for political purposes. In one place where he had a political meeting he and his friends were fired at ; and this
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statement seems to be confirmed by a white man of the other party whom we met at the hotel on our return. He talked with much gusto of the way in which the buckshot had crashed through a heap of apples upon that occasion. The blacks have also their clubs, but they are not of a military or political character : they are more of the nature of friendly societies for the support of the sick, and burial clubs. They all attach great importance to burial. These clubs are very much under the management of the preachers. General
S showed me one reverend gentleman who, he said,
during the election canvass was hauled up with a rope about his neck, and barely escaped with his life.
I paid several visits before leaving the place. Mr. Gr ,
a Northern man, who deals in land, says that the negroes are certainly buying land ; he has had many transactions with
them himself. Dr. S and Colonel E excuse the
present extreme to which the Democratic party have carried their triumph in the elections by showing how willing they were to compromise ; but, they say, the Kadicals would not compromise.
There are decided mosquitoes in these parts ; not very serious at this season, but so much so as to make mosquito- curtains necessary. After a successful visit to Beaufort I started in the evening for Georgia, and, after passing through some lagoons and heavy wood, travelled far inland through the night, leaving the coast districts behind me.
GEORGIA.
At daylight in the /norning we were passing through a flattish country, with much cotton cultivation, and soon after wards we reached Augusta, in Georgia. Augusta is handsomely laid out, with broad boulevards and houses surrounded by beautiful shrubs and trees. It must be charming in fine weather ; but to-day, for the first time during my tour, it is raining heavily, and I had an opportunity of appreciating the mud of an unpaved American town. I am told, too, that
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before the rain the place was very dusty. This is a great •cotton mart — the centre of a large cotton-growing country. The only complaint is, that the farmers grow cotton too •exclusively, and do not rotate enough, or grow food enough for themselves, but have to buy largely from the West. Augusta is on the River Savannah, which gives an immense water-power, the fall being rapid, the stream strong, and the supply constant and unfailing. Advantage has been taken of this to establish great cotton-mills, which are doing a large and prosperous business. The stock of the mills is at a premium. At a very large mill which I visited they make only coarse unbleached goods, using only very low numbers of yarn ; but at another mill close by they make finer goods, the yarns used being, I was told, about No. 22. It is said that, while in other parts of the States millowners are losing, these Southern mills make large profits. Three-fourths of the goods go to New York, as the commercial emporium. The labour employed is entirely white, and is upon what they call the ' family system,' which is much the same as the English system, as opposed to the New England practice, where the mill-girls live in great barracks. Here they have workmen's houses near the mills, much like what one sees in England. The manager says that the people work quite as well as Northern mill- workers of whom he has had expe rience. There are good schools in the town, and most of the people are now fairly educated ; but there is no compulsory school law, direct or indirect, and no restriction as regards the work of children. The women earn from $3 to $5 a week, fifty cents a day being the wages for common hands. They are very regular and well-behaved. Some men work well too, but they are not so good as the women. They work eleven hours a day. By the way, I may mention that I have met some people who speak rather in a depreciatory way of the morals of the charming young ladies who do the mill-work in New England factories ; but I have not visited these latter, and cannot say whether this is a libel. No blacks are employed in the mills here. The manager says they are not 6 responsible.' He has not tried them — perhaps
364 MY JOURNAL.
they might do well enough under superintendence. Before the war there were, I understand, several small mills success fully worked by slaves. It would not be possible to work black and white women together. The white women would not submit to it ; they are far more intolerant than the men, I made the acquaintance of a gentleman in the iron mongery trade, Mr. D , who gave me much assistance.
He says he has a good many English goods. No one can rival the English in cutlery and some other things, but the larger machinery is made best in America. I was also intro duced to Mr. N , a Charleston man, settled here as a
cotton-buyer. He seems to think that the negroes have hardly so good a chance in Georgia as in South Carolina. They are the majority of the population about here, and most of the cotton is raised by their labour — principally on shares and cotton-rents — but it is not a very satisfactory system. The farming is poorly done, and the negroes are apt to change about a good deal. There are a good many Irish in these parts, especially in the upper parts of the country ; but they are mostly rather a low type — people who come up from the North in search of work. They are employed on the streets and ditches of the town, and to a considerable extent on the railways ; but the white men do not work better than the blacks, and get just the same pay. This is confirmed by gentlemen who have charge of railways and have had experience of both classes of workmen. The climate of Augusta is hot in summer, but mild in winter.
Mr. N took me for a drive to Somerville, an elevated
spot, with very pretty houses, and where the climate is very good. Aikin, which I have already mentioned, is a similar place, not very far distant. We saw some cotton grown by white planters near the town, and had some talk with them. The fields we saw were very productive : the yield would be about a bale an acre. They say the cotton sometimes suffers from drought ; but they have this advantage in this climate, that if the first bloom is lost they get a large second bloom later in the season, and that is the case this year. The most productive cotton-lands are in Central and South-west Georgia
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— principally the flatter lands, where the rivers run out from the higher country. They say, however, that the farther north and the higher up cotton can be made to grow, with the aid of stimulant manures, the better its quality is. vMost of the whites in this State own land. The poorer whites are generally either in the upper country or in the poorer parts of the low country.
People here will not admit what I had been told else where, that, compared to other Southern States, Georgia is prosperous. Things, they say, are in a bad way, and property has much depreciated. They admit, however, that things are better than they were ; but there is still great complaint of want of money, in consequence of which the rate of interest is excessive. They say that responsible men with much property have had to give 2 per cent, per month for loans, and have still to pay 8 or 10 per cent, per annum.
From Augusta I travelled to Atlanta, the present political capital of Georgia. The first part of the line went for a long way through a little-cultivated country, abounding in pines and scrub-oaks, the cultivation being only occasional and rather poor. This somewhat surprised me after what I had heard of the quantity of cotton grown in this country, but it illustrates what I had before been several times told, viz., that the railways very generally run along the ridges, and that thus in travelling by railway one sees the least favour able specimens of country. Thirty or forty miles out of Augusta, however, cotton became very abundant, growing on undulating ground. All the way on to Atlanta the country was a good deal undulated and varied, with a good deal of wood. This seems the general character of the greater part of these Southern States ; and after all but a fraction of the whole country is cultivated. As we got on we came to a dis trict considerably elevated, about Barnet and Crawfordsville, and I noticed that in this fine healthy-looking country there was a considerable white population. A large proportion of the cottages we passed here seemed to be inhabited by whites. These cottages generally are very miserable-looking dwell ings, according to our ideas, but they seemed to be full of
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healthy children. There are a good many blacks also. I understand that in the country we have been passing through the population is about equally divided between blacks and whites. To the south of this line are the great cotton-pro ducing districts, where the black population prevails ; but to the north, again, where the country rises considerably, there is a portion of Greorgia which is quite a white man's country, and now contains a large white population. There are, I understand, nourishing places there, such as Athens and Grains ville ; and quite recently that country has been im mensely opened out by a new line of railway running from Salisbury, in North Carolina, to Atlanta, through the higher tracts. That country seems to have been exceedingly isolated before it was penetrated by railways. They say that the tobacco produced there after being packed in hogsheads was literally rolled down to Augusta and other civilised places, not so very long ago. I noticed many cattle as we passed along, but they did not seem to be in very good condition. I am told that they are rather a poor breed, and do not give much milk ; and I can testify that they eat tough ; but great efforts are now being made to improve them.
I made the acquaintance in the train of Mr. Stephens, a Senator of this State, going up to the Legislature, which is now in session, and had a good deal of talk with him. He is a nephew of the well-known Alexander Stephens, the Vice- President and brains of the Confederacy, who is himself a Greorgian, from this part of the country. His accounts of the country and people tally pretty well with what I have before heard. He repeats and emphasises the complaint about scarcity of money. The State, he says, is very far from prosperous, and in consequence the fields, very many of which are a good deal exhausted from long cotton cultivation, are not sufficiently manured nor cultivated so well as they should be. He says that comparatively few blacks own land ; they do not save money to buy it. On the contrary, they are generally obliged to get advances to carry them through the season in the cultivation of their small farms. By law the proprietor has a lien on the crops for his rent and advances;
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and when the accounts are settled at the end of the season the black farmers are often behind and have nothing to get ; and then next year they either go on in the same way or go off somewhere else. I have since, however, met men who declare that they have kept their old slaves on their land, except, perhaps, that just at first most of them may have gone off for a year or two to prove their independence, and then returned and settled down. The common rent is two bales of cotton — that is, about 900 Ibs. — for as much land as a mule can work. The whites in this part of the country generally have land of their own, and work fairly well. Near Mr. Stephens' there is an old settlement of Ca tholic Irish, who are now good farmers. The cattle do not suffer from want of grass ; there is plenty of it ; and Mr. Stephens does not doubt that the breed will be improved. He explained to me about the grass which is prevalent here what interested me much, namely, that it is really the East Indian grass known in that country as ' Dhoop grass ;' that is, sun-grass. I had already noticed in the Southern States that the grass reminded me very much of what I had seen in India, and it seems there is no doubt that it is an importation. It was introduced from India into the Bermudas, and from Bermuda into the States, whence it is called Bermuda grass. It is considered to be first-rate fodder, and is only too plentiful ; that is to say, it is not easily kept out of the culti vated fields. It does not injure wheat, as it is kept down by the cold until the wheat is up ; but the cotton being sown later, it is very troublesome to that crop, and necessitates much weeding. At first, when it spread over the country, as it did very rapidly, it created quite a panic, and much depreciated the value of the cotton-lands, but now people have discovered that it is so good a grass that they are glad to have it.
I asked Mr. Stephens about Georgian politics. He says that after the war for a time they were allowed to manage their own affairs; then the Constitution of 1868 was forced upon them by the Federal Government, and for a short period the Republicans were in power in the State, but apparently by no
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means an irreconcilable Republican party. The Governor of those days was a Northern man, who had been settled in Georgia before the war, was ' a good rebel ' during the war, and generally liked. In 1870 the Democrats again got the majority, and kept it — so much so that they have now almost everything throughout the State. There are now only two blacks and five or six Republicans in the Legislature, but there are many Independent Democrats. He talks as if the blacks are not politically irreconcilable, as in South Carolina, but amenable to influence and money ; they can be managed well enough, if only a little money is available. The Indepen dents have not established a separate policy ; they have only stood in opposition to the Caucus system of the party. He
showed me a speech of Dr. F , one of the Independents
just elected to Congress, setting forth the principles upon
which he stood as being distinctly Democratic. Dr. F ,
however, seems to be decidedly ' greenbacky.' He is very strong in favour of silver, but he is also for a ' sufficient but not excessive paper issue,' so as to bring up values and save debtors. I suspect the Independents in these parts are certainly in the main Greenbackers. Apparently they have generally got the Republican vote. One Independent is, however, de scribed as a ' Bourbon Democrat.' Bourbons are the high handed party, who would like to act as the Bourbons did. Mr. Alexander Stephens still lives, in poor health, as has always been the case, but his intellect is as bright as ever, and he is a member of Congress for the district of Georgia in which he resides. He is, in fact, practically an Independent, though he accepted the Caucus nomination. He is now entirely for a moderate and conciliatory policy. He is also very strong for silver, and would have both an unlimited coinage of that metal and the issue of silver certificates.
I am told by some people that a strong repudiation feel ing is growing up both in the South and in some parts of the North. By the Constitution of the United States, States cannot repudiate their debts, but they can refuse to make any appropriation to pay the interest.
Georgia has just had a new Constitution, with a good
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many changes, and the present Assembly has recently met for the first time under this new Constitution. Mr. Stephens says, however, that the changes are not of an important political character. I asked him about the homestead law protecting the debtor, and he gave me an account which interested me much. Under the old law of this State the homestead up to fifty acres of land, with the necessary imple ments and provisions, were absolutely protected from execu tion for debt, and the right could not be waived ; so that no mortgage or anything else took away this privilege. Under the Constitution of 1868 the homestead privilege was ex tended to the value of #2,000 realty or $1,000 personalty. It was hoped in this way to save the indebted Georgians from their creditors, but the Supreme Court of the United States declared that this provision was contrary to the United States Constitution so far as it purported to have retroactive effect ; and so the Georgians, finding that it had no effect to save them from past debts, and took away their credit for the future, have reduced the amount under the recent changes. The right can now be waived, and so small proprietors are enabled to mortgage their property and raise money upon it.
Atlanta is in an elevated region, about 1,100 ft. above the sea. It is now a great railway centre and a prosperous place ; but, as I am to remain here some days, I am dis appointed to find that it is not at all a pretty or nice town ; very inferior in amenities to all the other Southern towns I have seen. It is, in fact, a new brick-built town, with no trees in the streets, but abundant mud, for there is now a good deal of rain. As in all American towns, there are some nice enough villa suburbs, but there is no river or open ground near. The principal hotel, the Kimball, is crammed full, and I had difficulty in getting in. It is a fine large establishment, with a great hall in the centre, which is immensely crowded. I have here realised for the first time what American spitting is. It really requires some nerve to walk across the hall. This is about the busiest season of the year for the cotton traffic and mercantile business generally,
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besides that the Legislature is in session. I understand that the climate of this elevated region is very good. At present, on account of clouds and rain, it is rather warm and muggy for the season of the year.
The next day I went to the Houses of the Legislature in the Capitol, and was very civilly treated. I was voted the floor of both Houses. Access to the floor seems to be pretty free to a good many people, to say nothing of the ample galleries, where there were on this occasion but few specta tors. I spent most of my time to-day in the Senate, which is comparatively a small body; but I looked into the Assembly also. The debates seemed to be of an ordinary, commonplace character. In the early part of the session a good deal of the business is formal, very many of the bills being brought in, read a first and second time, without much debate, and referred to committees. Evidently all the forms of these American Legislatures were originally derived from our Parliament. They have, however, much need of brevity, for in this State the Legislature sits biennially, and is limited to a session of forty days unless it is continued by a two-thirds vote. They consequently from time to time limit the speakers by a vote of the House; generally the limit is ten minutes in the Assembly and half an hour in the Senate ; but often by a simple vote it is reduced to five minutes or extended. Then they have and frequently use * the previous question,' or cloture. They certainly get through a great deal of business — far more, J am told, than does Congress. It seems to be tolerably well done, though sometimes rather hastily. About half the Senate and one- third of the Assembly or House are lawyers, and very many of them are ambitious of drawing bills, so there is no difficulty on that score. At present there are no regular parties, the Democrats having it all their own way. Evidently, however, the Independents are very largely represented ; in the late elections they have got nearly half of the seats in Congress for Georgia. They are not united in any pronounced policy as regards the blacks, but lay themselves out for black votes, and there is thus a division with regard to the blacks which
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has a wholesome effect. I liked the style of the men I saw. Many of the Senate appeared to be superior men, and the representatives in the Assembly seem to be a decent-looking set — only an exceptional man here and there had his legs on the table. I am told that nearly every man in the Senate is a speaker. The Americans certainly go in for oratory more than we do. Their style is peculiar. They have a way of emphasising the last word of every sentence and the last sentence of every subject. However, on every-day subjects the speakers I heard bringing on motions or discussing them seemed to be reasonably brief and not excessively loud. The halls are large, and the acoustics not very good ; so that, besides not being accustomed to our quiet English ways, it would be difficult for a man to make himself heard, amid the buzz of a good many people moving about the floor, without speaking pretty loud. Conspicuous among those moving about were the candidates for the Judgeships of the Superior Courts, who are to be elected in a day or two, and who were going from member to member soliciting votes. 'Lobbying' is strictly forbidden by a special article of the Constitution, but that provision is certainly not observed, unless, indeed, it be considered that canvassing within the House is not ' lobby ing.' It is the habit of American Legislatures to have a roll-call upon many occasions. Members are not allowed to absent themselves so easily as with us. To-day there was a roll-call at the commencement of business in the Senate, but it was dispensed with in the Assembly by a motion. Prayers were said by a chaplain, who happened to be an Episcopalian, but the duty is taken, turn and turn about, by the ministers of various denominations. The pay of the legislators is not high, and has lately been reduced. It is only a daily allow ance while the session lasts, and hardly covers expenses ; so there is no temptation to do much legislation on that ground.
Afterwards I was introduced to Mr. Colquitt, the present Governor. He puts it that everything in Georgia is done by the representatives of the people, not by the people them selves. That, I take it, is the great difference between the
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Southern system and that of the North, where the popular township is the basis and original unit of the political sys tem. The Grovernor and others whom I met, and who have had experience of Congress as well as of local Legislatures, say that the latter work better and give more satisfaction than does Congress ; but a Senator who heard this view inter posed with the caution, ' You must look inside, here and else where, in regard to legislation : there is too much of " Tickle me, and I'll tickle you." ' It seems that at this moment there is a secret committee sitting on some large disbursements in regard to which imputations have been made against the Governor.
At the hotel I met a planter of extreme Democratic views, strongly opposed to Independents and all other defec tors from the party. He thinks niggers are only made to be slaves. They work well when compelled, but will do nothing without compulsion. He has himself a farm of 500 acres, and no man has worked harder than he has ; but he cannot make a living — with the price of cotton so much down and wages not down the cultivation is a dead loss, and he is disgusted with the world. Between us, however, we made out the moral to be that a farm so large as his does not pay, especially when the owner does not like niggers. He is now dividing it up. Part he has given to his sons, and part he is selling. He admits that men with small farms, who work themselves and can look well after two or three nigger servants, may live.
In the evening I walked out into the country and saw some of the country people. I interviewed a small black farmer who has a farm of twelve acres, in the midst of the woods. He was a slave. After emancipation the owners of this land, who were relations of his former mistress, allowed him to squat and clear this patch, on the understanding that he was to pay rent when he could. Presently the land was sold, and the new owner makes him pay four dollars an acre — a heavy rent ; but he does not seem to complain, as the land is near the town. He has eight acres in cotton, and expected to have got three or four bales or more ; but there has been
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much drought this year, and he has little more than two bales. One bale I saw screwed up and ready for market, but he is keeping it back for a better price. He gets along pretty well ; but many others are worse off, wages being low and employment precarious- He explains, however, that what he calls low wages is fifty cents a day, or sometimes sixty or seventy cents, when work can be got. He is a strong Kepublican in his politics, but says that many of his fellow-blacks are won over to the other side. Altogether, though quite uneducated, he seemed to be a good and in telligent specimen.
Next day I made the acquaintance of Mr. 0 , the
Superintendent of State Schools, a thorough old Southerner, who literally ' never set foot on free soil ' till his own State was made free ; and to this day he has never been in the Northern States. He is now, however, very zealous in favour of progress and education. I went to hear a lecture given by him in the evening. He says he began by being strongly against education, but now finds it is the only way of dealing with the people under present circumstances, and he only wants money to carry it out. The State has behaved very handsomely in maintaining a black college, where 200 young negroes receive what he thinks only rather too high an edu cation. The educated blacks look to be politicians, preachers, and teachers. The effect is not unlike the higher education in India, the only difference being that there the educated natives look to being lawyers, while here they look to be
politicians. Mr. 0 maintains that, imperfect as they
are, the ordinary country schools are doing much good — three months' schooling is better than nothing : the seed is being sown. In most of the large towns and one or two counties, they have a superior system, and keep the schools
open much longer. A man in Mr. 0 's position is not at all
situated like one of our inspectors of schools. He is a political office-holder as much as one of our Ministers, and his lecture was, in fact, a political speech of a departmental character. He appealed especially for funds for his department. He and others want to introduce a special drink-tax, such as
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that called in Virginia the 'Moffat tax,' which, he says, would yield a large sum ; and he is also very strong for a dog- tax, to go in aid of education. For an out-and-out Southern man he seems extremely reasonable. He says, with hosts of other Southerners, he considers the war is ended, and they do not want to renew it, but want to make the best of the existing situation.
Another day I spent principally in the House of Repre sentatives. The galleries were very well filled, many ladies being there, and on one side many blacks. The interest is principally on account of the election of the United States Senator, which is to take place this day, although there is no opposition. The proceedings were of an ordinary kind, but a fair debate of some length arose, in which the speaking was brief and to the point. The House was quite patient, but at last the ' previous question ' was moved and the pro ceedings brought to a close. The members seemed generally very quiet ; there was little ' Hear, hearing ; ' and when at last a hit was made it was recognised by stamping and ap plause such as we have at public meetings. The members generally were respectable-looking and well-dressed ; only a few were in rural-farmer sort of clothes. I noticed nothing very American except a good deal of spitting. In debate there was a little less strictness than in our own Houses of Parliament — more interruption and questions put by one speaker to another — but still parliamentary form was suffi ciently maintained to remove the proceedings from any imputation of a parish-vestry character. The business seemed to be well got through in a simple and dignified way. When the time came for the election of the Senator the two Houses came together in joint session. There was then a roll-call, and each member rose in his place and gave his vote. There is no ballot in this election.
I was introdued to an ex -member of Congress, Mr. P .
He comes from the extreme north-east of this State — the hilly country, where the gold-mines are worked. It seems that all the north of Georgia was acquired from the Indians when they were moved beyond the Mississippi in the present
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century. Their lands were purchased by the State of Georgia and divided up in forty-acre lots ; and thus it is that small white farmers owning their own lands are very numerous in that part of the country. Now there are no lands belong ing to the State except irreclaimable swamps. Some of the mines are now to a considerable extent worked by convict labour. It seems that a very large number of blacks are sent to prison, and that they are generally hired out. In slave times little was thought of petty pickings — such as taking a turnip from a field — but now such things are very severely
punished. I asked Mr. P about the jury system. He
admits that few blacks are put upon juries, except in the United States Courts, but he declares that the blacks prefer white jurors and generally challenge those of their own race, because the latter are bloodily inclined, and are always for hanging culprits. They do not like poor whites, and prefer those who have owned slaves — the latter generally have a
sympathy for the blacks. Mr. P says that the forms and
style of the Legislature here very much resemble Congress, and the rules are much the same. In the session of 1868-9 there were two sides, much as there are in Congress. The whites at first expelled the blacks from the Legislature, alleging that they were not eligible to sit there ; but the blacks were restored by the authority of Congress. In spite, however, of some struggles at this period, this State did not suffer much from Republican rule. The men in power were capable men, and the best men of the State lent a hand. Some people seem to think that the Constitution of 1868 was better than the new one which has just been inaugurated. There being no townships in this State, the counties are divided into militia and education districts. The militia districts are an old institution, and they are used as a con venient arrangement for other purposes also. As in other States, many special local bills are passed by the State Legislature, such as bills to authorise a particular county to raise a special education tax, or to deal with the ' fence question ; ' to stop the sale of liquor in particular places, or to give the inhabitants the option of doing so. I have been
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inquiring regarding the liquor laws prevailing here ; they are somewhat complicated, but I make them out to be as follows : — First, the United States levy an excise duty on all spirits, and also a quarterly duty for licenses to sell ; but for retail sale a man must also get a license from the State of Georgia. These licenses are given by the Probate Judge or Judge- Ordinary, who as a rule gives them to every person of good character and who can give sufficient security for his conduct. For this local license another license fee is levied, which goes to the funds of the county. The Legislature may, and often does, grant to corporate towns authority to levy these license fees on their own account, and they generally charge much higher rates in the town than in the country. For instance, the local license tax for liquor-shops in this part of the country is $25 in rural places, but $300 in Atlanta. In places where the sale of liquor is prohibited by law every kind of sale is prohibited. There is no exception in favour of wine merchants or grocers ; but private persons are not prevented from importing their own liquors from distilleries in other parts cf the country.
I visited Colonel P , a gentleman to whom I had an
introduction, and who is a very old institution here. His family had much property in Pennsylvania, but he came up here a long time ago, and acquired land which had been bought from the Indians ; he was, in fact, one of the first settlers in Atlanta. He says that large tracts of land situate in central Pennsylvania, by which his family expected to make their fortunes, were eventually sold for a dollar an acre, the people having gone West, not caring to cultivate the poorer lands in that part of the country. During the war
Colonel P did a large business in blockade-running, for
which he had facilities in being President of one or two Southern railways, and he seems to have made much money in that way. Besides much property and a large model farm in this State he has a ' ranch ' in New Mexico, looked after by one of his sons. Altogether he seems to have been a great speculator and enterpriser. He is evidently now a thorough Southerner in feeling. He thinks the negro first-rate to
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' shovel dirt,' a function for which he was made, but no good for much else. He must be ' kept in his place,' as it is the fashion to say in Georgia. In accordance with the common opinion here, he says that the cultivation of cotton has been overdone, and the soil exhausted by over-cropping. Many people are now emigrating to Texas ; and, besides the white people who go there, a good many unattached blacks have been carried off to the South- Western States by people who have embarked in enterprises in that direction. He, like others, says that the attempt to carry on large farms in this part of the country has not been successful. They are now being divided up, but the division is arrived at more by the partition of estates among the members of families than by selling to negroes. This is a healthy country, and the popu lation increases. The Southern gentlemen now work much better than they did. According to some, however, the whites work only because they must ; and the negroes work
too, although they had rather not. Colonel P says the
negroes are not fitted to hold farms. The renting system leads to deterioration of the land. A negro lets it run out, and only cultivates the best part. People are going back from this renting system, and prefer moderate-sized farms of their own, upon which they can employ two or more negroes and look after them well. He talks with horror of the im morality of the negroes, and is altogether pessimist upon this subject. He and others are strong on the badness of the free and independent young negroes who have grown up since the war. The old ones have some virtues ; but you cannot strike them now, and similarly they cannot and do not strike and discipline their children, who are growing up unbroken and uncontrolled. It does seem as if there was some ground for apprehension on this score.
Colonel P took me to see some great iron- works. All
seemed to be agreed that for manual labour, in this climate at any rate, the blacks are better than the whites, and in the works here the ordinary labour is exclusively done by black men. They would not have white men if they could get them. If the negro is kept in his place and is made to work
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he does very well, but he is not fit to rise higher ; he has no 'judgment,' and does not make a skilled mechanic. The Georgian who is head of the office at these works takes
entirely the same view as Colonel P , or goes even farther.
According to him the negro is unthrifty to the last degree, drinks and dances, is dishonest and immoral. He says he knows South Carolina, and is sure that the negroes who have farms on the Islands there cultivate them miserably. They have only some garden-patches ; few of them go to the phosphate works regularly. They labour only for a few days at a time when they are driven to it by the necessity to get a little money. That is the other side of the shield. On the other hand, an Ohio man, who superintends the iron manu facture, tells quite a different story. He says that there are instances here of negroes developing much mechanical skill and conducting themselves very well. He has one who is a very superior mechanic, but he is kept working under an inferior white. He doubts if the negroes will be allowed to rise. There are no regular trades unions against them, but there is a general view that the negro must be kept in his 'place. No doubt most of them are somewhat wanting in judgment. According to the Georgian the negroes cannot see straight. As carpenters they always will fit their work crooked. The Ohio man, however, says that a good many are not only quite good workmen, but also thrifty and dis posed to save, and have by saving come to own their own houses and a little land ; but he says that they are frequently ousted on questions of title. There are many pettifogging lawyers about always ready to get up a case, civil or criminal, against a negro. The blacks are sent to the chain-gang very readily ; when men are wanted for the chain-gang they are always got. He concurs, however, to some extent with what I had been told about the indiscipline of the younger negroes. He has some who have been to prison, and the chain-gang discipline certainly improves them. He prefers to take a young man who has served for a time in the chain-gang.
In the evening at the hotel I had some talk with Geor gians of the upper class, with the general result that their
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opinions are unfavourable to the negroes, who are, they say, of an extremely migratory disposition. They wander about too much. If a man is discharged he does not care ; he steals till he gets another job. A farmer sitting by, however, interposed to say that in the last three or four years they have much improved. He says he has a good deal given up the cultiva tion of cotton, going in for other things, and finds that with a moderate number of negro hands he can do very well. People here do not seem to have adopted the South Carolina plan of fixing the negroes by selling them small patches of
land. Judge C , a sensible man who has a considerable
estate, seems from what he says to get on pretty well with the negroes upon it. He likes the share plan, provided that he keeps the management and direction entirely in his own hands, and pays the cultivators their share of the crops, instead of their paying him. Some of them do very well. They have a house and small enclosure of land for vegetables and provi sions for themselves, and then, with a mule supplied by him, a man will cultivate perhaps forty acres, half in corn and half in cotton. He gives them half of the corn and one-third of the cotton for themselves, or the value of it.
I have been looking over some of the statistics of Georgia and South Carolina with reference to the coloured population, but I fancy they are not very reliable, and they are not made out on a uniform plan, so as fully to admit of comparison. In South Carolina they have had a census of their own subse quent to the United States census, and claim a population exceeding that arrived at by the United States in 1870 by some two hundred thousand. According to their census there are in South Carolina, in round numbers, 350,000 whites and 575,000 blacks. In Georgia there has been no recent census. The United States census of 1870 gives 639,000 whites and 545,000 blacks. People here say that after emancipation there was a very great mortality among the blacks, especially among the women and children, yet this statement is hardly reconcilable with the census returns. The Georgia census of 1860 gave 465,000 blacks, which number was increased to 545,000 in 1870. The increase now must be more rapid,
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there being no special mortality, except, perhaps, to some degree, from want of sufficient care of infants. The number of tax-polls according to the last return is — whites, 126,985 ; blacks, 83,900 ; but I understand that the full number of tax- polls has not yet been got at. The numbers have been in creasing a great deal. The blacks pay taxes upon 501,000 acres out of upwards of thirty-seven millions of acres, but that includes all land, cultivated and waste. Of a total of 6,804,437 acres of 'improved land ' the returns give 176,915 acres as cultivated by blacks as proprietors.
Reading the local papers next morning I observe that they do not report the debates of the Legislature ; they only give the proceedings, with the briefest notice of each speech.
To-day I again visited the office of the Comptroller- General and that of the Superintendent of the Geological and Agricultural Departments. The Comptroller-General is the head of the Department of Revenue. There is no income- tax in Georgia, only the usual property-tax, also the poll-tax for education, and a special tax on lawyers, doctors, dentists, and billiard-keepers, in the nature of a license fee. The counties collect a pedlers' tax, which seems to be principally in the interest of the storekeepers. In towns there are special taxes under the Acts of Incorporation. In Atlanta they tax storekeepers on the amount of sales. The question of the drink-tax, on the Virginian model, and of the dog-tax, is now being raised in the Legislature.
At the Agricultural Department the general lie of the country was explained to me. A great deal of Georgia is elevated, and from the higher lands the country slopes down wards. The old-established towns are generally situated where the rivers run out into the low country at the head of the navigation, where are also the principal cotton-lands. Lower still come the pine-barrens and swamps, and then the Sea Islands. The broad pine-belt extends not only through the States which I have visited, but round through Alabama and Mississippi and well into Texas. The Superintendent states, what I had been before told, that in the lower country all the best lands had come into the possession of the rich
GEORGIA. 381
slave-owners, while the poorer whites are principally found on the inferior lands ; that is, the pine-barrens, which, he says, are not really bad land. There is a sandy surface something like that in Prussia, but clay underlies the surface, and that holds fertilisers well. Georgia was certainly much more democratic in its origin than Virginia or South Carolina. When a great part of the State, especially all the upper part, was acquired by successive purchases from the Indians, the land of Georgia belonging to the State itself not to the United States, each new acquisition was marked out in parcels and apportioned by lot to the people of the State. Many of these lots were not occupied, and were purchased for a song by the richer people. To this clay, in fact, many of the lots have not been occupied, and the purchasers do not know where they are. These are what are called ' wild lands ; ' and there is a ' Wild Land ' Office, the business of which is to find out these uncultivated lands and to tax them — for hitherto they have not been properly taxed. Before the war there was in this State an extreme jealousy of interlopers. So far from encouraging new immigrants, the Georgians wished to keep them out and to keep all the lands for themselves. All this is now changed — they are delighted to sell their lands when they can find purchasers, and new-comers are exceed ingly welcome.
We are now having rain, which, I am told, is not unusual in November, and is generally followed by a week of clear frost. That is the hog-killing season. From the middle of December to the middle of February there is generally quite a rainy season — only a little snow coming at the last. In spring they generally have good showers, and in the early summer there are frequent thunder-showers. There is gene rally heavy rain in August and a dry autumn.
The present Legislature is much bent on economy. They not only want to reduce the number of Circuit Judges — a ques tion which I heard debated — but also do not like the cost of the Agricultural and Geological Departments. The farmers espe cially object to the Agricultural Department as useless.
I had again a good deal of talk with several men. They
382 MY JOURNAL.
all stoutly maintain that Georgia deserves credit as having set an example to other States in the treatment of the negro. After the war, instead of refusing to take any part in affairs, as the white leaders of some States did, they accepted the situation, sent their best men to the Convention that was then held, and managed to get things arranged, so that they did not fare very badly. After one legislative term, in which parties were pretty equally balanced, they got the complete control. Since then their policy has been justice to and improvement of the negro. One statement took me quite by surprise, and I have not been able to verify it. They assert that at this moment there are more drilled negro militia than there are of whites. They say that from the first they thought they could manage the blacks best by drilling, dis ciplining, and trusting them ; that the militia is far better than the secret clubs, and that they know well they can take the arms from the blacks when they wish to do so.
I notice that there is in the papers to-day the report of an official committee upon the militia. They want to have it regularly organised, with pecuniary assistance from the State, a Georgian flag, and several other ambitious things. That looks as if those who framed the report wished to go very far in the way of State independence. I have been looking over the report of the Adjutant- General of South Carolina regarding the withdrawal of arms from the Black National Guards. He says that arms were issued indis criminately to the people, and it was necessary to take them away from those who were not qualified to use them. He also complains that under an Act of 1874 companies called Eifle Clubs have been organised, which are not part of the military establishment of the State, and which interfere with the due organisation of the National Guards. He suggests confining the National Guards to the great cities, as is, he says, the case in other States.
The gentlemen to whom I have been talking dwell much on what they have done for the education of the blacks. When pressed as to what else they have done for them they rather deal in generalities, talking of their good and con-
GEORGIA. 383
dilatory treatment. They say the blacks are now quite content and willingly go with the whites. They would be all right but for the interference of carpet-baggers, and, above all, of the c New England school marmsS These they declare to be the pest of the world, putting false ideas of equality into the heads of the blacks, especially the black women, whom all agree in describing as the most trouble some of the race. Some time ago, they say, a black woman would only accept the place of cook in the character of a lady-help. Now that they have got rid of the Northerners, a black woman will conduct herself as an ordinary cook. They admit that they have done nothing special to settle the negroes on land, as has been done in South Carolina. They had not thought of the advantage of fixing them down ; but they declare that they are quite ready to sell land to them if they will only be thrifty and save money for the purpose, as some in fact do. But they say that the blacks like society, their wives like dress and dances and shows, and being free to do as they liked they sought to obtain these advantages of freedom in the towns. Now many have gone back to the country. They have as much land as could be expected in so short a time. I could not, however, obtain any explanation of the fact shown by the statistics, that there has been scarcely any increase in the negro ownership of land in the last two or three years. It must be a long time, they say, before the negroes generally hold land. Gradually they may acquire it, but for the present most of them must be tenants or labourers. I have not been able to carry the question further than that. I had been told that in one county there was a Granger's League — a combination not to sell land to negroes — and that the negroes thereupon check-mated the land-owners by themselves making a league to leave that county. My friends deny any knowledge of the Grangers' League, but they admit to have heard of the black league in Houston County. They admit that very many whites have disgraced themselves by failing to pay wages- earned by the black labourers. That has been a general complaint everywhere, but things, they say, are in that
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respect not so bad in Georgia as in several other States. They tell stories of the childish character of the negro — but he works well. There is no better worker when he is at it, only he is always liable to the temptation to sit up at night to dance and frolic. He is given to spout ridiculously in church, and to steal and lie, and he is very bad in love mat ters. He is very stupid in his crime, and is always found out, and so it is that he always gets into the penitentiary when the police would never detect a white man.
I confess I am more and more suspicious about the criminal justice of these southern states. In Georgia there is no regular penitentiary at all, but an organised system of letting out the prisoners for profit. Some people here have got up a company for the purpose of hiring convicts. They pay $25,000 a year besides all expenses of food and keep, so that the money is clear profit to the state. The lessees work the prisoners both on estates and in mines, and apparently maintain severe discipline in their own way, and make a good thing of it. Colonel P , who is not very mealy- mouthed, admits that he left the concern because he could not stand the inhumanity of it. Another partner in the concern talked with great glee of the money he had made out of the convicts. This does seem simply a return to another form of slavery.
Here, too, I am told that there is a greater separation of the white and black castes than there was before the war. Now there is complete separation in churches and schools. It was a black member who moved and carried in the legis lature that the two classes of schools should be for ever separate. The separation is the doing of the blacks. They do not like association on terms of inferiority.
A man to whom I talked to-day says that cotton, can only be profitably cultivated by blacks. It is their habit and edu cation to cultivate cotton and it gives them constant employ ment all the year round in a way which the white men do not like. The southern white man feels the necessity of labour now and does labour, but he is better at raising corn and such things than cotton.
GEORGIA. 385
I had a good deal of talk with Governor Browne, a very shrewd and remarkable man. He is a self-made man, but was Governor of Georgia for eight years down to the close of the war. He seems to have been engaged in blockade-run ning, and to have made a good deal of money in that way; and since the war, like all the great men in this country, he is president of railways and mining companies. He is evi dently very much respected and still quite sustains his repu tation of being a very long-headed man. He has been a great deal over the States, has had properties and specula tions in many other states besides his own. I talked to him about the condition of some of the Southern States which I have not visited. He says that Alabama soon got the government into its own hands, though not quite so soon as Georgia, and is now pretty quiet and peaceful, though suffer ing from the low price of cotton ; for that is a very great cotton state. Both Mississippi and Louisiana have had troubles like those of South Carolina. The feeling between blacks and whites seems to be worse in Mississippi than in any other state. In Mississippi the best cotton grows on the ridge of highish land near the river ; behind that there are impracticable swamps, and back beyond that again comes higher land on which cotton is raised throughout the whole length of the state. In Louisiana sugar is doing better than it was, but owing to the liability to frost it is cultivated at a great disadvantage as compared to Cuba. The great trouble of the Southern States is the debt, most of which was con tracted to promote railways. Governor Browne says that the coloured French Creoles of Louisiana, or at any rate the higher class among them, took part with the whites, and having lost their property are now generally Democratic. He does not know that any prominent men among them have attempted to become the political leaders of the blacks. They still prefer the white man, and in the New Orleans country the latter to some extent recognise them and admit them to their society to some degree.
In the evening I took tea with Colonel P and his
family. Though he is, I believe, a rich man, he lives in a
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very simple style, as does everyone here. All the governors of these states seem to be really poor men who now live in cottages, but they are also men of some family and consider ation in their states. Colonel P is full of stories of the
way in which money was made in the war by blockade-run ning and suchlike business, especially by those who had command of the railways. The sharpest people among the Southerners seem to have gone in for blockade-running, which they found much more profitable than fighting. As to the
war, Colonel P says that at first the Southerners put a
splendid set of men into the field — they had long been pre paring for it — but almost all those were killed or disabled, and then, what with inferior men and pressed men, their armies were not at all what they had been. As the war went on, the Southern armies became much worse while the Northern armies became much better. As long as they had only to fight in front, they did very well, but their position was much altered when the Federals got possession of the line of the Mississippi. Then came Sherman's march and much destruction of cotton, which the Federals made con traband and seized, while the Confederates burnt it to prevent it from falling into the hands of the other party. There was thus much suffering in the Southern states and a great want of many luxuries, such as coffee and sugar. Under these circumstances half of Lee's men deserted and came to look after their families, and so at last the South turned out to be an empty shell.
Colonel P says that in these parts no one drinks tea
— coffee is universally drunk, generally with sugar and with out milk.
In the evening I went to hear General Gordon, the newly elected senator, who gave an address. He was very eloquent and successful, but I thought too much in the style of an energetic preacher. I understand now where the negro preachers get their style. Greneral Gordon's discourse was principally a very strong attack upon the Independents. He seemed to advocate extreme views — ' a solid South,' and so on. They had got State after State, and now South Carolina
GEORGIA. 387
too, and they would not go back. Shame to those who broke their own ranks. After the meeting I fraternised with several legislators at the Kimball, and had two or three invi tations to ' take a drink.' All were very civil and cordial and inclined to talk of England as their model. That seems quite the fashion here. I met a man who is canvassing for a judgeship, and who has, he said, been up till one or two in the morning for several nights in succession at that work.
The next day I went to the election of judges by the combined Houses in joint session. It is done in the same way as the election of senator and is a dignified enough kind of proceeding, each member rising as his name is called and giving his vote. The salary of a judge is $2,500 (say 5001.} a year, and there is tremendous canvassing for the place. They say this canvassing is absolutely necessary ; the greatest lawyer in the United States would not be elected if he did not work hard for it. So much is this so, under the present system, that many people say that they prefer the former plan when the Governor nominated with the consent of the Legislature, or even when the judges were elected by the people who are too numerous to be canvassed. There were very hot contests for the judgeships and inferior offices, but when the election was over I heard everyone say that the man he worked for had been elected.
I visited the editor of the small weekly Independent paper published here, or as some call it the republican paper. He did not speak at all bitterly. When Governor Bullock was elected as a republican there was a good deal of ' bull dozing ' on the part of the Democrats, but now things have settled down. The principal fault of Grovernor Bullock was that he was elected by the black vote. The general opinion seems to be that there was no truth in the charges on account of which he was driven away. There is still a little bull dozing and a good deal of influence bribery and whisky used to back the regular Democratic candidates. The blacks are always ready to vote for any man who goes against the regu lar Democratic ticket. This gentleman, however, joins in the general statement that Georgia treats the blacks fairly
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well. If willing to vote Democratic they will be well enough treated. He says it is true that the blacks have been armed and encouraged to take their part as militiamen. Fair jus tice is given to them in the courts ; there is a disposition to treat them as not very responsible children. In the last sessions one white man was convicted of murder when two blacks were acquitted. The blacks are treated more fairly in the settlement of their accounts at the end of the year in Georgia than in other states. In lower Georgia there is still some unfairness, and in some other states the blacks are cer tainly very unfairly treated in this matter. They are so improvident that they must get advances to support them during the cultivating season, and both storekeepers and landowners ' stick it on ' to them terribly when the account is made out at the end of the season.
I had a call from Mr. \V , a Scotch-Irishman settled
here. He was bred a cotton-spinner, and emigrated when cotton-spinning came to an end in Ireland. He had mills here before the war, since which time he has acquired large landed property. Before the war he employed in his mills negroes and negresses along with some free whites. That was not an uncommon practice, and they did very well ; but since eman cipation the blacks have not been employed in the mills. He also took me to see a friend, another Scotch-Irishman, who came out with nothing, and now has a large dry-goods store, and seems a prosperous man. Atlanta is a new place, and there are a great many self-made men in it. This gentle man, though not very long out, fought on the Confederate side in the war. He showed me his goods ; most of them are of American make, but many of them English. The mills in these parts, he says, make capital woollen goods for common use. Georgian wool is used, but it is not well cleaned, and the finer woollen goods come from England. They make a capital kind of mixed goods which are very largely used, and are quite cheap. No doubt the best woollen clothes are ex cessively dear in this country, but he declares the Americans will beat us in cottons. The ( domestics ' made in the North are far better than the same class of goods from England-
GEORGIA. 389
He says that the enormous progress of American manufac tures in the last ten years is patent and astonishing. The Americans are extremely ready to invent or imitate, and he thinks English manufactures are doomed to decline. Southern white labour is as cheap and good as any labour of the kind in the world. The white mill-workers are a good class of people, and very often own their own houses, or if not the mill-owners take much care in providing houses and com forts for them.
Mr. W does not farm himself but manages his land
entirely by letting it out. He has both black and white tenants. One black man, a respectable Methodist elder, runs ten ploughs ; yet he is not very provident. He is always liable for a heavy account for advances during the year, and does not seem to save. Some blacks, however, are provident ; they generally pay their rent quite well, there is no serious difficulty about that. The ginning mills are all rented out as well as the land. In this way he gets fair interest for his money with some trouble. In some respects he might prefer the blacks to white tenants, but they are very migratory. That is the universal complaint. They do not
like to stay long anywhere. However, Mr. W does not
find that they let the land down badly. They are bound to repair the fences, &c., and they do it. He finds, however, that he has too much land, and he thinks of selling. He has another large estate in the Sea Island country, which he took for a bad debt, but now he gets nothing from it. Some negroes squat on it, and cultivate patches, and fish. He might get some rent from them, but it would not be enough to repay the trouble and cost of collection. I think Georgian landowners might well try to locate these blacks as has been
done in the Beaufort country. Mr. W , however, hopes to
make his low country estate into a cattle farm.
To-day I noticed a very large number of small farmers bringing cotton to market in their waggons. Most of them were v^hites, driving themselves, and evidently quite labouring men. They had one or two blacks with them, but not very many. There were also a few black farmers. The blacks
390 MY JOURNAL.
whom I questioned were mostly tenants upon the share system. They appeared to me rather a low class, and their answers to my questions quite tallied with the accounts I had had of their migratory habits. They generally had not re mained very long in one place. The white farmers seemed good-looking men, but poorly clad. They looked like poor Irish farmers. They came in covered waggons, in which they live and sleep, and some of them had their wives and children with them in the waggons. I am told a good many people from these parts have gone to Texas, both white and black ; some of them have come back again.
I receive a good many visits from people who have seen my name in the newspapers. Altogether there is a general disposition to treat me civilly and to lionise me in a small way here. As they say, an English traveller and M.P. is rare up here.
This evening I had a talk with a nice gentleman-like elderly man, member for Athens and a strong Independent. He gave me the views of that party in opposition to those of General Gordon. He explains the evils of the caucus system. Generally everything is settled by half-a-dozen jobbers, and without any reference to the electors at large. If need be he says let us have a primary election, but there are many objec tions to it. It has no law or check of any kind, and should only be resorted to to decide between Democrats when a Eadical stands, and the seat is in danger. That not being the case in Georgia the caucus system is totally uncalled for, and is a mere abuse to give power to jobbers. Therefore it is that there has been a successful uprising of the people against it. Moreover, the system, he says, is a gross breach of faith with the black voters, who are excluded from the caucus. He says the Independents get a fair proportion of the black votes, but not by any means all, as the other party pay largely for votes and otherwise coerce and influence the voters. He dwells on the heaviness of taxation in conse quence of the debts of the State and the need of economy ; but when I asked him for particulars regarding the heaviness of taxation he seemed to refer rather to municipal than to
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general taxation. It is very much what I have heard in other quarters. Here the State tax is 40 cents in the 100 dols. of capital value besides 10 cents to form a sinking fund to get rid of the debt. The county taxation is not heavy, but there is heavy taxation in the towns, often amounting to $2-50 per cent, on capital value. I cannot quite make out how the value of personal property is got at — in that respect the tax is certainly much evaded. As is the case with us, rich men often live in fine villa houses outside the towns, and so escape the town taxation. Under the present constitution new laws and appropriations, and elections by the Legislature require an absolute majority of the whole House to be present and vote for the measure.
They say that the position of United States Senator is generally preferred to that of Governor of a State. General Gordon gives a reception this evening in the form of a great wine party to the members of the Legislature. I am told that in Washington and Philadelphia and some other great cities it is common enough to have men's receptions of this kind, from which ladies are excluded. They have fine suppers and wines, and everything that is brilliant.
The next day I started by rail for Calhoun, about eighty miles north of Atlanta. I am surprised by the goodness of the country, and the large extent of cultivation. I am told that cultivation extends a long way on either side of the line, especially along the course of the rivers. There is also much forest, as is the case in all this country. There is very little rise after leaving Atlanta, the highest point is not more than 1,200 feet above the sea. This railway line is very largely advertised as the ' Great Kenesaw Eoute,' which takes its name from the Kenesaw Mountain ; and on the pictorial advertisements the Kenesaw Mountain is very magnificent indeed ; but when I came to see the reality it turned out to be a very moderate hill— perhaps 500 feet above the surround ing country. We crossed several rivers, which now run to wards Mobile and the Gulf of Mexico. As we got on, the level of the country became lower, and several of these rivers
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are navigable, especially for a considerable distance upwards. It is also hoped to make them navigable downwards, so that we are in a much less sloping country than that which drains towards the Atlantic, and there is complaint of want of water-power for saw-mills and other machinery. The culti vation is various ; there is a good deal of cotton, but also a good deal of corn and wheat. They say anything will grow here, but no one thing grows so well as it does somewhere else. I went to pay a visit at a farm of Colonel P— — 's,
near Calhoun, now occupied by his son, Mr. R. P ; and I
was very hospitably entertained by young Mr. P and his
wife, a pleasant young lady from Philadelphia. Mr. P
himself was at school in England, and they both seem very nice and refined people. As usual, they live in a very simple way, and have not many servants. American ladies, who live in the country, manage to do a great deal themselves without detracting from their dress and demeanour. There is a stock farm here, of which old Colonel P — - is very proud. There was a Jersey bull, said to be splendid, some rather thin Jersey cows, a good many Merino sheep, and a large flock of Angora goats. They grow tolerable turnips, and Mr. P— - has a successful field of lucerne. There is a great deal of game about here. I saw many of the small American partridges, sometimes called quails. They sit capitally to dogs, rise in regular coveys like partridges, but fly more like quails. There are also some rabbits about, which looked not unlike English rabbits, running with cocked tails, showing the white. There are many wild turkeys in this country ; they are, however, very shy birds, keep in the woods, and are seldom seen. Tame turkeys are very abundant in these Southern States, and poultry in general is abundant and good. Much of it is kept by small farmers, and is a great assistance to them.
I drove out a good way into the country, over varied sort of ground — some fertile bottoms, and a good deal of higher land. The lower and richer land is principally given to cereals. It does not do well for cotton. The cotton-plant grows large and strong, but is not productive there ; whereas
GEORGIA. 393
in the higher red lands the plant is small, but is often covered with cotton from top to bottom. The lower lands generally belong to the larger proprietors. Wherever there are large proprietors there were slaves, and there are now black labourers. Most of the work in the upper country is done by the whites themselves. I saw some good specimens of people of this class. Most of them own their own land, but some rent, and some go as labourers, getting $8 or $10 a month, and rations. I liked the look of these people. They are decidedly fair with no tinge of swarthiness. Many of them have Scotch names — Campbell, Mclntyre, Macinroy, and so on ; but they did not know their origin. They came up from the Carolinas and Virginia, and did not emigrate direct to this part of the country. Most of them live in miserable houses, but some of the houses are quite good. Even some considerable proprietors live in poor log-houses. It is said that some of these people hold on to too much land when they had better sell ; and if a purchaser comes they ask too much. Some of the smaller tenants live in places unfit for an Irishman, with no windows, and showing much daylight between the logs. I never saw such poor places, except Irish turf huts. I asked one man about it. ' Yes,' he said, laughing ; ' you cannot call it a house, but as we have so much air inside we do not catch cold when we go out/ This man was a poor labourer, and he had half-a-dozen nice-looking children in his wretched one-roomed hut. The children, however, looked very well. These people seemed altogether a fair-spoken and quiet laborious population.
From the higher parts of the ground that I visited, I saw a high range of hills standing out very distinct to the north east. It seems as if the main Alleghanies come to a sudden end near this. We met many farmers with bullock- waggons coming down from the upper country. They do not grow cotton there, and scarcely ever had any negroes. They grow better corn and wheat than in the lower land, and much better apples ; and would get on well enough if it were not for the United States whisky-blockade, of which they much complain, as interfering with their industry in that article.
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In the lower grounds I came upon a few negro farmers, but they were only renters ; none of them owned land. One man had got some uncleared woodland on a three years' lease, the arrangement being that he should pay nothing for that time, but after that should pay a rent. There is much good timber in all this country. It is a limestone country about here, but the hills above are sandstone. Mr. P— - thinks that the small farmers make a living without working so hard for it as the English labourer. Even during the civil war, though cut off from all external commerce, they got on pretty well, raising their own necessaries, and being independent of all outside. They themselves admit that the smaller farmers still get on well enough, so far as living is concerned. They raise enough for themselves, and their women weave their clothes ; they have few wants beyond these.
People here complain that the pretended free-schools are a farce. They are very poor schools, and not enough of them. In any case, the parents are obliged to pay at least half of the cost. I asked if the preachers came expensive, and was told that some take a salary, some do not. One Baptist minister runs a fine farm and preaches for nothing.
After completing a very pleasant visit to Mr. P 's
farm, I started in the morning to go on to Dalton, in the north-west part of Georgia, towards Tennessee, where the watershed changes towards the Mississippi. I saw much timber-trade going on upon the rivers and the railways. There were some very fine walnut logs, much white oak, and also pine and other wood. It is feared that the good timber near the railway will soon be exhausted, but there is plenty of it a little farther off. There are no signs of anything like a mountain pass ; the road runs through an easy country. There is, in fact, a great gap between the hills.
At Dalton I had a beautiful day, and utilised it by taking a long walk into the country, where I saw much of the southern white people, visiting a good many of their farms. I also came across some blacks. The whites seemed to be a pleasant-looking people, though they had still the appearance of being poor. Most of them own land, but some
GEORGIA. 395
rent, and some go out as labourers. A few of them hire one or two blacks as labourers. They say the blacks are not so- good workers as the whites, and they will only take them at cheaper rates. These blacks work very well when they are sharply looked after, but they will waste time whenever they get the chance. I looked over the log-cabin of a small white farmer, and it was about the lowest thing of the kind I have seen. On account of the want of water-power and the scarcity of saw-mills, most of the cabins here are built of very rough logs, and very imperfectly boarded within. This one had no window, but very many casual openings in the wall, and even in the roof. It consisted of one room, with a light shed attached to it behind, which was used for cook ing, etc. The farmer was away, but I found his wife, a very nice-looking young woman, with a baby and a boy of twelve, an orphan whom they seem to have adopted. He could read print, he said, but not write. The woman did not seem to realise that the house was particularly bad. Her husband is only a renter, but he built this hut himself two years ago. She had a loom, and was weaving. She says she makes her husband's and her own every-day clothes, but they have to buy Sunday clothes and some other things. There was also a spinning-wheel, as is generally the case here. She says she spins some thread when it is wanted, but they buy most of the thread. I was inclined to pity her primitive inno cence and ignorance, and tried to draw her out by asking her questions on subjects in respect to which I was not very much at home. At last she burst out with a smile, ' Whoy, it seem that you do'ant know nothink.' I felt that she had the best of it on her own subjects.
Within reach of the railway there are a good many blacks, but I understand that the few there were in the higher parts of the country have left it. I talked to an old black man who occupied one of a cluster of very poor huts. He said that his former mistress had given some of her ex- slaves five acres each of woodland, to clear and hold rent-free for life. It certainly seems that, in these older States at any rate, the relations between the former masters and the blacks
396 MY JOURNAL.
are often not unkindly, and the masters sometimes do things of this kind. My old friend says he got on well enough when he could work, but now he is past work, and seems rather doubtful of the advantages of freedom. However, he and the others seem to form a sort of little community in the woods. The able-bodied men cultivate, the women raise chickens and take in washing ; and one way and another they manage to get along. On the road I met a very intel ligent and plucky-looking black bringing in his produce to market in his waggon — principally peas. His family were with him. He has two mules, and seems well-to-do. He rents land on a four years' clearing lease, and when that is up he hopes to buy land for himself. 'Don't you think that is best ? ' he says. These blacks seem to talk and put questions in a more simple way than the whites. This man says he found the main fences, but himself put up his house and the cross fences. He will get no compensation for his improve ments when he goes ; he must leave all those behind. This is, perhaps, the reason why the huts are so bad. His sons are growing up and marrying, and have farms of their own. He himself has re-married with a widow with four children. As he pleasantly remarks, his sons are going off into the world, and he must have some one to work for.
In the afternoon I went up a hill to see the country. There is evidently a complete break in the hills here. A flat tract stretches over into the valley of the Tennessee River. The Alleghanies proper terminate to the east, but a fresh set of hills, not so high, commence again on the west, and one of them is ' look-out mountain ' over Chattanooga, where the famous battle was fought. The hilly ridge, I understand, runs westward, through Northern Alabama.
At Dalton I saw a party of very tidy, well-set-up-looking blacks playing base-ball, in a very vigorous way, with one or two whites mixed with them. The bowler, at any rate, was, to all appearance, a white man, as were several of those sitting and looking on. Altogether at this place I thought I saw more of fraternisation between blacks and whites than in most places.
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Chattanooga is not far off in Tennessee. I got a Chatta nooga paper, and have been reading it with reference to Tennessee politics. It seems that in Chattanooga the Repub licans have a majority, but the town politics appear more to depend upon local and personal questions. At Memphis it seems that an Independent was elected district attorney. He has appointed a coloured man as his deputy. This has created a great sensation, and the orthodox Democrats point to it as showing that the Independents are nothing but traitors in disguise. Altogether I gather that Tennessee is a country in which there is a considerable mixture of parties, It is by no means wholly Democratic and anti-black. East Tennessee, in fact, is a white man's country.
Dalton is quite a country place, but there are neverthe less one or two very tolerable hotels, at one of which I was very well treated, and had good food. The ' vin du pays' of this country seems to be buttermilk ; everyone drinks it at meals.
THE RETURN JOURNEY.
I had hoped, if possible, to get as far as New Orleans, and thence back by the valley of the Mississippi, but the outburst of yellow fever this year has been unprecedently severe, and on account of the lateness of the frosts it continued far beyond expectation. The country is scarcely yet free from it, and the places which have suffered from it are quite dis organised. Even Chattanooga, near this, has suffered very greatly, and things have not yet returned to their usual con dition. I had therefore given up the idea of making that tour, and resolved to use the rest of my time to dip into Tennessee and West Virginia, and spend a few days in Wash ington, Philadelphia, and New York. Here, however, I saw in the papers that Parliament was summoned for the discus sion of subjects interesting to me, and finding that the train in which I had taken my passage to Knoxville, in Upper Tennessee, was going on to Washington, I took a sleeping- berth, and continued my journey. This line runs on the western slope of the Alleghanies. From the glimpses I got in the night I saw no signs of a mountainous region. At dawn.
398 MY JOURNAL.
we had entered Virginia, but we were in a projecting angle of the State west of the watershed, and geographically a part of the Kentucky country which it adjoins. Here I at once saw we were in a great grazing country. The land was un dulating and to some degree hilly, fenced off into large grass parks. The grass at this season is short, but seems close natural grass. Some of the higher parts looked like good sheep walks, and there were a good many sheep, but many more cattle, which at this time of the year were principally in the lower pastures ; I saw many herds of large fine well-bred looking cattle, shorthorns and the like ; also many good horses. There was a good deal of wood in parts, but most of the grass land was clean and free from stumps or weeds. There was a hard frost this morning, and a little snow on the higher parts of the road, but the weather was bright and clear and became warmer in the middle of the day. Some corn is grown in this country, but it is mostly in grass. The same style of country continued as we ran on, passing over several ridges and crossing several streams, but we came to nothing very precipitous or difficult all the way to the highest point crossing the Alleghanies. We then passed through a valley skirted by high hills down to the Virginia 'Pied mont ' country, as it is called, on the eastern slope of the range. There seemed to be a decided change as soon as we crossed the watershed — redder soil, much more cultiva tion of wheat and corn, less pasture — and what there is seems to be more made up of artificial grass. We kept on through the Piedmont country pretty near the hills, and much accented, and so continued till dark. In the even ing the country seemed to be getting flatter. The hills are a good deal cleared in parts, but there is still a great deal of wood upon them. There were some good grazing grounds, and a good many cattle and horses on this eastern slope, but it is not so much a grazing country as that to the west. This country looks at the worst now, the grass being brown, the trees without leaves, and the fields ploughed up, but I dare say in the spring it merits the encomiums which the Virgin ians are in the habit of bestowing upon it. Throughout the
THE RETURN JOURNEY. 399
route to-day the houses of the white inhabitants seemed better than those I had previously seen. They gave one the idea of pretty well-to-do farmers, and there were a good many houses which seemed quite up to the pretensions of small squireens, or gentleman-farmers. All along the route I noticed more blacks than I had expected to see in this higher country. Probably the vicinity of the railway accounts for that ; but even away from the railway stations there seemed to be a good many black families, living in huts as miserable as those I had seen farther South. Probably the blacks are mere labourers and dependents.
The eating at the stations where we stopped for meals seemed always very tolerable, and I noticed that in this country there is good fresh butter. I cannot understand why they cannot have it in the civilised North. Even at Wash ington in the best hotels and everywhere else they have nasty salt butter ; and at New York one or two people seem only recently to have made quite a discovery by making good fresh butter, which they can sell at a dollar a pound, for it is a rarity.
I slept at Washington, and spent most of the next day there. The weather was lovely, and the place bright and lively-looking. People are evidently beginning to assemble for the ensuing meeting of Congress, and one sees many smart, well-dressed women in the streets. The trees, however, have lost their leaves, which takes off from the beauty which I noticed in the place a few weeks ago.
I went to the Treasury, where they kindly gave me the official papers on the silver question. It seems clear that up to 1873 silver was a complete legal tender, and that anyone might bring silver to be coined and get silver certificates at
once. I went again to see my friend General E , of the
Educational Department, and met at his office a New Hamp shire member of Congress, who seemed shocked at the idea that I was going to take my Southern experiences as a spe cimen of the United States. He insists that the Northern States are very different. There, he says, the township system is in full force — that is, in New England — the people
400 MY JOURNAL.
at large frequently meet together in Township Assembly to vote for school and other arrangements, and to control the ex penditure. Certainly I feel I have still to do New England, if I live and have another opportunity of visiting the States.
I visited the Agricultural Department, and saw General
D , the head of it, who is very enthusiastic over his work,
though somehow there seem to be a good many scoffers about the Department. They have a capital collection of all sorts of produce, and are now making great efforts to introduce
useful plants and new products. General D hopes to
acclimatise the bamboo. He is trying the Japanese variety, which stands frost. There seems no doubt that the tea-plant thrives in the Southern States ; but people have not really learnt how to manufacture tea. The Liberian coffee is a variety of the coffee-plant, which, it seems, unlike the Arabian plant, will stand an ordinar}7 tropical climate, and bears well, even down to the level of the sea, within the tropics. It struck me that in India we ought to take advantage of the expe rience of the United States — for instance, to obtain improved varieties of Indian corn and other plants.
There was again a very good sunset to-day. Washington seems to have a specialty for sunsets.
In the evening I took passage in the sleeping-cars for New York. The Pullman was a good deal crowded, and a crowded Pullman is decidedly not comfortable. I met a great traveller who had spent twenty-eight nights in the cars during the last six weeks, and he confirms what I had sus pected, that under such circumstances as we had this night it is a mistake to secure a lower berth. The upper berths, for those who can climb up, are much more airy and comfortable. This gentleman is a resident of the city of Mexico, which, he says, is a place of 250,000 inhabitants, and quite civilised.
We reached New York in the morning. I again went to the Windsor. There are now a great many winter residents there, but the place is quite quiet. The weather in New York is not yet good winter weather. They have had it unusually warm for the season, and it is now raw and rainy.
I called on Mr. P , a gentleman to whom I owe much
THE RETURN JOURNEY. 401
kindness, and went with him to the business part of the city — ' down town,' as they call it. Here I had some talk with several good financial authorities on American railways. Their tone about them is generally unfavourable — the moral of the very safe men is that no shares are safe. They say that the capital value of the lines is generally in the books at a much higher figure than that at which they could now be made, and that the only safe things are the first bonds of the very best lines. These lines, they say, are at least worth the amount of the first bonds. According to them if the shares of a railway are above par then you may with tolerable pru dence buy the first bonds, and that is all. The bonds are liable to be paid off after a certain time, but some of them run for as long as thirty years, and, as they say, that is much farther than anyone looks forward in this country.
In the evening I dined with Mr. 0 , and met Gene ral B a name well known in the war. He is a New
Englander, from Rhode Island. He says that though, no doubt, as I had before been told, land in New England had fallen much in value, and some of it had gone out of culti vation, there has been quite recently considerable signs of improvement in New England farming prospects, and a rise again in the value of the land, in consequence of many people who have been driven from commerce in the bad times having come back to the land. He, too, says that many Irish have bought land in New England, and they do not do badly. He gives the same account as I had heard before of the good working of the New England township system. He says there are not usually any commons, only village greens ; but he knows some instances of considerable common pastures which were originally reserved. One or two still remain ; others have been divided up or sold by a vote of the town ship. It seems clear that in America commons are quite exceptional, and not the habit of the country.
The people whom I meet here dwell much on the effect of the Southern election practices, and the attempt to make a solid South, in producing a solid North on the other side of the question.
D D
402 MY JOURNAL.
Mr. 0 , who has had much experience of the States
on the Mississippi, gives an account of them which tallies pretty well with what I had already learned. He says the relations between the whites and blacks are ordinarily good enough, and they would get on sufficiently well together if it were not for political difficulties, which" in Mississippi and Louisiana are considerable. The blacks make capital la bourers. His experience is that on Southern railways he gets more work done for sixty cents than for a dollar in the North. He has had much railway experience in several States in which he has had occasion to get Bills passed and various measures sanctioned. I asked him about the honesty of the local Legislatures. He says some new States have been rather bad, but that for some years in the States through which his lines passed they have not been approached for money. The effect of the provision in the Illinois Consti tution against special legislation in favour of corporations has really been considerable. The law is carried out in prac tice. People who want privileges can only get them under the general laws applicable to all. I have not yet looked up the particulars as to the way in which these things are managed in Illinois and other States ; but in Georgia, where they have a provision of the same kind, I understand that the general laws for the granting of charters and the like having been passed, people who want them apply to the Courts which adjudicate the question. Mr. 0— - says there is still more planting on a large scale in Mississippi and the adjoining countries than in the Atlantic States, and he instances people who, he says, are there doing well, cultivating on a large scale with hired negro labour. The lands near the river in Missis sippi are very fertile and good, and there is a large popu lation ; but in the central part of the State, where the railways run, the land is inferior, and the population scat tered. In Louisiana the good sugar-cane lands are in the extreme south, and outside of the swamp and forest belt — apparently in a tract corresponding in situation to the Sea Islands of the Atlantic coast. Mr. 0 is very enthusi astic, and determined to make the railway connecting North
THE RETURN JOURNEY. 403
and South, in the Valley of the Mississippi, pa}7. He has great faith in the necessity of a North and South traffic. Food-stuffs must necessarily come from North to South, and sugar, fruit, and other things, from South to North. Below Cairo the traffic is principally by river, but then it is an enormous traffic ; they would be content if they got one- tenth of it on the railway.
The next day I visited some of the sights of New York
with Mr. 0 . "We went to the ' Fulton' market, one of
the principal markets in New York, where the supply of game, poultry, &c., for ' Thanksgiving Day,' which is to come off to-morrow, is enormous, and the variety exceedingly great. The c Thanksgiving Day ' was a New England insti tution, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. It gradually extended to the neighbouring States, and to those of the North- West ; and after the war President Lincoln made it a national holiday, though I daresay the Southerners heartily wish that the Pilgrim Fathers had gone to the bot tom of the sea before they ever landed at all. However, now 6 Thanksgiving Day ' seems to be the great family feast of the year. In the market there was a very great quantity of American game. Wild turkeys are quite common, and im mense, large, fine birds they are. The quail (whether they are quail or partridge) are in immense profusion. I also found in this market English pheasants, grouse, and hares, imported from Europe. They also import here the common white European grapes which we see on our fruit-stalls. We lunched at a famous restaurant in the market. Ladies fre quently go there alone. That is not contrary to custom here. A dish of rabbit was specially recommended, and I tried the American rabbit. There is generally a prejudice against eating it. Most people of the higher class will not eat rab bit, though they eat squirrels. Rabbits, however, are for sale everywhere. I did not think my rabbit particularly good. It is not very like one of our own. The flesh seemed to be darker and softer.
In the evening I dined with Mr. P , and met some
pleasant people. We had a good deal of talk about New
D D 2
404 MY JOURNAL.
York politics. Mr. Cooper, a man of the highest position and character, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making, is Mayor-elect of New York. It is a very great step in advance to have a man of his character in the place* He is a bright and clever man, of large independent means, and above all suspicion of jobbery and corruption. The tax ation of New York is certainly heavy. At present the tax for city and county purposes is two dollars and seventy cents upon capital value. The port charges are also heavy. Heavy taxation and charges do a great deal to drive trade to other ports. Real property is said to be fully assessed ; in fact, they say that since the shrinkage of values it is more than fully assessed. The heavy taxation is the cause of the high rents. Rents are higher here than in London, but then the owner pays the taxes, not the occupier. Personal pro perty is taxed ; nominally at any rate ; but I have not yet been able to get anything reliable regarding the assessment of personal property ; how it is really made and how far it is evaded. I understand a man is not required to make a re turn of his personal property unless he chooses. He is assessed at the amount at which he is estimated by the assessor, and if he objects he has to prove that the assessment is wrong. I gather that in truth a comparatively small amount of personal property is assessed in New York. I understand that practically a man with more houses or offices than one may elect where he will be taxed upon property which is not local. For instance, a man with a large property in foreign Funds might keep his securities in a place where taxation is light, and be taxed upon them there, supposing that in reality he is taxed upon them at all. It might, in fact, be economical to keep a country house for the deposit of his se curities. Perhaps, however, there is not much personal pro perty of this kind. United States bonds are exempt from taxation, and railways are taxed before the dividends are paid.
In New York politics it is the Catholic element which causes most of the difficulties — that is felt more in New York City than anywhere else. The bad pavement of the streets and
THE RETURN JOURNEY. 405
many other evils are attributed to the excessive corruption which has distinguished the Administration of the city. Here also there seem to be quite as many complaints against the prisons as with us. They say that many rogues spend most -of their lives in prison. The New York papers seem to be now very generally writing against the liquor laws of 1857, which were, in fact, imposed upon the city by the three million country people of the State, and are much more restrictive than the city people like. There is a Sunday-closing law, and an attempt to confine the sale of liquor to bond fide hotels with a certain number of beds, and so on. But in this respect the law is quite evaded- -two or three beds are set up in public-houses as a mere make-believe
I have not had time to see anything of New York winter society or of the fashionable people. I do not see so many signs of wealth as I had expected to see in this famous city, nor do I observe so many smart and elegantly dressed ladies in the streets as I had rather expected to find, after all one has heard of the dressy elegance of the American ladies. But then the weather is unfavourable, and perhaps American ladies are not so much given to walking as ours are. How ever, as New England remains to be seen another day, so also I hope to see something more of New York and Phila delphia, and the country parts of these States, if I return to America. Meantime, before I turned back I had completed the object for which I was so anxious— to see something of the relations between whites and blacks in the Southern States ; and having done that and completed a visit which I have much enjoyed, I am now content to conclude it, and to trust to the chance of seeing more another day.
In the morning I embarked early in the Republic, a steamer of the White Star line, not so large as the Ger manic, but still a fine vessel. While the steamer was hauling out for the start I was interviewed by a reporter of the ' New York Herald ' regarding Afghanistan. We soon got off and were fairly on the homeward voyage. There are few passengers at this season of the year, and scarcely one of these American. This is not the season when Americans visit Europe.
406 MY JOURNAL.
I have been talking with some gentlemen on board about the beef trade. It seems that, dead or living, it costs about a penny a pound to send beef to England. The live cattle are as yet almost all brought over on deck. They are nailed up in tight narrow pens, in which they stand and cannot lie down. They are said to gain flesh on board if the weather is good, but in bad weather they are sometimes almost all lost. They are knocked about, and it becomes necessary to throw them over. Vessels are now being constructed to carry cattle under cover. As regards dead meat they can carry about sixty tons of meat in a 300-ton chamber, specially fitted for the purpose. They bring over whole sides, hung up in the chamber — not the choice pieces only. They seal up this chamber and refrigerate it. On the return voyage the cham ber is opened and the space used for any other cargo.
On the voyage home the vessels go south of the New foundland Banks, running due east for the first thousand miles, after which they turn north-east. The first four days we had good weather, and we should have had it all the way at this season. It is commonly said that at this season of the year the voyage home is ' down hill ; ' but as ill luck would have it we had to encounter a strong easterly gale, which much retarded us, and caused the loss of a whole day. The voyage to Queens town occupied upwards of nine days.
407
STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
I HATE been looking over some of the past and present Constitutions of some of the States, as set forth in the 6 Charters and Constitutions of the United States,' by Poor, in two large volumes.
MASSACHUSETTS.
Under the original Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 there was to be complete religious toleration ; but all townships were bound to keep up Protestant ministers of religion. There was equality among Protestant sects ; for though every man was bound to pay a church-tax, he might pay to the minister of his own sect, if there were any in the township ; if not, then to the common minister. People were bound to attend church, and in some of the New England States church membership was necessary to the exercise of the franchise. The original franchise-law in Massachusetts required a property qualification of 3£. per annum. The c select men ' of towns and all representatives and officials were bound to make oath of belief in the Chris tian religion.
By an amendment passed in 1822 the suffrage was given to all adult males who have resided and paid taxes, and the oath of office was altered so as to exclude the declaration of religious belief.
In 1833 the obligation to support Protestant ministers was abolished, and henceforth every Christian sect was at liberty to elect their own ministers, and to do as they like.
By an amendment passed in 1857 the franchise is re stricted to those who can read in the English language and write their names, and that is the still existing rule.
The Constitution of Massachusetts has not been materially
408 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
changed since the war. All hereditary privileges are for bidden. Liberty of the press, the free right of all citizens to the possession of arms, and the free right of assembly are guaranteed. The Legislature consists of a Senate of 40, and a House of Kepresentatives of 240 members, both elected by the people. The Governor has a veto, unless overruled by a two- thirds vote in each House. Office-holders are not allowed to sit in the Legislature. The Executive power is vested in an elected Governor and an Executive Council of eight persons whose advice is necessary for the doing of certain things. Judges and other judicial officers are ap pointed by the Governor and Council. The Judges are to hold during good behaviour, unless it is otherwise prescribed by law. The Justices of the Peace are appointed for seven years, and are eligible for reappointment. The University of Harvard is established and endowed by the Constitution, and there is a general provision enjoining the encouragement of education. No moneys raised for education are to be given to any particular religious sect.
VIRGINIA.
Every edition of the Constitution of Virginia, including the last now in force, commences with the old recital of grievances on account of ' the detestable and insupportable tyranny ' of George III., who had sought to destroy the liberties of the people in many ways, and among others c by prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us — those very negroes whom by an inhuman use of his negative he had refused us per mission to exclude by law ; by endeavouring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages,' and so on.
Then comes the Bill of Rights, consisting of seventeen articles adopted in 1776 and five more added since the civil war. Most of the State Constitutions seem to retain the Bill of Rights, in a more or less modernised form, as a sort of inner kernel of the Constitution. Here is the present Vir-
VIRGINIA. 409
ginian Bill of Rights, which retains the old articles and language. The modern portions are printed in italics : —
BILL OF EIGHTS.
A Declaration of Rights, made by the Representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free Convention, which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.
1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity ; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
2. That this State shall ever remain a member of the United States of America, and that the people thereof are part of the American nation, and that all attempts, from whatever source or upon whatever pretext, to dissolve said Union or to sever said nation, are unauthorised, and ought to be resisted with the whole power of the State.
3. That the Constitution of the United States, and laws of Con gress passed in pursuance thereof, constitute the supreme law of the land, to which paramount allegiance and obedience are due
from every citizen, anything in the Constitution, ordinances, or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
4. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people ; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
5. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community ; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration ; and that when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such a manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
6. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community but in consideration of public services ; which, not being descendible,
410 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.
7. That the legislative, executive, and judicial powers should be separate and distinct; and that the members thereof may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burthens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all or any part of the former members to be again eligible or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.
8. That all elections ought to be free, and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented for the public good.
9. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights and not to be exercised.
10. That, in all capital or criminal prosecutions, a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be con fronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favour, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty ; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself ; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.
1 1 . That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
12. That general wan-ants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evi dence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.
13. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the trial by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred.
14. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic govern ments, and any citizen may speak, write, and publish his senti ments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
VIRGINIA. 411
15. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state ; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty, and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
16. That the people have a right to uniform government ; andr therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of, the Government of Virginia ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.
17. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
18. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can ba directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence ; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience ; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.
19. That neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as lawful imprisonment may constitute suc/i} shall exist within this State.
20. That all citizens of the State are hereby declared to possess equal civil and political rights and public privileges.
21. The rights enumerated in this Bill of Rights shall not be construed to limit other rights of the people not therein expressed.
The declaration of the political rights and privileges of the inhabitants of this State is hereby declared to be a part of the Con stitution of this Commomvealth, and shall not be violated on any pretence whatever.
Up to 1850 the franchise was confined to whites, with a property qualification. In 1850 the property qualification was given up, and all adult white males obtained the fran chise. By provisions added in the same year no emanci pated negroes were permitted to remain in the State ; or, if they did, they were liable to be again reduced to slavery. The Legislature was for ever forbidden to emancipate any slave, or the descendant of any slave ; and it was empowered
412 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
to restrict by law the power of individuals to emancipate slaves.
By the post- War Constitution, put in force in 1870, all disqualifications of negroes are swept away — the franchise is given to all classes, without any property or other qualifica tion. But there is in this and other Southern States a pro vision disqualifying all persons convicted of fighting a duel from voting or holding office ; besides the disqualification to vote of all persons convicted of felony or petit larceny. The Governor and Lieutenant- Governor are elected by the people for four years ; but the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Treasurer, and Auditor are elected by joint vote of the two Houses. The Senators and Delegates (members of the Lower House) are elected for four and two years respectively. The Legislature meets once in two years, and remains in session not more than ninety days, unless it is extended, by a three- fifths vote, for not more than thirty days longer. That is the utmost limit.
The Judges are elected by joint vote of the Houses of the Legislature for twelve, eight, and six years, according to the class of Judge. The county and city officers, i.e. Sheriff, Mayor, Attorney for the Commonwealth, County Clerk, County Treasurer, and so many County Commissioners of Re venue as may be provided by law, are elected by the people for four or six years ; and all city, town, and village officers not specially provided for are to be similarly elected. Coun ties are divided into magisterial districts, each of which is to have three justices of the peace, a constable, and an overseer of the poor, elected for two years. There is now a regular provision for education. Each magisterial district is divided into school districts. The Legislature is required to provide a uniform system of free public schools, to be complete by the year 1876, and is authorised to make such laws as shall not permit parents and guardians to allow their children to grow up in ignorance and vagrancy. There is to be a literary fund, made up of the proceeds of all forfeited or waste lands, a capitation tax, and an annual tax on all property, of not less than one, or more than five, mils, in the dollar (that is, on the capital value).
ILLINOIS. 413
The militia consists of all able-bodied men; but only volunteer corps are classed as 'active militia,' the rest as ' reserved militia.'
Taxation is to be equally imposed on all property, and a tax may be imposed on incomes in excess of $600, and on licenses for the sale of ardent spirits, theatrical and circus companies, menageries and other shows, itinerant pedlers, commission merchants, brokers, and on all other business which cannot be reached by the ad valorem system. All public charitable, religious, and educational property may be exempted from the property-tax.
A curious instance of the way in which minor matters are sometimes mixed up with greater ones in these Consti tutions is a provision that no tax shall be imposed on any citizen for the privilege of taking oysters, but the sale of oysters may be taxed.
No debt shall be incurred by the State except to meet casual deficits, to redeem previous liabilities, to repress in surrection, or to defend the State in time of war (rather wide and elastic provisions) ; and every debt incurred must be accompanied by provision for a sinking fund.
Payment of debts incurred by the usurping authorities- during the war is strictly forbidden. The credit of the State- is not to be granted to any person or corporation. The State is not to subscribe to any company, nor to be a party to any work of internal improvement, nor to engage in carry ing on any such work.
The homestead privilege extends to the value of $2,OOQ of real or personal property, but this shall not interfere with sale of the property in virtue of a mortgage. The Legis lature is to pass laws regarding the setting apart and holding homesteads in future.
ILLINOIS.
The Constitution of Illinois is supposed to be a model of modern wisdom. Some distinguished Englishmen have, I believe, taken part in moulding it to its present shape, and much philosophy and learning have been bestowed on it.
414 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
Under the original Constitution of 1818 every adult white male had the suffrage, but blacks were excluded both from the suffrage and from the militia.
Under the amended Constitution of 1848 the Legislature was authorised to make laws to prohibit persons of colour from immigrating into the State.
It was not till 1870 that all colour distinctions were abolished.
By the original Constitution, sect. 16 of every township (that is, one mile square) was set apart for education, and a whole township was granted for the support of a seminary of higher learning. The United States also agreed to set apart for education 5 per cent, of the price of all public lands sold within the limits of the State.
The present Constitution is that of 1870. It is rather long, but I append all the essential parts of it, omitting only those which are not of general interest and importance. It may, I think, be of interest to my readers to see the most improved form of an American State Constitution. It com mences with a Bill of Rights, laying down general principles in a modernised form ; but as in their general effect these are not radically different from the Virginian Bill of Rights, which I have already given, I omit this part of the Illinois Constitution. For the rest I leave it to speak for itself: —
CONSTITUTION OF 1870.
Adopted in Convention May 13, 1870; ratified by the people July 2, 1870; in force August 8, 1870.
PREAMBLE. — We, the people of the State of Illinois — grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political, and religions liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a bless ing upon our endeavours to secure and transmit the same unim paired to succeeding generations — in order to form a more perfect government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the State of Illinois.
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ARTICLE III.
DISTRIBUTION OF POWERS.
The powers of the government of this state are divided into three distinct departments — the legislative, executive, and judicial ; and no person, or collection of persons, being one of these depart ments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except as hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.
ARTICLE IV.
LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT.
§ 1. The legislative power shall be vested in a general assembly, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives, both to be elected by the people.
ELECTION.
§ 2. An election for members of the general assembly shall be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in the year of our Lord 1870, and every two years thereafter, in each county, at such places therein as may be provided by law. When vacancies occur in either house, the governor, or person exercising the powers of governor, shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
ELIGIBILITY.
§ 3. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, or a representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-one years. No person shall be a senator or a representative who shall not be a citizen of the United States, and who shall not have been for five years a resident of this state, and for two years next preceding his election a resident within the territory forming the district from which he is elected. No judge or clerk of any court, secretary of state, attorney general, state's attorney, recorder, sheriff, or collector of public revenue, member of either house of congress, or person holding any lucrative office under the United States or this state, or any foreign government, shall have a seat in the general assembly : Provided, that appoint ments in the militia, and the offices of notary public and justice of the peace, shall not be considered lucrative. Nor shall any person,
416 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
holding any office of honour or profit under any foreign govern ment, or under the government of the United States (except post masters whose annual compensation does not exceed the sum of $300), hold any office of honour or profit under the authority of this state.
§ 4. No person who has been, or hereafter shall be, convicted of bribery, perjury, or other infamous crime, nor any person who has been or may be a collector or holder of public moneys, who- shall not have accounted for and paid over, according to law, all such moneys due from him, shall be eligible to the general assembly, or to any office of profit or trust in this state.
APPORTIONMENT — SENATORIAL.
§ 6. The general assembly shall apportion the state every ten years, beginning with the year 1871, by dividing the population of the state, as ascertained by the federal census, by the number 51, and the quotient shall be the ratio of representation in the senate. The state shall be divided into 51 senatorial districts, each of which shall elect one senator, whose term of office shall be four years. The senators elected in the year of our Lord 1872, in districts bearing odd numbers, shall vacate their offices at the end of two years, and those elected in districts bearing even numbers, at the end of four years ; and vacancies occurring by the expiration of term, shall be filled by the election of senators for the full term. Senatorial districts shall be formed of contiguous and compact territory, bounded by county lines, and contain, as nearly as practicable, an equal number of inhabitants ; but no district shall contain less than four-fifths of the senatorial ratio. Counties con taining not less than the ratio and three-fourths, may be divided into separate districts, and shall be entitled to two senators, and to one additional senator for each number of inhabitants equal to the ratio contained by such counties in excess of twice the number of said ratio.
MINORITY REPRESENTATION.
§§7 and 8. The house of representatives shall consist of three times the number of the members of the senate, and the term of office shall be two years. Three representatives shall be elected in each senatorial district at the general election iri the year of our Lord 1872, and every two years thereafter. In all elections of representatives aforesaid, each qualified voter may cast as many votes for one candidate as there are representatives to be elected, or
ILLINOIS. 417
may distribute the same, or equal parts thereof, among the candi dates, as he shall see fit ; and the candidates highest in votes shall be declared elected.
TIME OF MEETING AND GENERAL RULES.
§ 9. The sessions of the general assembly shall commence at twelve o'clock noon, on the Wednesday next after the first Monday in January, in the year next ensuing the election of members thereof, and at no other time, unless as provided by this constitution. A majority of the members elected to each house shall constitute a quorum. Each house shall determine the rules of its proceedings, and be the judge of the election returns and qualifications of its members ; shall choose its own officers ; and the senate shall choose a temporary president to preside when the lieutenant-governor shall not attend as president or shall act as governor. The secretary of state shall call the house of repre sentatives to order at the opening of each new assembly, and preside over it until a temporary presiding officer thereof shall have been chosen and shall have taken his seat. No member shall be expelled by either house except by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to that house, and no member shall be twice expelled for the same offence. Each house may punish, by imprisonment, any person not a member, who shall be guilty of disrespect to the house by disorderly or contemptuous behaviour in its presence. But no such imprisonment shall extend beyond twenty-four hours at one time, unless the person shall persist in such disorderly or contemp tuous behaviour.
§ 10. The doors of each house, and of committees of the whole, shall be kept open, except in such cases as, in the opinion of the house, require secrecy. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than two days, or to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, which shall be published. In the senate at the request of two members, and in the house at the request of five members, the yeas and nays shall be taken on any question, and entered upon the journal. Any two members of either house shall have liberty to dissent from and protest, in respectful language, against any act or resolution which they think injurious to the public or to any individual, and have the reasons of their dissent entered upon the journals.
E E
418 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
STYLE OF LAWS AND PASSAGE OF BILLS.
§ 11. The style of the laws of this state shall be: " Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly."
§ 12. Bills may originate in either house, but may be altered, amended or rejected by the other ; and on the final passage of all bills, the vote shall be by yeas and nays, upon each bill separately, and shall be entered upon the journal; and no bill shall become a law without the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each house.
§ 13. Every bill shall be read at large on three different days, in each house ; and the bill and all amendments thereto shall be printed before the vote is taken on its final passage ; and every bill, having passed both houses, shall be signed by the speakers thereof. No act hereafter passed shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be so ex pressed ; and no law shall be revived or amended by reference to its title only, but the law revived, or the section amended, shall be inserted at length in the new act. And no act of the general assembly shall take effect until the first day of July next after its passage, unless, in case of emergency (which emergency shall be expressed in the preamble or body of the act), the general assembly shall, by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, otherwise direct.
DISABILITIES.
§ 15. No person elected to the general assembly shall receive any civil appointment within this state from the governor, the governor and senate, or from the general assembly, during the term for which he shall have been elected ; and all such appoint ments, and all votes given for any such members for any such office or appointment, shall be void ; nor shall any member of the general assembly be interested, either directly or indirectly, in any contract with the state, or any county thereof, authorised by any law passed during the term for which he shall have been elected, or within one year after the expiration thereof.
rUBLIC MONEYS AND APPKOPKIATIONS.
§ 16. The general assembly shall make no appropriation of money out of the treasury in any private law. Bills making appro-
ILLINOIS. 419
priations for the pay of members and officers of the general assembly, and for the salaries of the officers of the government, shall contain no provision on any other subject.
§ 17. No money shall be drawn from the treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law, and on the presenta tion of a warrant issued by the auditor thereon ; and no money shall be diverted from any appropriation made for any purpose, or taken from any fund whatever, either by joint or separate resolu tion. The auditor shall, within sixty days after the adjournment of each session of the general assembly, prepare and publish a full statement of all money expended at such session, specifying the amount of each item, and to whom and for what paid.
§ 18. Each general assembly shall provide for all the appropria tions necessary for the ordinary and contingent expenses of the government until the expiration of the first fiscal quarter after the adjournment of the next regular session, the aggregate amount of which shall not be increased without a vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house, nor exceed the amount of revenue authorised by law to be raised in such time ; and all appropria tions, general or special, requiring money to be paid out of the state treasury, from funds belonging to the state, shall end with such fiscal quarter : Provided, the state may, to meet casual deficits or failures in revenues, contract debts, never to exceed in the aggre gate $250,000 ; and moneys thus borrowed shall be applied to the purpose for which they were obtained, or to pay the debt thus created, and to no other purpose ; and no other debt, except for the purpose of repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, or defending the state in war (for payment of which the faith of the state shall be pledged), shall be contracted, unless the law authoris ing the same shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people, and have received a majority of the votes cast for mem bers of the general assembly at such election. The general assembly shall provide for the publication of said law for three months at' least before the vote of the people shall be taken upon the same ; and provision shall be made, at the time, for the payment of the interest annually, as it shall accrue, by a tax levied for the purpose or from other sources of revenue ; which law, providing for the payment of such interest, by such tax, shall be irrepealable until such debt be paid : And, provided, further, that the law levying the tax shall be submitted to the people with the law authorising the debt to be contracted.
§ 19. The general assembly shall never grant or authorise
420 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
extra compensation, fee or allowance to any public officer, agent, servant or contractor, after service has been rendered or a contract made, nor authorise the payment of any claim, or part thereof, hereafter created against the state under any agreement or contract made without express authority of law ; and all such unauthorised agreements or contracts shall be null and void : Provided, the general assembly may make appropriations for expenditures in curred in suppressing insurrection or repelling invasion.
§ 20. The state shall never pay, assume or become responsible for the debts or liabilities of, or in any manner give, loan, or ex tend its credit to or in aid of any public or other corporation, association, or individual.
PAY OF MEMBERS.
§ 21. The members of the general assembly shall receive for their services the sum of $5 per day, during the first session held under this constitution, and 10 cents for each mile necessarily travelled in going to and returning from the seat of government, to be computed by the auditor of public accounts ; and thereafter such compensation as shall be prescribed by law, and no other allowance or emolument, directly or indirectly, for any purpose whatever, except the sum of $50 per session to each member, which shall be in full for postage, stationery, newspapers and all other incidental expenses and perquisites; but no change shall be made in the compensation of members of the general assembly during the term for which they may have been elected. The pay and mileage allowed to each member of the general assembly shall be certified by the speaker of their respective houses, and entered on the journals and published at the close of each session.
SPECIAL LEGISLATION PROHIBITED.
§ 22. The general assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say : for —
Granting divorces ;
Changing the names of persons or places ;
Laying out, opening, altering and working roads or highways ;
Vacating roads, town plats, streets, alleys and public grounds ;
Locating or changing county seats ;
Regulating county and township affairs ;
Regulating the practice in courts of justice;
Regulating the jurisdiction and duties of justices of the peace, police magistrates and constables ;
ILLINOIS. 421
Providing for changes of venue in civil and criminal cases ;
Incorporating cities, towns or villages, or changing or amend ing the charter of any town, city or village ;
Providing for the election of members of the board of super visors in townships, incorporated towns or cities ;
Summoning and impanelling grand or petit j uries ;
Providing for the management of common schools ;
Regulating the rate of interest on money ;
The opening and conducting of any election, or designating the place of voting ;
The sale or mortgage of real estate belonging to minors or others under disability ;
The protection of game or fish ;
Chartering or licensing ferries or toll bridges ;
Remitting fines, penalties or forfeitures ;
Creating, increasing or decreasing fees, percentage or allowances of public officers, during the term for which said officers are elected or appointed ;
Changing the law of descent ;
Granting to any corporation, association or individual the right to lay down railroad tracks, or amending existing charters for such purpose ;
Granting to any corporation, association or individual any spe cial or exclusive privilege, immunity or franchise whatever.
In all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.
§ 23. The general assembly shall have no power to release or extinguish, in whole or in part, the indebtedness, liability or obligation of any corporation or individual to this state or to any municipal corporation therein.
IMPEACHMENT.
§ 24. The house of representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment ; but a majority of all the members elected must concur therein. All impeachments shall be tried by the senate ; and when sitting for that purpose, the senators shall be upon oath, or affirmation, to do justice according to law and evidence. When the governor of the state is tried, the chief justice shall preside. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators elected. But judgment, in such cases, shall not extend further than removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honour, profit or trust under the government j)f
422 STATE -CONSTITUTIONS.
this state. The party, whether convicted or acquitted, shall, nevertheless, be liable to prosecution, trial, judgment and punish
ment according to law.
MISCELLANEOUS.
§ 26. The state of Illinois shall never be made defendant in any court of law or equity.
§ 27. The general assembly shall have no power to authorise lotteries or gift enterprises for any purpose, and shall pass laws to prohibit the sale of lottery or gift enterprise tickets in this state.
§ 28. No law shall be passed which shall operate to extend the term of any public officer after his election or appointment.
§ 29. It shall be the duty of the general assembly to pass such laws as may be necessary for the protection of operative miners, by providing for ventilation, when the same may be required, and the construction of escapement-shafts, or such other appliances as may secure safety in all coal mines, and to provide for the enforcement of said laws by such penalties and punishments as may be deemed proper.
§ 30. The general assembly may provide for establishing and opening roads and cartways, connected with a public road, for pri vate and public use.
§ 31. The general assembly may pass laws permitting the owners or occupants of lands to construct drains and ditches, for agricultural and sanitary purposes, across the lands of others.
§ 32. The general assembly shall pass liberal homestead and exemption laws.
ARTICLE V.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.
§ 1. The executive department shall consist of a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, and attorney-general, who shall, each, with the exception of the treasurer, hold his office for the term of four years from the second Monday of January next after his election, and until his successor is elected and quali fied. They shall, except the lieutenant-governor, reside at the seat of government during their term of office, and keep the public records, books and papers there, and shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by law.
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n
§ 2. The treasurer shall hold his office for the term of two years, and until his successor is elected and qualified, and shall be ineligible to said office for two years next after the end of the term for which he was elected. He may be required by the governor to give reasonable additional security, and in default of so doing his office shall be deemed vacant.
ELECTION.
§ 3. An election for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, and attorney-general, shall be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday of November, in the year of our Lord 1872, and every four years thereafter; for superintendent of public instruction, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday of November, in the year 1870, and every four years thereafter ; and for treasurer on the day last above mentioned, and every two years thereafter, at such places and in such manner as may be prescribed by law.
ELIGIBILITY.
§ 5. No person shall be eligible to the office of governor, or lieutenant-governor, who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and been, for five years next preceding his election, a citizen of the United States and of this state. Neither the governor, lieutenant-gOA^ernor, auditor of public accounts, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction nor attorney-general shall be eligible to any other office during the period for which he shall have been elected.
GOVERNOR.
§ 6. The supreme executive power shall be vested in the governor, who shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
§ 7. The governor, shall, at the commencement of each session, and at the close of his term of office, give to the general assembly information, by message, of the condition of the state, and shall recommend such measures as he shall deem expedient. He shall account to the general assembly, and accompany his message with a statement of all moneys received and paid out by him from any funds subject to his order, with vouchers, and at the commence ment of each regular session, present estimates of the amount of money required to be raised by taxation for all purposes.
§ 8. The governor may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the general assembly, by proclamation, stating therein the purpose
424 STAT3 CONSTITUTIONS.
for which they are convened ; and the general assembly shall enter upon no business except that for which they were called together.
§ 9. In case of a disagreement between the two houses, with respect to the time of adjournment, the governor may, on the same being certified to him, by the house first moving the adjournment, adjourn the general assembly to such time as he thinks proper, not beyond the first day of the next regular session.
§ 10. The governor shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate (a majority of all the senators selected concurring, by yeas and nays), appoint all officers whose offices are established by this constitution, or which may be created by law, and whose appointment or election is not otherwise pro vided for ; and no such officer shall be appointed or elected by the general assembly.
§ 11. In case of a vacancy, during the recess of the senate, in any office which is not elective, the governor shall make a tem porary appointment until the next meeting of the senate, when he shall nominate some person to fill such office ; and any person so nominated, who is confirmed by the senate (a majority of all the senators elected concurring by yeas and nays), shall hold his office during the remainder of the term, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified. No person, after being rejected by the senate, shall be again nominated for the same office at the same session, unless at the request of the senate, or be appointed to the same office during the recess of the general assembly.
§ 12. The governor shall have power to remove any officer whom he may appoint, in case of incompetency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office ; and he may declare his. office vacant, and fill the same as is herein provided in other cas^s of vacancy.
§ 13. The governor shall have power to grant reprieves, com mutations and pardons, after conviction, for all offences, subject to such regulations as may ba provided by law relative to the manner of applying therefor.
§ 14. The governor shall be Commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the state (except when they shall be called into the service of the United States), and may call out tiie same to execute the laws, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion.
§ 15. The governor, and all civil officers of this state, shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanour in office.
YETO.
§ 16. Every bill passed by the general assembly shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the governor. If he approve, he
ILLINOIS. 425
shall sign it, and thereupon it shall become a law ; but if he do not approve, he shall return it, with his objections, to the house in which it shall have originated, which house shall enter the ob jections at large upon its journal, and proceed to reconsider the bill. If, then, two-thirds of the members elected agree to pass the same, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two- thirds of the members elected to that house, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the objections of the governor. But in all such cases the vote of each house shall be determined by yeas and nays, to be entered on the journal. Any bill which shall not be returned by the governor within ten da.ys (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, shall become a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the general assembly shall, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall be filed, with his objections, in the office of the secretary of state, within ten days after such adjournment, or become a law.
LIEUTENANT-GOYERNOR.
§ 18. The lieutenant-governor shall be president of the senate, and shall vote only when the senate is equally divided. The senate shall choose a president, pro tempore, to preside in case of the absence or impeachment of the lieutenant-governor, or when he shall hold the office of governor.
OTHER STATE OFFICERS.
§ 20. An account shall be kept by the officers of the executive department, and of all the public institutions of the state, of all moneys received or disbursed by them, severally, from all sources, and for every service performed, and a semi-annual report thereof be made to the governor, under oath ; and any officer who makes a false report shall be guilty of perjury, and punished accordingly.
§ 21. The officers of the executive department, and of all the public institutions of the state, shall, at least ten days preceding each regular session of the general assembly, severally report to the governor, who shall transmit such reports to the general assembly, together with the reports of the judges of the supreme court of the defects in the constitution and laws • and the governor may at any time require information in writing, under oath, from the officers of the executive department, and all officers and managers of state in stitutions, upon any subject relating to the condition, management and expenses of their respective offices.
426 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
FEES AND SALARIES.
§ 23. The officers named in this article shall receive for their services a salary to be established by law, which shall not be in creased or diminished during their official terms, and they shall not, after the expiration of the terms of those in office at the adoption of this constitution, receive to their own use any fees, costs, per quisites of office, or other compensation. And all fees that may hereafter be payable by law for any service performed by any officer provided for in this article of the constitution, shall be paid in ad vance into the stat3 treasury.
ARTICLE VI.
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.
§ 1. The judicial powers, except as in this article is otherwise provided, shall be vested in one supreme court, circuit courts, county courts, justices of the peace, police magistrates, and in such courts as may be created by law in and for cities and incorporated towns.
SUPREME COURT.
§ 2. The supreme court shall consist of seven judges, and shall have original jurisdiction in cases relating to the revenue, in man damus and habeas corpus, and appellate jurisdiction in all other cases. One of said judges shall be chief justice ; four shall con stitute a quorum, and the concurrence of four shall be necessary to every decision.
§ 3. No person shall be eligible to the office of judge of the supreme court unless he shall be at least thirty years of age, and a citizen of the United States, nor unless he shall have resided in this state five years next preceding his election, and be a resident of the district in which he shall be elected.
§ 6. At the time of voting on the adoption of this constitution, one judge of the supreme court shall be elected by the electors thereof, in each of said districts numbered two, three, six and seven, who shall hold his office for the term of nine years, from the first Monday of June, in the year of our Lord 1870.' The term of office of judges of the supreme court, elected after the adoption of this constitution, shall be nine years ; and on the first Monday of June of the year in which the term of any of the judges in office at
ILLINOIS. 427
the adoption of this constitution, or of the judges then elected, shall expire, and every nine years thereafter, there shall be an election for the successor or successors of such judges, in the respective dis tricts wherein the term of such judges shall expire. The chief justice shall continue to act as such until the expiration of the term for which he was elected, after which the judges shall choose one of their number chief justice.
§ 7. From and after the adoption of this constitution, the judges of (the supreme court shall each receive a salary of $4,000 per annum, payable quarterly, until otherwise provided by law. And after said salaries shall be fixed by law, the salaries of the judges in office shall not be increased or diminished during the terms for which said judges shall have been elected.
CIRCUIT COURTS.
§ 12. The circuit courts shall have original jurisdiction of all causes in law and equity, and such appellate jurisdiction as is or may be provided by law, and shall hold two or more terms each year in every county. The terms of office of judges of circuit courts shall be six years.
§ 14. The general assembly shall provide for the times of holding court in each county, which shall not be changed, except by the general assembly next preceding the general election for judges of said courts ; but additional terms may be provided for in any county. The election for judges of the circuit courts shall be held on the first Monday in June, in the year of our Lord 1873, and every six years thereafter.
§ 16. From and after the adoption of this constitution, judges of the circuit courts shall receive a salary of $3,000 per annum, payable quarterly, until otherwise provided by law. And after their salaries shall be fixed by law, they shall not be increased or diminished during the terms for which said judges shall be, respec tively, elected ; and from and after the adoption of this constitu tion, no judge of the supreme or circuit court shall receive any other compensation, perquisite or benefit, in any form whatsoever, nor perform any other than judicial duties to which may belong any emoluments.
§ 17. No person shall be eligible to the oflice of judge of the circuit or any inferior court, or to membership in the ' board of county commissioners,' unless he shall be at least twenty-five years of age, and a citizen of the United States, nor unless he shall have resided in this state five years next preceding his election, and be a
428 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
resident of the circuit, county, city, cities or incorporated town in which he shall be elected.
COUNTY COURTS.
§ 18. There shall be elected iii and for each county, one county judge and one clerk of the county court, whose terms of office shall be four years. But the general assembly may create districts of two or more contiguous counties, in each of which shall be elected one judge, who shall take the place of, and exercise the powers and jurisdiction of county judges in such districts. County courts shall be courts of record, and shall have original jurisdiction in all mat ters of probate, settlement of estates of deceased persons, appoint ment of guardians and conservators, and settlements of their accounts, in all matters relating to apprentices, and in proceedings for the collection of taxes and assessments, and such other jurisdic tion as may be provided for by general law.
§ 19. Appeals and writs of error shall be allowed from final determinations of county courts, as may be provided by law.
PROBATE COURTS.
§ 20. The general assembly may provide for the establishment of a probate court in each county having a population of over 50,000, and for the election of a judge thereof, whose term of office shall be the same as that of the county judge, and who shall be elected at the same time and in the same manner. Said courts, when established, shall have original jurisdiction of all probate matters, the settlement of estates of deceased persons, the appoint ment of guardians and conservators, and settlement of their accounts ; in all matters relating to apprentices, and in cases of the sales of real estate of deceased persons for the payment of debts.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE AND CONSTABLES.
§ 21. Justices of the peace, police magistrates, and constables shall be elected in and for such districts as are, or may be, pro vided by law, and the jurisdiction of such justices of the peace and police magistrates shall be uniform.
STATE'S ATTORNEYS.
§ 22. At the election for members of the general assembly in the year of our Lord 1872, and every four years 'thereafter, there shall be elected a state's attorney in and for each county, in lieu of the state's attorneys now provided by law, whose term of office shall be four years.
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GENERAL PROVISIONS.
§ 29. All judicial officers shall be commissioned by the governor. All laws relating to courts shall be general, and of uniform operation ; and the organisation, jurisdiction, powers, pro ceedings and practice of all courts, of the same class or grade, so far as regulated by law, and the force and effect of the process, judgments and decrees of such courts, severally, shall be uniform.
§ 30. The general assembly may, for cause entered on the journals, upon clue notice and opportunity of defence, remove from office any judge, upon concurrence of three-fourths of all the mem bers elected, of each house. All other officers in this article mentioned shall be removed from office on prosecution and final conviction for misdemeanour in office.
ARTICLE VII.
SUFFRAGE.
§ 1. Every person having resided in this state one year, in the county ninety days, and in the election district thirty days next preceding any election therein, who was an elector in this state on the first day of April, in the year of our Lord 1848, or obtained a certificate of naturalisation before any court of record in this state prior to the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 1870, or who shall be a male citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, shall ba entitled to vote at such election. § 2. A.ll votes shall be by ballot.
§ 3. Electors shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at elections, and in going to and returning from the same. And no elector shall "be obliged to do military duty on the days of election, except in time of war or public danger.
§ 4. No elector shall be deemed to have lost his residence in this state by reason of his absence on business of the United States, or of this state, or in the military or naval service of the United States.
§ 5. No soldier, seaman or marine in the army or navy of the United States shall be deemed a resident of this state in conse quence of being stationed therein.
§ 6. No person shall be elected or appointed to any office in this state, civil or military, who is not a citizen of the United
430 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
States, and who shall not have resided in this state one year next preceding the election or appointment.
§ 7. The general assembly shall pass laws excluding from the right of suffrage persons convicted of infamous crimes.
ARTICLE VIII.
EDUCATION.
§ 1. The general assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, whereby all children of this state may receive a good common school education.
§ 2. All lands, moneys, or other property, donated, granted or received for school, college, seminary or university purposes, and the proceeds thereof, shall be faithfully applied to the objects for which such gifts or grants were made.
§ 3. Neither the general assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, uni versity, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatever ; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the state or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose.
§ 4. No teacher, state, county, township or district school officer shall be interested in the sale, proceeds or profits of any book, apparatus or furniture used or to be used in any school in this state, with which such officer or teacher may be connected, under such penalties as may be provided by the general assembly.
§ 5. There may be a county superintendent of schools in each county, whose qualifications, powers, duties, compensation, and time and manner of election, and term of office, shall be prescribed by law.
ARTICLE IX.
REVENUE.
§ 1. The general assembly shall provide such revenue as may be needful by levying a tax, by valuation, so that every person and corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his, her or its property — such value to be ascertained by some person or per-
ILLINOIS. 431
sons, to be elected or appointed in such manner as the general assembly shall direct, and not otherwise ; but the general assembly shall have power to tax pedlers, auctioneers, brokers, hawkers, merchants, commission merchants, showmen, jugglers, innkeepers, grocery keepers, liquor dealers, toll bridges, ferries, insurance, telegraph and express interests or business, venders of patents, and persons or corporations owning or using franchises and privileges, in such manner as it shall from time to time direct by general law, uniform as to the class upon which it operates.
§ 2. The specification of the objects and subjects of taxation shall not deprive the general assembly of the power to require other subjects or objects to be taxed in such manner as may be consistent with the principles of taxation fixed in this constitution .
§ 3. The property of the state, counties, and other municipal corporations, both real and personal, and such other property as may be used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural societies, for school, religious, cemetery and charitable purposes, may be exempted from taxation ; but such exemption shall be only by general law. In the assessment of real estate incumbered by public easement, any depreciation occasioned by such easement may be deducted in the valuation of such property.
§ 6. The general assembly shall have no power to release or discharge any county, city, township, town or district whatever, or the inhabitants thereof, or the property therein, from their or its proportionate share of taxes to be levied for state purposes, nor shall commutation for such taxes be authorised in any form what soever.
§ 7. All taxes levied for state purposes shall be paid into the- state treasury.
§ 8. County authorities shall never assess taxes, the aggregate of which shall exceed 75 cents per $100 valuation, except for the payment of indebtedness existing at the adoption of this constitu tion, unless authorised by a vote of the people of the county.
§ 9. The general assembly may vest the corporate authorities of cities, towns and villages, with power to make local improve ments by special assessment, or by special taxation of contiguous property, or otherwise. For all other corporate purposes, all municipal corporations may be vested with authority to assess and collect taxes ; but such taxes shall be uniform in respect to per sons and property, within the jurisdiction of the body imposing the same.
§ 10. The general assembly shall not impos3 taxes upon
432 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
municipal corporations, or the inhabitants or property thereof, for corporate purposes, but shall require that all the taxable property within the limits of municipal corporations shall be taxed for the payment of debts contracted under authority of law, such taxes to be uniform in respect to persons and property, within the jurisdic tion of the body imposing the same. Private property shall not be liable to be taken or sold for the payment of the corporate debts of a municipal corporation.
§ 12. No county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner, or for any purpose, to an amount, including existing in debtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assess ment for state and county taxes, previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. Any county, city, school district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall before, or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on such debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same. This section shall not be construed to prevent any county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, from issuing their bonds in compliance with any vote of the people which may have been had prior to the adoption of this constitution in pursuance of any law providing therefor.
ARTICLE X.
COUNTIES.
§ 1 . No new county shall be formed or established by the general assembly, which will reduce the county or counties, or either of them, from which it shall be taken, to less contents than 400 square miles ; nor shall any county be formed of less contents : nor shall any line thereof pass within less than ten miles of any county seat of the county or counties proposed to be divided.
§ 2. No county shall be divided, or have any part stricken therefrom, without submitting the question to a vote of the people of the county, nor unless a majority of all the legal voters of the county, voting on the question, shall vote for the same.
§ 3. There shall be no territory stricken from any county, unless a majority of the voters living in such territory shall peti tion for such division ; and no territory shall be added to any
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county without the consent of the majority of the voters of the county to which it is proposed to be added. But the portion so stricken off and added to another county, or formed in whole or in part into a new county, shall be holden for, and obliged to pay its proportion of the indebtedness of the county from which it has been taken.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT.
§ 5. The general assembly shall provide, by general law, for township organisation, under which any county may organise whenever a majority of the legal voters of such county, voting at any general election, shall so determine ; and whenever any county shall adopt township organisation, so much of this constitution as provides for the management of the fiscal concerns of the said county by the board of county commissioners, may be dispensed with, and the affairs of said county may be transacted in such manner as the general assembly may provide. And in any county that shall have adopted a township organisation, the question of continuing the same may be submitted to a vote of the electors of said county, at a general election, in the manner that now is or may be provided by law ; and if a majority of all the votes cast upon that question shall be against township organisation, then such organisation shall cease in said county ; and all laws in force in relation to counties not having township organisation, shall imme- mediately take effect and be in force in such county. No two townships shall have the same name, and the day of holding the annual township meeting shall be uniform throughout the state.
§ 6. At the first election of county judges under this constitu tion, there shall be elected in each of the counties in this state, not under township organisation, three officers, who shall be styled * The board of county commissioners,' who shall hold sessions for the transaction of county business as shall be provided by law. One of said commissioners shall hold his office for one year, one for two years, and one for three years, to be determined by lot ; and every year thereafter one such officer shall be elected in each of the said counties for the term of three years.
COUNTY OFFICERS AND THEIR COMPENSATION.
§ 8. In each county there shall be elected the following county
officers : County judge, sheriff, county clerk, clerk of the circuit
court, (who may be ex-ojficio recorder of deeds, except in counties
having 60,000 and more inhabitants, in which counties a recorder
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434 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
of deeds shall be elected at the general election in the year of our Lord 1872,) treasurer, surveyor and coroner, each of whom shall enter upon the duties of his office, respectively, on the first Mon day of December after their election ; and they shall hold their respective offices for the term of four years, except the treasurer, sheriff and coroner, who shall hold their offices for two years, and until their successors shall be elected and qualified.
§ 9. The clerks of all the courts of record, the treasurer, sheriff, coroner and recorder of deeds of Cook coiinty, shall receive as their only compensation for their services, sal aides to be fixed by law, which shall in no case be as much as the lawful compensation of a judge of the circuit court of said county, and shall be paid, respec tively, only out of the fees of the office actually collected. All fees, perquisites and emoluments (above the amount of said salaries) shall be paid into the county treasury. The number of the deputies and assistants of such officers shall be determined by rule of the circuit court, to be entered of record, and their compensation shall be determined by the county board.
§ 10. The county board, except as provided in section 9 of this article, shall fix the compensation of all county officers, with the amount of their necessary clerk hire, stationery, fuel and other expenses, and in all cases where fees are provided for, said compen sation shall be paid only out of, and shall in no instance exceed, the fees annually collected; they shall not allow either of them more per annum than $1,500, in counties not exceeding 20,000 inhabitants ; $2,000 in counties containing 20,000 and not ex ceeding 30,000 inhabitants ; $2,500 in counties containing 30,000 and not exceeding 50,000 inhabitants ; $3,000 in counties contain ing 50,000 and not exceeding 70,000 inhabitants; $3,500 in counties containing 70,000 and not exceeding 100,000 inhabi tants; and $4,000 in counties containing over 100,000 and not exceeding 250,000 inhabitants ; and not more than $1,000 addi tional compensation for each additional 100,000 inhabitants: Provided, that the compensation of no officer shall be increased or diminished during his term of office. All fees or allowances by them received, in excess of their said compensation, shall be paid into the county treasury.
§ 11. The fees of township officers, and of each class of county officers, shall be uniform in the class of counties 'to which they respectively belong. The compensation herein provided for shall apply only to officers hereafter elected, but all fees established by special laws shall cease at the adoption of this constitution, and
ILLINOIS. 435
such officers shall receive only such fees as are provided by general law.
§ 12. All laws fixing the fees of state, county and township officers, shall terminate with the terms, respectively, of those who may be in office at the meeting of the first general assembly after the adoption of this constitution ; and the general assembly shall, by general law, uniform in its operation, provide for and regulate the fees of said officers and their successors, so as to reduce the same to a reasonable compensation for services actually rendered. But the general assembly may, by general law, classify the counties by population into not more than three classes, and regulate the fees according to class. This article shall not be construed as depriving the general assembly of the power to reduce the fees of existing officers.
§ 13. Every person who is elected or appointed to any office in this state, who shall be paid in whole or in part by fees, shall be required by law to make a semi-annual report, under oath, to some officer, to be designated by law, of all his fees and emolu ments.
ARTICLE XL
CORPORATIONS.
§ 1. No corporation shall be created by special laws, or its charter extended, changed or amended, except those for charitable, educational, penal or reformatory purposes, which are to be and remain under the patronage and control of the state, but the general assembly shall provide, by general laws, for the organisa tion of all corporations hereafter to be created.
§ 2. All existing charters or grants of special or exclusive pri vileges, under which organisation shall not have taken place, or which shall not have been in operation within ten days from the time this constitution takes effect, shall thereafter have no validity or effect whatever.
§ 3. The general assembly shall provide, by law, that in all elections for directors or managers of incorporated companies, every stockholder shall have the right to vote, in person or by proxy, for the number of shares of stock owned by him, for as many persons as there are directors or managers to be elected, or to cumulate said shares, and give one candidate as many votes as the number of directors multiplied by the number of his shares of stock shall equal, or to distribute them on the same principle among as many
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436 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
candidates as he shall think fit ; and such directors or managers shall not be elected in any other manner.
§ 4. No law shall be passed by the general assembly granting the right to construct and operate a street railroad within any city, town or incorporated village, without requiring the consent of the local authorities having the control of the street or highway pro posed to be occupied by such street railroad.
BANKS.
§ 5. No state bank shall hereafter be created, nor shall the state own or be liable for any stock in any corporation or joint stock company or association for banking purposes, now created, or to be hereafter created. No act of the general assembly authorising or creating corporations or associations with banking powers, whether of issue, deposit or discount, nor amendments thereto, shall go into effect or in any manner be in force unless the same shall be sub mitted to a vote of the people at the general election next succeeding the passage of the same, and be approved by a majority of all the votes cast at such election for or against such law.
§ 6. Every stockholder in a banking corporation or institution shall be individually responsible and liable to its creditors, over and above the amount of stock by him or her held, to an amount equal to his or her respective shares so held, for all its liabilities accruing while he or she remains such stockholder.
§ 7. The suspension of specie payments by banking institutions, on their circulation, created by the laws of this state, shall never be permitted or sanctioned. Every banking association now, or which may hereafter be organised under the laws of this state, shall make and publish a full and accurate quarterly statement of its affairs, (which shall be certified to, under oath, by one or more of its officers,) as may be provided by law.
§ 8. If a general banking law shall be enacted, it shall provide for the registry and countersigning, by an officer of state, of all bills or paper credit, designed to circulate as money, and require security, to the full amount thereof, to be deposited with the state treasurer, in United States or Illinois state stocks, to be rated at 10 per cent, below their par value ; and in case of a depreciation of said stocks to the amount of 10 per cent, below par, the bank or banks owning said stocks shall be required to make up said defi ciency by depositing additional stocks. And said law shall also provide for the recording of the names of all stockholders in such corporations, the amount of stock held by each, the time of any transfer thereof, and to whom such transfer is made.
ILLINOIS. 437
RAILROADS.
§ 9. Every railroad corporation organised or doing business in this state, under the laws or authority thereof, shall have and maintain a public office or place in this state for the transaction of its business, where transfers of stock shall be made, and in which shall be kept, for public inspection, books, in which shall be re corded the amount of capital stock subscribed, and by whom ; the names of the owners of its stock, and the amounts owned by them respectively; the amount of stock paid in, and by whom; the transfer of said stock ; the amount of its assets and liabilities, and the names and place of residence of its officers. The directors of every railroad corporation shall, annually, make a report, under oath, to the auditor of public accounts, or some officer to be desig nated by law, of all their acts and doings, which report shall include such matters relating to railroads as may be prescribed by law. And the general assembly shall pass laws enforcing by suitable penalties the provisions of this section.
§ 10. The rolling stock, and all other movable property be longing to any railroad company or corporation in this state, shall be considered personal property, and shall be liable to execution and sale in the same manner as the personal property of indi viduals, and the general assembly shall pass no law exempting any such property from execution and sale.
§ 11. No railroad corporation shall consolidate its stock, pro perty or franchises with any other railroad corporation owning a parallel or competing line ; and in no case shall any consolidation take place, except upon public notice given, of at least sixty days, to all stockholders, in such manner as may be provided by law. A majority of the directors of any railroad corporation, now incor porated or hereafter to be incorporated by the laws of this state, shall be citizens and residents of this state.
§ 12. Railways heretofore constructed, or that may hereafter be constructed in this state, are hereby declared public highways, and shall be free to all persons for the transportation of their per sons and property thereon, under such regulations as may be pre scribed by law. And the general assembly shall, from time to time, pass laws establishing reasonable maximum rates of charges for the transportation of passengers and freight on the different railroads in this state.
§ 13. No railroad corporation shall issue any stock or bonds,
438 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
except for money, labour or property actually received, and applied to the purposes for which such corporation was created ; and all stock dividends, and other fictitious increase of the capital stock or indebtedness of any such corporation, shall be void. The capital stock of no railroad corporation shall be increased for any purpose, except upon giving sixty days' public notice, in such manner as may be provided by law.
§ 14. The exercise of the power, and the right of eminent domain, shall never be so construed or abridged as to prevent the taking, by the general assembly, of the property and franchises of incorporated companies already organised, and subjecting them to the public necessity the same as of individuals. The right of trial by jury shall be held inviolate in all trials of claims for compensa tion, when, in the exercise of the said right of eminent domain, any incorporated company shall be interested either for or against the exercise of said right.
§ 15. The general assembly shall pass laws to correct abuses and prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates of freight and passenger tariffs on the different railroads in this state, and enforce such laws by adequate penalties, to the extent, if necessary for that purpose, of forfeiture of their property and franchises.
ARTICLE XII.
MILITIA.
§ 1. The militia of the state of Illinois shall consist of all able- bodied male persons, resident in the state, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, except such persons as now are, or here after may be, exempted by the laws of the United States, or of this state.
§ 2. The general assembly, in providing for the organisation, equipment and discipline of the militia, shall conform as nearly as practicable to the regulations for the government of the armies of the United States.
§ 3. All militia officers shall be commissioned by the governor, and may hold their commissions for such time as the general assembly may provide.
§ 4. The militia shall in all cases, except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attend ance at musters and elections, and in going to and returning from the same.
ILLINOIS. 439
§ 5. The military records, banners and relics of the state, shall be preserved as an enduring memorial of the patriotism and valour of Illinois, and it shall be the duty of the general assembly to provide, by law, for the safe keeping of the same.
§ 6. No person having conscientious scruples against bearing arms shall be compelled to do militia duty in time of peace : Pro vided, such person shall pay an equivalent for such exemption.
ARTICLE XIII.
WAREHOUSES.
§ 1. All elevators or storehouses where grain or other pro perty is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separate or not, are declared to be public warehouses.
§ 2. The owner, lessee or manager of each and every public warehouse situated in any town or city of not less than 100,000 inhabitants, shall make weekly statements under oath, before some officer to be designated by law, and keep the same posted in some conspicuous place in the office of such warehouse, and shall also file a copy for public examination in such place as shall be designated by law, which statement shall correctly set forth the amount and grade of each and every kind of grain in such warehouse, together with such other property as may be stored therein, and what ware house receipts have been issued, and are, at the time of making- such statement, outstanding therefor ; and shall, on the copy posted in the warehouse, note daily such changes as may be made in the quantity and grade of grain in such warehouse ; and the different grades of grain shipped in separate lots shall not be mixed with inferior or superior grades without the consent of the owner or consignee thereof.
§ 3. The owners of property stored in any warehouse, or holder of a receipt for the same, shall always be at liberty to examine such property stored, and all the books and records of the warehouse in regard to such property.
§ 4. All railroad companies and other common carriers on railroads shall weigh or measure grain at points where it is shipped, and receipt for the full amount, and shall be responsible for the delivery of such amount to the owner or consignee thereof, at the place of destination.
§ 5. All railroad companies receiving and transporting grain in bulk or otherwise, shall deliver the same to any consignee there-
440 STATE CONSTITUTIONS.
of, or any elevator or public warehouse to which it may be con signed, provided such consignee or the elevator or public warehouse can be reached by any track owned, leased or used, or which can be used, by such railroad companies ; and all railroad companies shall permit connections to be made with their track, so that any such consignee, and any public warehouse, coal bank or coal yard, may be reached by the cars on said railroad.
§ 6. It shall be the duty of the general assembly to pass all necessary laws to prevent the issue of false and fraudulent ware house receipts, and to give full effect to this article of the constitu tion, which shall be liberally construed so as to protect producers and shippers. And the enumeration of the remedies herein named shall not be construed to deny to the general assembly the power to prescribe by law such other and further remedies as may be found expedient, or to deprive any person of existing common law remedies.
§ 7. The general assembly shall pass laws for the inspection of grain, for the protection of producers, shippers and receivers of grain and produce.
ARTICLE XIV.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION.
§ 1 . Whenever two-thirds of the members of each house of the general assembly shall, by a vote entered upon the journals thereof, concur that a convention is necessary to revise, alter or amend the constitution, the question shall be submitted to the electors at the next general election. If a majority voting at the election vote for a convention, the general assembly shall, at the next session, provide for a convention, to consist of double the number of mem bers of the senate, to be elected in the same manner, at the same places, and in the same districts. The general assembly shall, in the act calling the convention, designate the day, hour and place of its meeting, fix the pay of its members and officers, and provide for the payment of the same, together with expenses necessarily incurred by the convention in the performance of its duties. Before proceeding, the members shall take an oath to support the constitution of the United States, and of the state of Illinios, and to faithfully discharge their duties as members of the convention. The qualification of member shall be the same as that of members of the senate, and vacancies occurring shall be
ILLINOIS. 441
filled in the manner provided for filling vacancies in the general assembly. Said convention shall meet within three months after such election, and prepare such revision, alteration or amendments of the constitution as shall be deemed necessary, which shall be submitted to the electors for their ratification or rejection, at an election appointed by the convention for that purpose, not less than two nor more than six months after the adjournment thereof; and unless so submitted and approved by a majority of the electors voting at the election, no such revision, alterations and amend ments shall take effect.
§ 2. Amendments to this constitution may be proposed in either house of the general assembly, and if the same shall be voted for by two-thirds of all the members elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendments, together with the yeas and nays of each house thereon, shall be entered in full on their respec tive journals ; and said amendments shall be submitted to the electors of this state for adoption or rejection, at the next election of members of the general assembly, in such manner as may be prescribed by law. The proposed amendments shall be published in full at least three months preceding the election, and if a majority of the electors voting at said election shall vote for the proposed amendments, they shall become a part of this constitution. But the general assembly shall have no power to propose amend ments to more than one article of this constitution at the same session, nor to the same article oftener than once in four years.
SEPARATE SECTIONS.
MUNICIPAL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO RAILROADS OR PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
No county, city, town, township or other municipality, shall ever become subscriber to the capital stock of any railroad or private corporation, or make donation to or loan its credit in aid of such corporation : Provided, however, that the adoption of this article shall not be construed as affecting the right of any such municipality to make such subscriptions where the same have been authorised, under existing laws, by a vote of the people of such municipalities prior to such adoption.
THE END.
LONDON : PRINTED BY
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ON BOOKS AND BOOK-BUYERS.
BY JOHN RUSKIN.
"/ say we have despised literature ; what do we, as a nation, care about books? Hoiv much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses ? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad — a bibliomaniac. But yoti never call one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine- cellars ? What position would its expenditure on literature take as com pared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body : now, a good book contains such food inexhaustible : it is provision for life, and for the best part of us ; yet how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such a trial, and more the pity ; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy ; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, evtn foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in read ing as well as in munching and sparkling ; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wiser people forget that if a book is worth reading it is worth buying." — SESAME AND LILIES ; OR, KING'S TREASURES.
CHATTO 6-WiNDus's
LIST OF BOOKS.
Crown 8vo, Coloured Frontispiece and Illustrations, cloth gilt, 7*. 6d.
Advertising, A History of,
From the Earliest Times. Illustrated by Anecdotes, Curious Specimens, and Biographical Notes of Successful Advertisers. By HENRY SAMPSON.
" We have here a look to be thankful for. We recommend the present volume, which takes us through antiquity, the middle ages, and the present time, illustrat ing all in turn by advertisements — serious, comic, roguish, or downright rascally. The volume is full of entertainment from the first page to the last."— ATHBNJEUM.
Crown Svo, cloth extra, 6s.
Afghan War, Causes of the.
A Selection of the Papers laid before Parliament, with a Connect ing Narrative and Comment.
" Under this title the Afghan Committee have published a volume which con tains a selection of the papers laid before Parliament, so arranged and connected as to form a complete narrative of^ the leading events of both our past and present policy in Afghanistan. As this work was prepared by a sub-committee, mainly composed of gentlemen of Indian experience, who were appointed at a meeting of which Lord Lawrence was chairman, the public have a guarantee that the compilers have performed their task in a thoroughly satisfactory manner" — DAILY NEWS.
" A book of which it would not be easy to exaggerate the value to all who care to form an opinion for themselves as to the merits of the Afghan policy of the Govern ment from a stttdy of the actual facts. . . . The task of the authors has been discharged with conspicuous ability and undeviating fairness" — SCOTSMAN.
Crown Svo, cloth extra, with 639 Illustrations, *]s. 6d.
Architectural Styles, A Handbook of,
Translated from the German of A. RosENGARTEN by W. COLLETT-SANDARS. With 639 Illustrations.
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
Crown 8vo, with Portrait and Facsimile, cloth extra, 7.?. 6d.
Art emits Ward's Works:
The Works of CHARLES FARRER BROWNE, better known as ARTEMUS WARD. With Portrait, facsimile of Handwriting, &c. " The author combines the powers of Thackeray with those of Albert Smith.
The salt is rubbed in with a native hand — one which has the gift of tickling" —
SATURDAY REVIEW.
Second Edition, demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Maps and Illustrations, iSs.
Baker's Clouds in the East:
Travels and Adventures on the Perso-Turkoman Frontier. By VALENTINE BAKER. Second Edition, revised and corrected.
This book, written by General Valentine Baker Pasha in 1876, bears directly •upon the locality of the Central Asian Question, which is now assuming so much public interest.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, js. 6d.
Bankers, A Handbook of London,
With some Account of their Predecessors, the Early Goldsmiths ; together with Lists of Bankers, from 1677 to 1876. By F. G. HILTON PRICE.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7-c. 6d.
Bards ley's Our English Surnames:
Their Sources and Significations. By CHARLES WAREING BARDSLEY, M.A. Second Edition, revised throughout, con- siderably enlarged, and partially rewritten.
"Mr. Bardsley has faithfully consulted the original mediaval documents and works from which the origin and development of surnames can alone be satis factorily traced. He has furnished a valuable contribution to the literature of surnames, and we hope to hear more of him in this field." — TIMES.
Small 4to, green and gold, 6s. 6d. ; gilt edges, Js. 6d.
Bechsteins As Pretty as Seven,
and other Popular German Stories. Collected by LUDWIG BECHSTEIN. With Additional Tales by the Brothers GRIMM, and 100 Illustrations by RICHTER.
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Map and Illustrations, I2s.
Beerbohiri s Wanderings in Patagonia ;
Or, Life amongst the Ostrich Hunters. By JULIUS BEERBOHM.
*•*• Full of well-told and exciting incident A ride, which at all times
would have had a wild and savage attraction, was destined by the merest chance
to Prove unexpectedly perilous and adventurous These stirring scenes,
throughout which Mr. Becrbohm shows no slight degree of bravery and coolness, are described in a wanner which is both spirited and modest. . . . A thoroughly readable story t which well fills up a not unmanageable volume." — GRAPHIC.
CHATTO &• WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
Imperial 4to, cloth extra, gilt and gilt edges, price 2is. per volume.
Beautiful Pictures by British Artists ;
A Gathering of Favourites from our Picture Galleries. Two Series.
The FIRST SERIES including Examples by WILKIE, CON STABLE, TURNER, MULREADY, LANDSEER, MACLISE, E. M. WARD, FRITH, Sir JOHN GILBERT, LESLIE, ANSDELL, MARCUS STONE, Sir NOEL PATON, FAED, EYRE CROWE, GAVIN O'NEIL, and MADOX BROWN.
The SECOND SERIES containing Pictures by ARMYTAGE, FAED, GOODALL, HEMSLEY, HORSLEY, MARKS, NICHOLLS, Sir NOEL PATON, PICKERSGILL, G. SMITH, MARCUS STONE, SOLOMON, STRAIGHT, E. M. WARD, and WARREN.
All engraved on Steel in the highest style of Art. Edited, with Notices of the Artists, by SYDNEY ARMYTAGE, M.A.
" This look is well got up, and good engravings by Jeens, Lumb Stocks, and others, bring back to us pictures of Royal Academy Exhibitions of past years." — TIMES.
One Shilling Monthly, Illustrated.
Belgrama
For January contained the First Chapters of Two New Novels (each to be continued throughout the year) : — I. DONNA QUIXOTE. Ey JUSTIN MCCARTHY, Author of "Miss Misan thrope." Illustrated by ARTHUR HOPKINS.— II. QUEEN OF THE MEADOW. By CHARLES GIBBON, Author of "Robin Gray," &c. Illustrated.
V The THIRTY-SEVENTH Volume of BELGRAVIA, elegantly bound in crimson cloth, full gilt side and back, gilt edges, price Js. 6d. , is now ready, — Handsome Cases for binding the vohime can be had at2s. each.
Demy 8vo, Illustrated, uniform in size for binding.
Blackburn 's Art Handbooks :
Academy Notes, 1879.
Edited by HENRY BLACKBURN. With about 140 Illustra tions of the principal Pictures in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. The greater number of the Sketches drawn by the Artists, u.
Grosvenor Notes, 1879.
With Illustrations of the principal Pictures at the Grosvenor Gallery, many from the Artists' own Sketches. Ecitad by HENRY BLACKBURN, is.
Academy Notes, 1875.
With Forty Illustration?-, is.
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
BLACKBURN'S ART HANDBOOKS — continued.
Academy Notes, 1876.
With One Hundred and Seven Illustrations, is. Academy Notes, 1877.
With One Hundred and Forty-three Illustrations. I s.
Academy Notes, 1878.
With One Hundred and Fifty Illustrations, is.
Grosvenor Notes, 1878.
With Sixty-eight Illustrations, is.
Dudley Notes, 1878.
(The Water-colour Exhibition.) With 64 Illustrations, is.
Pictures at the Paris Exhibition, 1878.
With Eighty Illustrations, is.
Pictures at South Kensington.
(The Raphael Cartoons, Sheepshanks Collection, &c.) With Seventy Illustrations, is.
The English Pictures at the National Gallery.
With One Hundred and Fourteen Illustrations, is.
The Old Masters at the National Gallery.
With One Hundred and Twenty-eight Illustrations, is. 6d. * ^* The two last form a Complete Catalogue to the National Gallery, and may be had bound in One Volume, cloth, 3^. Other parts in preparation.
" Our Bank of Elegance notes are not in high credit. But our Bank of Arts notes ought to be, when the bank is HENRY BLACKBURN'S & Co., and the notes are his Grosvenor Gallery Notes, and his Academy Notes for 1878. Never were more •unmistakable cases of ' -value received,' than theirs -who purchase these two won- derful shillingsworths — the best aids to memory, for the collections they relate to, that have ever been produced. The Illustrations, excellent records of the pictures, in many cases from sketches by the painters, are full of spirit, and, for their scale, wonderfully effective ; t/te remarks terse, and to the point. After Punch's Own Guide to the Academy, and the Grosvenor, the best, he has no hesitation in saying, are Mr. Blackburn's."— PUNCH.
UNIFORM WITH " ACADEMY NOTES."
The Royal Scottish Academy Notes, 1878.
Containing One Hundred and Seventeen Illustrations of the Chief Works, from Drawings by the Artists, u.
Notes to the Seventeenth Exhibition of the Glasgow
Institute of the Fine Arts, 1878. Containing 95 Illustrations, chiefly from Drawings by the Artists, is.
The Walker Art Gallery Notes, Liverpool, 1878.
With 112 Illustrations, is.
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
ART HANDBOOKS — continued. Notes to the Exhibition of the Works of Modern
Artists at the Royal Manchester Institution. With 88 Illus trations, \s.
Notes to the Royal Society of Artists' Autumn
Exhibition, Birmingham, 1878. With 95 Illustrations, is.
Children of the Great City.
Notes on the Three Pictures "A Merry Christmas," "Im prisoned Spring," "Dawn," painted by F. W. LAWS ON. With Facsimile Sketches by. the Artist. Demy 8vo, with Facsimile Plates, is.
Folio, half-bound boards, India proofs, 2is.
Blake (William).
Etchings from his Works. By WILLIAM BELL SCOTT. With
descriptive Text.
" The lest side of Blake's ivork is given here, and makes a really attractive volume, -which all can enjoy . . . The etching is of the best kind, more refined and delicate than the original -work." — SATURDAY REVIEW.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, with Illustrations, *js. 6d.
Boccaccio's Decameron ;
or, Ten Days' Entertainment. Translated into English, with an Introduction by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. With Portrait, and STOTHARD'S beautiful Copperplates.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, •js. 6d.
Brand's Observations on Popular <Anti-
quities, chiefly Illustrating the Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. With the Additions of Sir HENRY ELLIS. An entirely New and Revised Edition, with fine full-page Illustrations.
MR. BRET HARTE'S NEW BOOK. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2s. ; cloth limp, 2s. 6d.
Bret Hartes An Heiress of Red Dog,
and other Stories.
tf Few modern English-writing humourists have achieved the popularity of Mr Bret Harte. He has passed, so to speak, beyond book-fame into talk-fame. People who may never perhaps have held one of his little volumes in their hands, are per fectly familiar -with some at least of their contents .... Pictures of Calif ornian c amp-life, unapproached in their quaint picturcsqueness and deep human interest" —DAILY NEWS.
8 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7.5-. 6d.
Bret Harte 's Select Works,
in Prose and Poetry. With Introductory Essay by J. M.
BEL LEW, Portrait of the Author, and 50 Illustrations. "Not many months before -my friend's death, he had sent me two sketches oj a young American writer (Bret Harte), far away in California (' The Out casts of Poker Flat,' and another), in which he had found such subtle strokes of character as he had not anywhere else in late years discovered ; the manner resembling himself, but the matter fresh to a degree tJtat had surprised hint ; the painting in all respects masterly, and the -wild rude thing painted a quite
wonderful reality. I have rarely known him more honestly moved7."— LIFB OF DICKENS.
Crown Svo, 1,000 pages, cloth extra, 12s. 6d.
Brewer's (Dr.) The Reader's Handbook
of Facts, Characters, Plots, and References. By the Rev. E. COBHAM BREWER, LL.D. [/// the press.
Small crown Svo, cloth extra, gilt, with full-page Portraits, 4^. 6d.
Brewster's (Sir David) Martyrs of
Science. Small crown Svo, cloth extra, gilt, with Astronomical Plates, 4^. 6d.
Brewster's (Sir David) More IVorlds
than One, the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian.
Demy Svo, profusely Illustrated in Colours, price 30^.
British Flora Medica :
A History of the Medicinal Plants of Great Britain. Illustrated by a Figure of each Plant, COLOURED BY HAND. By BENJAMIN H. BARTON, F.L.S., and THOMAS CASTLE, M.D., F.R.S. A New Edition, revised, condensed, and partly re-written, by JOHN R. JACKSON, A.L.S., Curator of the Museums of Economic Botany, Royal Gardens, Kew.
Crown Svo, cloth extra, gilt, with Illustrations, 7*. 6d.
Byron 's Letters and Journals.
With Notices of his Life. By THOMAS MOORE. A Reprint of the Original Edition, newly revised, Complete in One thick Volume, with Twelve full-page Plates.
" We have read this look with the greatest pleasure. Considered merely as a composition it deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. . . . The style is agreeable, clear, and manly and when it rises into eloquence, rises without effort or ostentation. It would h difficult to name a book which exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty.1' — MACAULAY, in the EDINBURGH REVIEW.
CHATTO & W INDUS, PICCADILLY.
THE STOTHARD BUNYAN.— Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7*. 6d.
Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress.
Edited by Rev. T. SCOTT. With 17 beautiful Steel Plates by STOTHARD, engraved by GOODALL ; and numerous Woodcuts.
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, 1 4.5-.
Campbell's (Sir G.) White and Black in
the United States. By Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL, M.P.
Oblong 4to, half-bound boards, 2is.
Canters in Crampshire.
By G. BOWERS. I. Gallops from Gorseborough: II. Scrambles with Scratch Packs. III. Studies with Stag Hounds.
" TJie fruit of the observation of an artist who has an eye for character, a sense of humour, and a firm and ready hand in delineating characteristic
details A Itogether, this is a very pleasant volume for tJte tables of
country gentlemen, or of those town gentlemen who, like Mr. Black's hero and heroine , divide their 'time between1 Green Pastures and Piccadilly.' " — DAILY NEWS.
" An amusing volume of sketches and adventures in the hunting-field, drawn with great spirit, a keen sense of humour and fun, and no lack of observation.'" — SPECTATOR.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, is. 6d.
Carlyle (Thomas) On the Choice of
Books. With Portrait and Memoir.
Small 4to, cloth gilt, with Coloured Illustrations, los. 6d.
Chaucer for Children ;
A Golden Key. By Mrs. H. R. HAWEIS. With Eight Coloured Pictures and numerous Woodcuts by the Author.
" It must not only take a high place among the Christmas and New Year books of this season, but is also of permanent value as an introduction to the study of Chaucer, whose works, in selections of some kind or other, are now text-books in every school that aspires to give sound instruction in English" — ACADEMY.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Js. 6d.
Colman's Humorous Works:
"Broad Grins," "My Nightgown and Slippers," and other Humorous Works, Prose and Poetical, of GEORGE COLMAN. With Life by G. B. EUCKSTONE, and Frontispiece by HOGARTH.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, Two very thick Volumes, TS. 6d. each.
Cruikshank's Comic Almanack.
Complete in Two SERIES : The FIRST from 1835 to 1843 ; the SECOND from 1844 to 1853. A Gathering of the BEST HUMOUR of THACKERAY, HOOD, MAYHEW, ALBERT SMITH, A'BECK- ETT, ROBERT BROUGH, &c. With 2000 Woodcuts and Steel Engravings by CRUIKSHANK, HINE, LANDELLS, &c.
10 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Coloured Illustrations and Maps, 24^.
Cope's History of the Rifle Brigade
(The Prince Consort's Own), formerly the 95th. By Sir WILLIAM
H. COPE, formerly Lieutenant, Rifle Brigade.
This latest contribution to the history of the British army is a work of the most varied information regarding the distinguished regiment whose life it nar rates, and also of facts interesting to the student in military affairs. . . . Great credit is due to Sir W. Cope for the patience and labour, extending over many years, which he has given to tJie work, . . . In many 'cases well-exe cuted plans of actions are given,'' — MORNING POST.
' ' Even a bare record of a corps which has so often been -under fire, and has borne a part in important engagements all over the world, could not prove othervLnse than full of matter acceptable to the military reader." — ATHENJEUM.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, with Portraits, Js. 6d.
Creasy 's Memoirs of Eminent Etonians;
with Notices of the Early History of Eton College. By Sir EDWARD CREASY, Author of "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." A New Edition, brought down to the Present Time, with 13 Illustrations.
"A new. edition of ' Creasy' s Etonians' will be welcome. The book was a favourite a quarter of a century ago, and it has maintained its reputation. The value of this new edition is enhanced by the fact that Sir Edward Creasy has added to it several memoirs of Etonians who have died since the first edition appeared. The work is eminently interesting." — SCOTSMAN.
Parts I. to XIV. now ready, 2U. each.
Cussans History of Hertfordshire.
By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated with full-page Plates on Copper
and Stone, and a profusion of small Woodcuts.
" Mr. Cussans has, from sources not accessible to Chitterbuck, made most valuable additions to the manorial history of tJte county from the earliest period downwards, cleared up many doubtful points, and given original details con cerning various subjects untouched or imperfectly treated by that writer. The pedigrees seem to have been constructed with great care, and are a valuable addition to ilie genealogical history of the county. Mr. Cussans appears to have done his work conscientiously, and to have spared neither time, labour, nor expense to render his volumes worthy of ranking in the highest class of County Histories,'* — ACADEMY.
Two Vols. royal 8vo, with Sixty-five Illustrations, 28.r.
Demonology and Devil-Lore. '
By MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY, M.A., B.D. of Divinity Col lege, Harvard University ; Member of the Anthropological Insti tute, London.
Part /. Dcmonolatry. II- The Demon. III. The Dragon. IV. The Devil. In these Volumes the personifications and types of evil among all races are con sidered in their Origin, Natural History, Mythology, Romance, and Moral Signi ficance. The Second Volume relates entirely to the Devil.
CHATTO & WIND US, PICCADILLY. 11
In Twenty-five Parts, quarto, at $s. each, profusely illustrated by Coloured and Plain Plates and Wood Engravings, The
Cyclopedia of Costume ;
or, A Dictionary of Dress — Regal, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Mili tary — from the Earliest Period in England to the reign of George the Third. Including Notices of Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, and a General History of the Costumes of the Prin cipal Countries of Europe. By J. R. PLANCHE, Somerset Herald.
"A most readable and interesting "work— and it can scarcely be consulted in vain, whether the reader is in search for information as to military, courtt ecclesiastical, legal, or professional costume. . . . All the chroma-lithographs, and most of the "woodcut illustrations — the latter amounting to several thousands — -are 'very elaborately executed ; and the work forms a. livre de luxe which renders it equally suited to the library and the ladies' drawing-room." — TIMES.
The Work may also be had Complete, handsomely bound in half red morocco, at £3 13s. 6d. per vol. Vol. I. THE DICTIONARY. Vol. II. A GENERAL HIS TORY OF COSTUME IN EUROPE.
Cases for binding the vohimes may be had at $s. each.
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, 24^.
Dodge s (Colonel) The Hunting Grounds
of the Great West : A Description of the Plains, Game, and Indians of the Great North American Desert. By RICHARD IRVING DODGE, Lieutenant-Colonel of the United States Army. With an Introduction by WILLIAM BLACKMDRE; Map, and numerous Illustrations drawn by ERNEST GRISET.
" This magnificent volume is one of the most able and most interesting works which has ever proceeded from an American pen, while its freshness is equal to that of any similar book. Col. Dodge has chosen a subject of which he is master \ and treated it with a fulness that leaves nothing to be desired, and in a style which is charming equally for its picturesqueness and purity." — NONCONFORMIST.
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, I2s. 6d.
Doran's Memories of oiir Great Towns.
With Anecdotic Gleanings concerning their Worthies and their Oddities. By Dr. JOHN DORAN, F.S.A.
" A greater genius for writing of the anecdotic kind few men have had. As to giving any idea of the contents of the book, it is quite impossible. Those who know how Dr. Doran used to write — it is sad to have to use the past tense of one of the most cheerful of men — will understand what we mean ; and those who do not -must take it on trust from us that this is a remarkably entertaining volume.'* — SPECTATOR. __
SECOND EDITION, demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with Illustrations, iSs.
Dunraven's The Great Divide:
A Narrative of Travels in the Upper Yellowstone in the Summer of 1874. By the EARL of DUN RAVEN. With Maps and numerous striking full-page Illustrations by VALENTINE W. BROMLEY.
" There has not for a long time appeared a better book of travel than Lord Dunraven's 'The Great Divide.' . . . The book is full of clever observation, and both narrative and illustrations are thoroughly good"— ATHENAEUM.
12
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 6s. per Volume.
Early English Poets.
Edited, with Introductions and Annotations, by Rev. A. B. GROSART. "Mr. Grosart has spent the most laborious and the west enthusiastic care on the perfect restoration and preservation of the text; and it is very unlikely that any other edition of the poet can ever be called for. . . From Mr. Grosart -we always expect and always receive the final results of most patient and competent scholarship"— EXAMINER.
1. Fletcher's ( Giles, BD.)
Complete Poems; Christ's Victorie in Heaven, Christ's Victorie on Earth, Christ's Triumph over Death, and Minor Poems. With Memorial-Introduction and Notes. One Vol.
2. Dames' (Sir John)
Complete Poetical Works, in cluding Psalms I. to L. in Verse, and other hitherto Unpublished MSS., for the first time Col lected and Edited. With Me morial-Introduction and Notes. Two Vols.
3. HerricVs (Robert) Hes-
perides, Ndble Numbers, and
Complete Collected Poems. With Memorial-Introduction and Notes, Steel Portrait, Index of First Lines, and Glossarial Index, &c. Three Vols.
4. Sidney's (Sir Philip)
Complete Poetical Works, in cluding all those in "Arcadia." With Portrait, Memorial-Intro duction, Essay on the Poetry of Sidney, and Notes. Three Vols.
5. Donne's (Dr. John)
Complete Poetical Works, in cluding the Satires and various from MSS. With Memorial-In troduction and Notes.
\In preparation.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, with Illustrations, 6s.
Emanuel On Diamonds and Precious
Stones : their History, Value, and Properties ; with Simple Tests for ascertaining their Reality. By HARRY EMANUEL, F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations, Tinted and Plain.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, JS. 6d.
Englishman's Ho^lse, The,
A Practical Guide to all interested in Selecting or Building a House, with full Estimates of Cost, Quantities, &c. By C. J. RICHARDSON. Third Edition. With nearly 600 Illustrations.
%* This look is intended to supply a long-felt -want, viz., a plain, non-technical account of every style of house, -with the cost and manner of building ; it gives every variety , from a workman's cottage to a nobleman's palace.
Folio, cloth extra, /I iu. 6d.
Examples of Contemporary Art.
Etchings from Representative Works by living English and Foreign Artists. Edited, with Critical Notes, by J. COMYNS CARR.
" It would not be easy to meet -with a more sumptuous, and at the same time a more tasteful and instructive drawing-room, book." — NONCONFORMIST.
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 13
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, 6s.
Fairholfs Tobacco:
Its History and Associations ; with an Account of the Plant and its Manufacture, and its Modes of Use in all Ages and Countries. By F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. A New Edition, with Coloured Frontispiece and upwards of 100 Illustrations by the Author. "A very pleasant and instructive history of tobacco and its associations, "which we cordially recommend alike to the votaries and to the enemies of the much- maUgned but certainly not neglected weed. . . . Full of interest and in formation." — DAILY NEWS.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, qs. 6d.
Faraday 's Chemical History of a Candle.
Lectures delivered to a Juvenile Audience. A New Edition. Edited by W. CROOKES, F.C.S. With numerous Illustrations.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, 4^. 6d.
Faraday's Various Forces of Nature.
A New Edition. Edited by W. CROOKES, F.C.S. With numerous Illustrations.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, *]s. 6d.
Finger-Ring Lore:
Historical, Legendary, and Anecdotal . — Earliest Notices; Supersti tions ; Ring Investiture, Secular and Ecclesiastical ; Betrothal and Wedding Rings; Ring-tokens; Memorial and Mortuary Rings ; Posy-Rings ; Customs and Incidents in Connection with Rings ; Remarkable Rings, &c. By WILLIAM JONES, F.S.A. With Hun- dreds of Illustrations of Curious Rings of all Ages and Countries. " Enters fully into the -whole subject, and gives an amount of information etnd general reading in reference thereto which is of very high interest. The book is not only a sort of history of finger-rings, but is a collection of anecdotes in connection with them. . . . The vohime is admirably illustrated, and altogether affords an amount of amusement and information which is not other* wise easily accessible." — SCOTSMAN.
" One of those gossiping books which are as full of amusement as of instruc tion" — ATHEN>EUM.
One Vol. crown 8vo, cloth extra, gs.
Gilbert 's (W. S.) Original Plays ;
"A Wicked World," " Charity," "The Palace of Truth," " Pygmalion," "Trial by Jury," &c.
•" His workmanship is in its way perfect ; it is very sound, very even, very well sustained, and excellently balanced throughout."— OBSERVER.
14 BO OKS P UB LI SHED B Y
One Shilling Monthly, Illustrated.
Gentleman's Magazine, The,
For January contained the First Chapters of a New Novel by Mrs. LYNN LINTON, Author of "Patricia Kemball," &c., entitled UNDER WHICH LORD ? Illustrated by ARTHUR HOPKINS.
%* Now ready, the Volume for JULY to DECEMBER, 1878, cloth extra, price 8s. 6d. ; and Cases for binding, price 2s. each.
THE RUSKIN GRIMM.— Square crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s. 6d.; gilt edges, Js. 6d.
German Popular Stories.
Collected by the Brothers GRIMM, and Translated by EDGAR TAYLOR. Edited, with an Introduction, by JOHN RUSKIN. With 22 Illustrations after the inimitable designs of GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Both Series Complete.
*' The illustrations of this volume . . . are of quite sterling and admirable art, of a class precisely parallel in elevation to the character of the tales which they illustrate / and the original etchings, as I have before said in the Appendix to my ' Elements of Drawing,' were unrivalled in masterfulness of touch since Rem brandt (in some qualities of delineation, unrivalled even by him). . . . To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at them through a -magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exer cise in decision and severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in schools." — Extract from Introduction by JOHN RUSKIN.
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Two Wooden ShoesEyOmi>\. Signa. By OUIDA.
In a Winter City. By OUIDA. Ariadne. By OUIDA.
Friendship. By OUIDA.
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ANTONINA. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by Sir J. GILBERT
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andj. MAHONEY. HIDE AND SEEK. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by Sir
JOHN GILBERT and J. MAHONEY. THE DEAD SECRET. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by Sir
JOHN GILBERT and H. FURNISS. QUEEN OP HEARTS. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by Sir
JOHN GILBERT and A. CONCANEN. MY MISCELLANIES. By WILKIE COLLINS. With Steel Por
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by Sir J. GILBERT and F. A. FRASER. THE MOONSTONE. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by G.
Du MAURIER and F. A. FRASER. MAN AND WIFE. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by WILLIAM
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Du MAURIER and EDWARD HUGHES. MISS OR MRS. ? By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by S. L.
FILDES and HENRY WOODS. THE NEW MAGDALEN. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by
G. Du MAURIER and C. S. RANDS. THE FROZEN DEEP. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by G.
Du MAURIER and J. MAHONEY. THE LAW AND THE LADY. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illus
trated by S. L. FILDES and SYDNEY HALL. THE TWO DESTINIES. By WILKIE COLLINS. THE HAUNTED HOTEL. By WILKIE COLLINS. Illustrated by
ARTHUR HOPKINS. DECEIVERS EVER. By Mrs. H. LOVETT CAMERON.
CHATTO S" WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 27
THE PICCADILLY NOVELS— continued.
JULIET'S GUARDIAN. By Mrs. H. LOVETT CAMERON. Illus trated by VALENTINE BROMLEY.
FELICIA. By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. With a Frontispiece by W. BOWLES.
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OLYMPIA. By R. E. FRANCILLON.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. By THOMAS HARDY.
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THE QUEEN OF CONNAUGHT. By HARRIETT JAY.
THE DARK COLLEEN. By HARRIETT JAY.
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THE WORLD WELL LOST. By E. LYNN LINTON. Illustrated
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THE WATERDALE NEIGHBOURS. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER, By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
LINLEY ROCHFORD. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
A FAIR SAXON. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
DEAR LADY DISDAIN. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
MISS MISANTHROPE. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. Illustrated by
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QUOID. Illustrated by THOMAS R. MACQUOID and PERCY MACQUOID. " Cameos delicately, if not very minutely or vividly, wrought, and quite finished enough to give a pleasiirable sense of artistic ease and facility. A word of com mendation is merited by the illustrations." — ACADEMY.
NUMBER SEVENTEEN. By HENRY KINGSLEY. OAKSHOTT CASTLE. By HENRY KINGSLEY. With a Frontis piece by SHIRLEY HODSON.
"A brisk and clear north wind of sentiment — sentiment that braces instead of enervating— blows through all his works, and makes all their readers at once healthier and more glad." — SPECTATOR.
28 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
THE PICCADILLY NOVELS — continued.
OPEN ! SESAME ! By FLORENCE MARRY AT. Illustrated by F. A. ERASER.
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WHITELADIES. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. With Illustrations by A.
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THE BEST OF HUSBANDS. By JAMES PAYN. Illustrated by
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HALVES. By JAMES PAYN. With a Frontispiece by J. MAHONEY. WALTER'S WORD. By JAMES PAYN. Illustrated by J. MOYR
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THE WAY WE LIVE NOW. By ANTHONY TROLLOPS. With
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DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. By T. A. TROLLOPE.
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THE MONKS OF THELEMA. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. BY CELIA'S ARBOUR. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. READY-MONEY MORTIBOY. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE.
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 29
THE PICCADILLY NOVELS — continued.
MY LITTLE GIRL. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. THE CASE OF MR. LUCRAPT. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. THIS SON OF VULCAN. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. WITH HARP AND CROWN. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. By W. BESANT and JAMES RICE. With a Frontispiece by F. S. WALKER.
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Popular Novels, Cheap Editions of.
[WILKIE COLLINS' NOVELS and BESANT and RICE'S NOVELS may also be had in cloth limp at zs. 6d. See, too, tlie PICCADILLY NOVELS,^?- Library Editions.]
Ready-Money Mortiboy. By i With Harp and Crown. By WALTER BESANT and JAMES j Authors of " Ready-Money Mor- RICE. tiboy."
The Golden Butterfly. By Au- j Surly Tim. By F. H. BURNETT. thors of " Ready-Money Alorti-
boy."
The Woman in White. By
This Son of Vulcan. By Authors
of " Ready-Money Mortiboy." j Antonma. By YV ILKIE COLLINS.
My Little Girl. By Authors of ! Basil- B7 WILKIE COLLINS.
" Ready-Money Mortiboy." \ Hide and Seek. By WILKIE
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BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
POPULAR NOVELS— CHEAP EDITIONS— continued.
The Queen of Hearts. By
WILKIE COLLINS. My Miscellanies. By WILKIE
COLLINS. The Moonstone. By WILKIE
COLLINS. Man and Wife. By WILKIE
COLLINS. Poor Miss Finch. By WILKIE
COLLINS. Miss or Mrs. ? By WILKIE
COLLINS. The New Magdalen. By
WILKIE COLLINS. The Frozen Deep. By WILKIE
COLLINS. The Law and the Lady. By
WILKIE COLLINS. The Two Destinies. By WILKIE
COLLINS.
Roxy. By EDWARD EGGLESTON. Felicia. By M. BETHAM-ED-
WARDS. Filthy Lucre. By ALBANY DE
FONBLANQUE.
Olympia. By R. E. FRANCILLON.
Dick Temple. By JAMES GREENWOOD.
Under the Greenwood Tree. By THOMAS HARDY.
An Heiress of Red Dog. By BRET HARTE.
Fated to be Free. By JEAN INGELOW.
The Queen of Connaught. By HARRIETT JAY.
The Dark Colleen. By HAR RIETT JAY.
Number Seventeen. By HENRY
KlNGSLEY.
Oakshott Castle. By HENRY
KlNGSLEY.
The Waterdale Neighbours. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
My Enemy's Daughter. By
JUSTIN MCCARTHY. Linley Rochford. By JUSTIN
MCCARTHY. A Fair Saxon. By JUSTIN
MCCARTHY. Dear Lady Disdain. By JUSTIN
MCCARTHY. The Evil Eye. By KATHARINE
S. MACQUOID. Open! Sesame! By FLORENCE
MARRYAT.
Whiteladies. By Mrs. OLI- PHANT.
The Best of Husbands. By
JAMES PAYN.
Walter's Word. By J. PAYN. The Mystery of Marie Roget-
By EDGAR A. POE. Her Mother's Darling. By Mrs.
J. H. RIDDELL. Gaslight and Daylight. By
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. Bound to the Wheel. By JOHN
SAUNDERS. Guy Waterman. J. SAUNDERS.
One Against the World. By
JOHN SAUNDERS. The Lion in the Path. By JOHN
and KATHERINE SAUNDERS. Tales for the Marines. By
WALTER THORNBURY. The Way we Live Now. By
ANTHONY TROLLOPE. The American Senator. By
ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Diamond Cut Diamond. By
T. A. TROLLOPE.
An Idle Excursion. By MARK TWAIN.
The Adventures of Tom Saw yer. By MARK TWAIN.
A Pleasure Trip on the Conti nent of Europe. By M. TWAIN.
CHATTO &- WINDVS, PICCADILLY. 31
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34 BO OKS PUBLISHED B Y
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