UC-NRLF

773

LIBRA.RY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

Accession .84627... Claz*

ALCOVE,

aeifie f2|lt£ologleal

PRESENTED BY

SHELF,

WALKS AND TALKS

AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

GF JRGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY.

M. D CCG . LI J.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,

BY GEORRK P. PUTNAM,

In the Clerk'* Offie« of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York.

B1LLIX A BROTHERS,

0 NORTH WILLIAM- ST.. N. I

.T. K. TROW, PRINTS*,

ANN-STRKMT.

TO

GEORGE GEDDES,

Xate oftlje lunate of $m fork,

VICE-PRESIDENT OK THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
PRESIDENT OF THE ONONDAGA COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,

ETC., ETC., ETC.,
THIS VOLUME IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY

.84627

PREFACE.

I DO not deem it necessary to apologize for this memoir of a farmer's
visit to England. Every man in travelling will be directed in peculiar
paths of observation by his peculiar tastes, habits, and personal interests,
and there will always be a greater or less class who will like to hear of
just what he liked to see. With a hearty country appetite for narrative, I
have spent, previous to my own journey, a great many long winter even
ings in reading the books so frequently written by our literary tourists,
upon England ; and although I do not recollect one of them, the author
of which was a farmer, or whose habits of life, professional interests,
associations in society, and ordinary standards of comparison were not
altogether different from my own, I remember none from which I did
not derive entertainment and instruction.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the triteness of the field, I may presume
to think, that there will be a great many who will yet enjoy to follow
me over it, and this although my gait and carriage should not be
very elegant, but so only as one farmer's leg and one sailor's leg with
the help of a short, crooked, half-grown academic sapling, for a walking
stick, might be expected to carry a man along with a head and a heart
of his own.

And as it is especially for farmers and farmers' families that I have
written, I trust that all who try to read the book, will be willing to
come into a warm, good-natured, broad country kitchen fireside rela
tion with me, and permit me to speak my mind freely, and in such lan
guage as I can readily command on all sorts of subjects that come in
my way, forming their own views from the facts that I give them, and
taking my opinions for only just what they shall seem to be worth.

Some explanation of a "few of the intentions that gave direction to
my movements in travelling may be of service to the reader.

The wages, and the cost and manner of living of the labouring men, and
the customs with regard to labour of those countries and districts, from
which foreign writers on economical subjects are in the habit of deriving
their data, had been made a subject of more than ordinary and other than
merely philanthropical interest to me. from an experience of the diffi
culty of applying their calculations to the different circumstances under
which work must be executed in the United States. My vocation as a

2 PREFACE.

farmer, too, had led me for a long time to desire to know more of the
prevailing, ordinary, and generally accepted practices of agriculture,
than I could learn from Mr. Coleman's book, or from the observations
of most of the European correspondents of our agricultural periodicals,
the attention of these gentlemen having been usually directed to the ex
ceptional improved modes of cultivation which prevail only among the
amateur agriculturists and the bolder and more enterprising farmers.

The tour was made in company with two friends, whose purposes
somewhat influence the character of the narrative. One of them, my
brother, hoped by a course of invigorating exercise, simple diet, and
restraint from books and other in-door and sedentary luxuries, to re
establish his weakened health, and especially to strengthen his eyes,
frequent failures of which often seriously annoyed and interrupted him
in the study of his profession. The other, our intimate friend from
boyhood, desired to add somewhat to the qualifications usually inquired
after in a professed teacher and adviser of mankind, by such a term and
method of study as he could afford to make, of the varying develop
ments of human nature under different biases and institutions from
those of his own land.

We all considered, finally, that it should be among those classes which
form the majority of the people of a country that the truest exhibition
of national character should be looked for, and that in their condition
should be found the best evidence of the wisdom of national institutions.

In forming the details of a plan by which we could, within certain
limits of time and money, best accomplish such purposes as I have
indicated, we were much indebted to the information and advice given
by Bayard Taylor in his " Views a- Foot."

The part now published contains the narrative of the earlier, and to
us most interesting, though not the most practically valuable, part of
our journey. I was in the habit of writing my diary usually in the
form of a letter, to be sent as occasion offered to friends at home. It is
from this desultory letter-diary, with such revision and extension and
rilling up of gaps, as my memory and pocket-book notes afford, that this
volume has been formed. I have most desired to bring before my
brother farmers and their families such things that I saw in England
as have conveyed practical agricultural information or useful sugges
tions to myself, and such evidences of simply refined tastes, good feel
ings, and enlarged Christian sentiments among our English brethren,
as all should enjoy to read of. It was my design to have somewhat ex
tended this volume, that it might contain a greater proportion of more
distinctly rural matter, but the liberal proposal of Mr. Putnam to in
clude it in the excellent popular Series he is now publishing, makes a
limit to its length necessary. Should I have reason to believe, however,
that I have succeeded in the purposes which led me to write for the
public, I shall be most happy at another time to continue my narrative.

FEED. LAW OLMSTED.
Toaomock Farm, ftuthride, Staten blmd.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Emigrant Passenger Agents. — Second Cabin. — Mutiny. — Delay. — Departure. ... 9

CHAPTER II.

At Sea.— Incidents.— Sea Sociability.— A Yarn.— Sea Life.— Characters.— En
glish Radicals,— Skeptics.— Education.— French Infidelity.— Phrenology.—
Theology 14

CHAPTER III.
Sailors. — " Sogers." — Books. — Anecdotes 37

CHAPTER IV.
On Soundings. — English Small Craft. — Harbour of Liverpool 41

CHAPTER V.

The first of England —The Streets.— A Railway Station.— The Docks at Night.—
Prostitutes.— Temperance.— The Still Life of Li verpool.— A Market 50

CHAPTER VI.

The People at Liverpool. — Poverty. — Merchants. — Shopkeepers. — Women. —
Soldiers. — Children. — Donkeys and Dray Horses 60

CHAPTER VII.

Irish Beggars. — Condition of Labourers. — Cost of Living. — Prices. — Bath House.
— Quarantine. — The Docks. — Street Scene. — " Coming Yankee " over Non
sense.— Artistic Begging 65

CHAPTER VIII.

Birkenhead. — Ferry-Boats. — Gruff Englishman. — The Abbey. — Flour. — Market.

—The Park.— A Democratic Institution.— Suburban Villas; &c 74

1*

4 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

A Railway Ride. — Second Class. — Inconvenient Arrangements. — First Walk in
the Country. — England itself. — A Rural Landscape. — Hedges. — Approach
to a Hamlet.— The old Ale-House and the old John Bull.— A Talk with Coun
try People. — Notions of America. — Free Trade. — The Yew Tree. — The old
Rural Church and Graveyard. — A Park Gate. — A Model Farmer. — The old
Village Inn.— A Model Kitchen.— A Model Landlady 85

CHAPTER X.

Talk with a Farmer; — With a Tender-Hearted Wheelwright. — An Amusing
Story. — Notions of America. — Supper. — Speech of the English. — Pleasant
Tones.— Quaint Expressions.— The twenty-ninth of May.— Zaccheus in the
Oak Tree.— Education.— Bed-chambor.— A Nightcap and— a Nightcap 92

CHAPTER XL

The Break of Day.— A Full Heart.— Familiar Things.— The Village at Sunrise.—
Flowers.— Birds.— Dog Kennels.—" The Squire" and " The Hall."— Rooks.—
Visit to a Small Farm.— The Cows.— The Milking.— The Dairy-Maids.— The
Stables.— Manure.— Bones.— Pasture.— White Clover.— Implements.— Carts.
—The English Plough and Harrow : . 99

CHAPTER XII.

Breakfast at the Inn.— A Tale of High Life.— The Garden of the Inn.— An old
Farm-House.— Timber Houses.— Labourer's Cottages.— Wattles and Nog
gin Walls. — A "Ferme Ornee." — A Lawn Pasture. — The Copper-Leaved
Beech.— Tame Black Cattle.— Approach to Chester 104

CHAPTER XIII
Chester without.— A Walk on the Walls.— Antiquities.— Striking Contrasts. . . Ill

CHAPTER XIV.

Chester within.— Peculiarities of Building.— The Rows.— The old Sea-Captain.
—Romancing.— An Old Inn.— Old English Town Houses.— Timber Houses.—
Claiming an Inheritance.— A Cook Shop.— One of the Alleys.— Breaking into
the Cathedral.— Expulsion.— The Curfew 119

CHAPTER XV.

Chester Market.— The Town Common.— Race-Course.— The Yeomanry Cavalry,
and the Militia of England.— Public Wash-House.— " Mr. Chairman." 128

CHAPTER XVI.

Visit to Eaton Hall.— The largest Arch in the World.— The Outer Park.— Back
woods' Farming.— The Deer Park.— The Hall.— The Parterre.— The Lawn.—
The Fruit Garden.— Stables 133

CONTENTS. 5

CHAPTER XVII.

Gamekeeper— Game Preserves.— Eccleston, a Pretty Village.— The School-
House. — Draining. — Children Playing. — The River-side Walk. — Pleasure
Parties.— A Contrasting Glimpse of a Sad Heart.— Saturday Night.— Ballad
Singer.— Mendicants.— Row in the Tap-Room.— Woman's Feebleness.—
Chester Beer, and Beer-Drinking 140

CHAPTER XVIII.

Character of the Welsh.— The Cathedral ; the Clergy, Service, Intoning, the
Ludicrous and the Sublime.— A Reverie.— A Revelation.— The Sermon.—
Communion. — Other Churches. — Sunday Evening. — Character of the
Townspeople 150

CHAPTER XIX.

Clandestine Architectural Studies.— A Visit to the Marquis of Westminster's
Stud.— Stable Matters 162

CHAPTER XX.

The Cheshire Cheese District and English Husbandry upon Heavy Soils.— Pas
tures.— Their Permanence.— The Use of Bones as a Manure in Cheshire.— A
Valuable Remark to Owners of Improved Neat Stock.— Breeds of Dairy
Stock.— Horses 169

CHAPTER XXI.

Tillage. — Size of Farms. — Condition of Labourers. — Fences. — Hedges. — Surface
Drainage.— Under Drainage.— Valuable Implements for Stiff Soils, not used
in the United States 177

CHAPTER XXII.

The General Condition of Agriculture. — Rotation of Crops. — Productiveness. —
Seeding down to Grass. — Comparison of English and American Practice.—
Practical Remarks.— Rye-Grass, Clover.— Biennial Grasses.— Guano.— Lime.
—The Condition of Labourers, Wages, etc.— Dairy-Maids.— Allowance of
Beer 183

CHAPTER XXIII.
Remarks on the Cultivation of Beet and Mangel- Wurzel 191

CHAPTER XXIV.

Delightful Walk by the Dee Banks, and through Eaton Park.— Wrexham.— A
Fair. — Maids by a Fountain. — The Church. — Jackdaws. — The Tap-Room and
Tap-Room Talk. — Political Deadness of the Labouring Class. — A Methodist
Bagman 194

6 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXV.

Morning Walk through a Coal District.— Ruabon.— An Optimist with a Welsh
Wife. — Graveyard Notes. — A Stage- Wagon. — Taxes. — Wynstay Park.—
Thorough Draining — A Glimpse of Cottage Life. — " Sir Watkins Williams
Wyn." 199

CHAPTER XXVI.

Stone Houses. — Ivy. — Virginia Creeper. — A Visit to a Welsh Horse-Fair. — En
glish Vehicles.— Agricultural Notes.— Horses.— Breeds of Cattle ; Herefords,
Welsh, and Smutty Pates.— Character of the People.— Dress.— Powis Park. . 206

CHAPTER XXVII.

English Vehicles. — A Feudal Castle and Modern Aristocratic Mansion. — Aris
tocracy in 1850.— Primogeniture.— Democratic Tendency of Political Senti
ments.— Disposition towards the United States.— Combativeness.— Slavery. 212

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Paintings. — Cromwell. — Pastoral Ships. — Family Portraits and Distant Rela
tions. — Family Apartments. — Personal Cleanliness. — The Wrekin 224

CHAPTER XXIX.

Visit to a Farm.— Farm-House and Farmery.— Fatting Cattle.— Sheep.— Vetches.
— Stack Yard. — Steam Threshing. — Turnip Sowing. — Excellent Work. —
Tram Road.— Wages 228

CHAPTER XXX.
Visit to two English Common Schools 232

Appendix A 235

Appendix B 246

LIST OF CUTS,

DRAWN ON WOOD BT A. FIELD,
FROM SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR.

1. THE SCHOOL-HOUSE (vignette,

2. THE ENGLISH COASTEB (calm), . . . . .45

3. THE ENGLISH COASTER (squalls*), .... 47

4. THE ENGLISH PLOUGH (vertical), ..... 103

5. THE ENGLISH PLOUGH (horizontal), .... 103

6. THE TIMBER HOUSE (old farm-house), .... 10T

7. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (Chester, IQtTi century), . 124

8. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (Chester, IQtk century), . 149

9. THE CLOD CRUSHER, ...... 180

10. THE ULET CULTIVATOR, ....... 182

11. THE STAGE WAGON, ...... 202

12. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (the village schoolmaster's

cottage), ........ 207

SBulfos anii

AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND,

CHAPTER I.

EMIGRANT PASSENGER AGENTS. SECOND CABIN. MUTINY. DELAY.

DEPARTURE.

¥E intended, if we could be suited, to take a second-cabin
state-room for our party of three, and to accommodate
me my friends had agreed to wait till " after planting"
While I therefore hurried on the spring work upon my farm,
they in the city were examining ships and consulting passen
ger agents. The confidence in imposition those acquire who
are in the habit of dealing with emigrant passengers, was
amusingly shown in the assurance with which they would
attempt to lie down the most obvious objections to what they
had to offer ; declaring that a cabin disgusting with filth and
the stench of bilge- water was sweet and clean, that darkness
in which they would be groping was very light (a trick, cer-

84627

10 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

tainly, not confined to their trade), that a space in which one
could not stand erect, or a berth like a coffin, was very roomy,
and so forth.

Finally we were taken in by the perfect impudence and
utter simplicity in falsehood of one of them, an underling of
" a respectable house" — advertised passenger agents of the
ship — which, on the lie being represented to it, thought proper
to express its " regret" at the young man's error, but could
not be made to see that it was proper for them to do any
thing more, — the error not having been discovered in time for
us to conveniently make other arrangements.

We had engaged a " family-room" exclusively for our
selves, in the very large and neatly-fitted cabin of a new,
clean first-class packet. We thought the price asked for it
very low, and to secure it beyond a doubt, had paid half the
money down at the agent's desk, and taken a receipt, put
some of our baggage in it, locked the door, and taken the key.
The ship was hauling out from her pier when we went on
board with our trunks, and found the spacious second cabin
had been stored half full of cotton, and the remaining space
was lumbered up with ship stores, spare sails, &c. The ad
joining rooms were occupied by steerage passengers, and the
steward was trying keys to let them into ours. The mate
cursed us for taking the key, and the captain declared no one
had been authorized to make such arrangements as had been
entered into with us, and that he should put whom he pleased
into the room.

We held on to the key, and appealed first to the agents
and then to the owners. Finally we agreed to take a single
room-mate, a young man whom they introduced to us, and
whose appearance promised agreeably, and with this compro
mise were allowed to retain possession. The distinction
between second cabin and steerage proved to be an imagina-

PASSENGER AGENTS.— MUTINY. \\

tion of the agents — those who had asked for a steerage pas
sage were asked a little less, and had berths given them in
the second-cabin state-rooms, the proper steerage being filled
up with freight. The captain, however, directed the cook to
serve us, allowed us a light at night in our room, and some
other extra conveniences and privileges, and generally treated
us after we got to sea as if he considered us rather more of
the " gentleman" class than the rest ; — about two dollars
apiece more, I suppose

After the ship had hauled out into the stream, and while
she lay in charge of the first mate, the captain having gone
ashore, there was a bit of mutiny among the seamen. Nearly
the whole crew refused to do duty, and pledged each other never
to take the ship to sea. Seeing that the officers, though pre
pared with loaded pistols, were not disposed to act rashly, we
offered to assist them, for the men had brought up their chests
and \vere collecting handspikes and weapons, and threatened
to take a boat from the davits if they were not sent on shore.
It was curious to see how the steerage passengers, before they
had any idea of the grounds of the quarrel, but as if by in
stinct, almost to a man, took sides against the lawful authority.

Having had some experience with the ways of seamen, I
also went forward to try to pacify them. (Like most Con-
necticut boys, I knocked about the world a few years before
I settled down, and one of these I spent in a ship's forecastle.)
The only thing the soberest of them could say was, that a man
had been killed on the ship, and they knew she was going to
be unlucky ; and that they had been shipped in her when too
drunk to know what they were about. Perceiving that all
that the most of them wanted was to get ashore, that they
might have their spree out, and as there was no reason
ing with them, I advised the mate to send them a fiddle and
let them get to dancing. He liked the kfafr, but had no fid-

12 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

die, so as the next most pacifying amusement, ordered the
cook to give them supper. They took to this kindly, and
after using it up went to playing monkey shines, and with
singing, dancing, and shouting kept themselves in good
humour until late in the evening, when they, one by one,
dropped off, and turned in. The next morning they were all
drunk and sulky, and contented themselves with refusing tc
come on deck when ordered.

When the captain came on board and learned the state
of things, he took a hatchet, and with the officers and
carpenter jumped into the forecastle, and with a general
knocking down and kicking out, got them all on deck. He
then broke open their chests and took from them six jugs of
grog which they had concealed, and threw them overboard.
As thejr floated astern, a Whitehall boatman picked them
up, and after securing the last, took a drink and loudly
wished us good luck.

Two or three of the most violent were sent on shore (not
punished, but so rewarded), and their places supplied by
others. The rest looked a little sour, and contrived to meet
with a good many accidents as long as the shore boats kept
about us ; but when we were fairly getting clear of the land,
and the wind hauled a bit more aft, and the passengers began
to wish she would stop for just one moment, and there came
a whirr-rushing noise from under the bows — the hearty yo-
ho — heave-o-hoii — with which they roused out the stu'n-sails
was such as nobody the least bit sulky could have begun to
have found voice for.

A handsome Napoleonic performance it was of the cap
tain's : — the more need that I should say that in my mind he
A disgraced himself by it ; because, while we lay almost within
hail of the properly constituted officers of the law, and under
the guns of a United States fortress such dashing violence

THE START. 13

was unnecessary and lawless ; — only at sea had he the right,
or could he be justified in using it.

I suppose that some such difficulties occur at the sailing
of half the ships that leave New York. I have been on board
a number as they were getting under way, and in every one
of them there has been more or less trouble arising from the
intoxicated condition of the crew. Twice I have seen men
fall overboard, when first ordered aloft, in going down the
harbour.

The ship did not go to sea until three days after she was
advertised to sail, though she had her crew, stores, and steerage
passengers on board all that time. I do not know the cause
of her detention ; it seemed unnecessary, as other large ships
sailed while we lay idle; and if unnecessary, it was not
honest. The loss of three days' board, and diminution by so
much of the stores, calculated to last out the passage, and all
the other expenses and inconveniences occasioned by it to the
poor steerage passengers, may seem hardly worthy of notice ;
and I should not mention it, if such delays, often much more
protracted, were not frequent, sometimes adding materially
to the suffering always attending a long passage.

At noon on the 3d of May we passed out by the light
ship of the outer bar, and soon after eight o'clock that even
ing the last gleam of Fire-Island light disappeared behind
the dark line of unbroken horizon.

2

14 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER II.

AT SEA. — INCIDENTS. — SEA SOCIABILITY. — A YARN. — SEA LIFE. CHARACTERS.

ENGLISH RADICALS. SKEPTICS. EDUCATION. FRENCH INFIDELITY.

PHRENOLOGY. THEOLOGY.

At Sea, May 23.

TT7~E are reckoned to-day to be about one hundred and fifty
' ' miles to the westward of Cape Clear ; ship close-hauled,
heading north, with a very dim prospect of the termination
of our voyage. It has been thus far rather dull and unevent
ful. We three have never been obliged to own ourselves
actually sea-sick, but at any time during the first week we
could hardly have declared that we felt perfectly well, and
our appetites seemed influenced at every meal as if by a
gloomy apprehension of what an hour might bring forth.
Most of the other passengers have been very miserable in
deed. I notice they recover more rapidly in the steerage
than in the cabin. This I suppose to be owing to their situa
tion in the middle of the ship, where there is the least motion,
to their simple diet, and probably to their having less temp
tation to eat freely, and greater necessity to " make an effort,"
and move about in fresh air.

We have met one school of small whales. There might
have been fifty of them, tumbling ponderously over the
waves, in sight at once. Occasionally one would rise lazily
up so near, that, as he caught sight of us, we could seem to
see an expression of surprise and alarm in his stolid, black

THE VOYAGE. 15

face, and then he would hastily throw himself under again,
with an energetic slap of his flukes.

One dark, foggy night, while we were " on the Banks,"
we witnessed a rather remarkable exhibition of marine pyro-
techny. The whole water, as far as we could see, was lustrous
white, while nearer the eye it was full of spangles, and every
disturbance, as that caused by the movement of the ship, or
the ripples from the wind, or the surging of the sea, was
marked by fire flashes. Very singular spots, from the size of
one's hand to minute sparks, frequently floated by, looking
like stars in the milky-way. We noticed also several schools,
numbering hundreds, of what seemed little fishes (perhaps an
inch long), that darted here and there, comet-like, with great
velocity. I tried, without success, to catch some of these. It
w^as evident that, besides the ordinary phosphorescent animal-
cula, there were various and distinct varieties of animated
nature around us, such as are not often to be observed.

Some kind of sea-bird we have seen, I think, every day,
and when at the greatest distance from land. Where is their
home 1 is an oft-repeated question, and, What do they eat 1
They are mysteries, these feathered Bedouins. To-day, land
and long-legged shore birds are coming on board of us. They
fly tremulously about the ship, sometimes going off out of
sight and back again, then lighting for a few moments on a
spar or line of rigging. Some have fallen asleep so ; or suf
fered themselves, though panting with apprehension, to be
taken. One of these is a swallow, and another a wheatear.
Some kind of a lark, but not recognisable by the English on
board, was taken several days since. It had probably been
lost from the Western Islands.

We have seen but very few vessels ; but the meeting with
one of them was quite an event in sea life. She was coming
from the eastward, wind north, and running free, when we

16 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

first saw her, but soon after took in her studding-sails and
hauled up so as to come near us. When abeam, and about
three miles distant, she showed German colours, laid aback
her mainsail and lowered a quarter-boat, which we immedi
ately squared away to meet, and ran up our bunting, every
body on deck, and great excitement. With a glass we could
see her decks loaded with emigrants ; and as her masts and
sails appeared entirely uninjured, it could only be conjectured
that she was distressed for provisions or water. The carpen
ter was sent to sound the water tanks, and the mate to make
an estimate of what stores might be safely spared, while we
hastened to our rooms to scribble notes to send home. We
finished them soon enough to see a neat boat, rowed by four
men, come alongside, and a gentlemanly young officer mount
nimbly up the side-ladder. He was received on deck by our
second mate, and conducted aft by him to the cabin compan
ion, where the captain, having put on his best dress-coat and
new Broadway stove-pipe hat, stood, like a small king, digni-
fiedly waiting. After the ceremony of presentation, the cap
tain inquired, " Well, sir, what can I have the pleasure of
doing for you ?" The young man replied that he came from

the ship so and so, Captain , who sent his compliments,

and desired " Vaat is te news ?" This cool motive for stop
ping two ships in mid-ocean, with a fresh and favourable wind
blowing for each, took the captain plainly aback; but he
directly recovered, and taking him into the cabin, gave him
a glass of wine and a few minutes' conversation with a
most creditable politeness ; a chunk of ice and a piece of fresh
meat were passed into the boat, and the steerage passengers
threw some tobacco to the men in her. The young officer
took our letters, with some cigars and newspapers, and went
over the side again, without probably having perceived that
we were any less gregarious beings than himself. The curbed

A "BOARDING-" ANECDOTE. 17

energy and suppressed vexation of our officers, however,
showed itself before he was well seated in his boat, by the
violent language of command, and the rapidity with which
the yards were sharpened and the ship again brought to her
course. ^

This occurrence brought to the mind of our "second dickey"
that night, a boarding affair of his own, which he told us of
in the drollest manner possible. I wish you could hear his
drawl, and see his immoveably sober face, but twinkling eye,
that made it all seem natural and just like him, as he spun
us the yarn.

He was once, he said, round in the Pacific, in a Sag-Har
bour whaler, "rayther smart, we accounted her," when they
tried to speak an English frigate, and did not get quite near
enough. So, as they had nothing else to do, they " up't and
chased her," and kept after her without ever getting any
nearer for nearly three days. Finally, the wind hauled round
ahead and began to blow a little fresh, and they overhauled
her very rapidly, so that along about sunset they found them
selves coming well to windward of her, as they ran upon
opposite tacks. They then hove-to, and he was sent in a
boat to board her, and she promptly came-to also, and waited
for him.

Dressed in a dungaree jumper, yellow oil-skin hat, and
canvass trowsers, he climbed on board the frigate and was
immediately addressed by the officer of the deck.

" Now then, sir, what is it ?"

" Are you the cap'en of this here frigate, sir ?"

" What's your business ?"

" Why, our cap'en sent his compliments to yourn, sir, and
— if you are a going home — he wished you'd report the bark
Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag,-Harbour, Cap'en J. Coffin Starbuck,
thirty-seven days from Wahoo (Oahu), seven hundred and

2*

18 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

fifty barrels of sperm, and two hundred and fifty of whale ;
guess we shall go in to Tuckeywarner (Talcahuano)."

"Is that all, sir?"

" Well, no ; the old man did say, if you was a mind to,
he'd like to have me see if I could make a trade with yer for
some tobacky. We hadn't had none now a going on two
week, and he's a most sick. How is't — yer mind to ?"

"Is that all your business, sir?"

"Well — yes; I guess 'tis about all."

" I think you had better get into your boat, sir."

He thought so too, when he saw the main-yard imme
diately after begin to swing round. As the officer stepped
below, he went over the side. When he called out to have
the painter let go though, he was told to wait a bit, and di
rectly a small parcel of tobacco was handed down and the
same officer, looking over the rail, asked,

" Did you say the Lucretia Ann?"

" Ay, ay, sir ; Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag-Harbour."

"Mr. Starboard, I believe."

" < Buck; sir, ' buck: How about this 'backey ?"

The lieutenant, raising his head, his cap, striking the main-
sheet as it was being hauled down, was knocked off and fell
into the wrater, when one of the whalers immediately lanced
it and held it up dripping.

" Hallo, mister ; I say, what shall we do with this cap 1
Did you mean ter throw it in."

The officer once more looked over the side, with half a
dozen grinning middies, and imperturbably dignified, replied,

" You will do me the favor to present it to Captain Buck,
and say to him, if you please, that when he wishes to com
municate with one of Her Majesty's ships again, it will be
proper for him to do so in person."

" Oh, certainly — oh, yes ; good night to yer. Here, let's

A GALE. 19

have that cap. Give way, now, boys," so saying he clapped
it on the top of his old souwester, and as the frigate forged
ahead, the boat dropped astern, and was pulled back to the
Lucretia Ann.

We have had only three days of any thing like bad weather,
and those we enjoyed, I think, quite as much as any. The
storm was preceded by some twenty-four hours of a clear,
fresh northwester, driving us along on our course with foaming,
sparkling, and most exhilarating speed. It gives a fine sensa
tion to be so borne along, like that of riding a great, power
ful, and spirited horse, or of dashing yourself through the
crashing surf, and in your own body breasting away the bil
lows as they sweep down upon you. Gradually it grew
more and more ahead, and blew harder and harder. When
we came on deck early in the morning, the horizon seemed
within a stone's throw, and there was a grand sight of dark-
marbled swelling waves, rushing on tumultuously, crowding
away and trampling under each other, as if panic-struck by
the grey, lowering, misty clouds that were sweeping down
with an appearance of intense mysterious purpose over them.
The expression was of vehement energy blindly directed.
The ship, lying-to under trifling storm-sail, seemed to have
composed herself for a trial, and, neither advancing nor shrink
ing back, rose and fell with more than habitual ease and dig
nity. Having been previously accustomed only to the
fidgety movements of a smaller class of vessels, I was greatly
surprised and impressed by her deliberate 'movements ; the
quietness and simplicity with which she answered the threats
of the turbulent elements.

" If only that northwester had continued" — every body is
saying — " we might have been in Liverpool by this." It's
not unfashionable yet at sea to talk about the weather. I am

20 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

to write about what is most interesting us ! Well, the wind
and weather. Bad time when it comes to that ? Well, now,
— here I am, sitting on a trunk, bracing myself between two
berths, with my portfolio on my knees — imagine the motion
of the vessel, the flickering, inconstant half-light that comes
through a narrow piece of inch-thick glass, which the people
on deck are constantly crossing, exclamations from them,
dash of waves and creaking of timber, and various noises
both distracting and lullaby ing, and if you can't understand
the difficulty of thinking connectedly, you may begin to that
of writing.

John's eyes have been bad, and we have read aloud with
him a good deal ; but I tell you it is hard work even to read
on board ship. We have had some good talks, have listened
to a good deal of music, and to a bad deal, and had a few
staggering hops with the ladies on the quarter deck. We
contrived a set of chess-men, cutting them out of card-board,
fitting them with cork pedestals, and a pin-point to attach
them to the board so they would not slip off or blow away.
Charley has had some capital games, and I believe found his
match with Dr. M., one of the cabin passengers returning
home from the East Indies by way of California, who prom
ises to introduce him at a London chess club.

I told you in my letter by the pilot-boat, how we had
been humbugged about the second cabin. While this has
reduced the cost of our passage to a very small sum, we have
had almost every comfort that we should have asked. Our
room is considerably more spacious, having been intended
for a family apartment, and has the advantage of much less
motion than those of the first cabin. For a ship's accommo
dations it has, too, a quite luxurious degree of ventilation and
light. There is a large port in it that we can open at pleasure,
having only been obliged to close it during two nights of the

THE VOYAGE. 21

gale. Our stores have held out well, and the cook has served
us excellently, giving us, particularly, nice fresh rolls, soups,
omelettes, and puddings. We have hardly tasted our cured
meat, and with this and our hard bread we are now helping
out some of our more unfortunate neighbors. Split peas and
portable soup (bouillon), with fresh and dried fruit, have
been valuable stores ; even our friends in the cabin have been
gladly indebted to us for the latter. Don't forget when you
come to sea to have plenty of fruit.

As the captain desired us to use the quarter-deck privi
leges, we have associated as we pleased with the first-cabin
passengers, and found several valuable acquaintances among
them. (Friend, rather, I should call one now.)

Our room-mate, a young Irish surgeon, is a very good
fellow, apparently of high professional attainments, and pos
sessed of a power of so concentrating his attention on a book
or whatever he is engaged with, as not to be easily disturbed,
and a general politeness in yielding to the tastes of the
majority that we are greatly beholden to. He is a devoted
admirer of Smith O'Brien, and thinks the Irish rising of '48
would have been successful, if 'he (O'B.) had not been too
strictly honest and honorable a man to lead a popular revolt.
Of what he saw and knew at that time, he has given us some
interesting particulars, which lead me to think that the revo
lutionary purpose, insurrection, or at least the insurrectionary
purpose, and preparation was much more general, respectable,
and formidable, than I have hitherto supposed.

Of his last winter's passage, in an emigrant ship, across
the Atlantic, he gives us a most thrilling account.

He had been appointed surgeon of a vessel aK&ut to sail
from a small port in Ireland. She was nearly ready for sea,
the passengers collecting and stores taken on board, when
some discovery was made that involved the necessity of

22 A^' AMERICAS FARMER IN ENGLAND.

withdrawing her. Another ship was procured from Liver
pool, and the stores, passengers, doctor, and all, hastily trans
ferred to her in the night, as soon as she arrived. They got
to sea, and he found there was hardly a particle of any thing
in the medicine chest. He begged the captain to put back,
but the captain was a stubborn, reckless, devil-may-care fel
low, and only laughed at him. That very night the cholera
broke out. He went again to the captain, he beseeched him,
he threatened him ; he told him that on his head must be
the consequences ; the captain didn't care a rope yarn for the
consequences, he would do any thing else to oblige the doctor,
but go back he would not. The doctor turned the pigs out
of the long-boat, and made a temporary hospital of it. It
was a cold place, but any thing was better than that horrible
steerage. Nevertheless, down into the steerage the doctor
would himself go every morning, nor leave it till every soul
had gone or been carried on deck before him. He searched
the ship for something he could make medicine of. The car
penter's chalk was the only thing that turned up. This he
calcined and saved, to be used sparingly. He forced those
who were the least sea-sick to become nurses ; convalescents
and those with less dangerous illness, he placed beds for on
the galley and the hen-coops, and made the captain give up
his fowls and other delicacies to them. Fortunately fair
weather continued, and with sleepless vigilance, and strength,
as it seemed to him, almost miraculously sustained, he con
tinued to examine and send on deck for some hours each day,
every one of the three hundred passengers. On the first
cholera symptoms appearing, he gave the patient chalk, and
continued administering it in small but frequent doses until
the spasmodic crisis commenced; thence he troubled him
only with hot fomentations. The third day out a man died
and was buried. The captain read the funeral service, and

EMIGRANT PASSENGERS. 23

after the body had disappeared beneath the blue water, the
doctor took advantage of the solemn moment again to appeal
to him.

" Captain, there are three hundred souls in this ship — "

"Belay that, doctor; I'll see every soul of 'em in
Davy's locker, sir, before I'll put my ship back for your
cursed physic."

The doctor said no more, but turned away with a heavy
heart to do his duty as best he could.

I cannot describe the horrors of that passage as he would.
Nevertheless, as far as simple numbers can give it, you shall
have the result.

Out of those three hundred souls, before the ship reached
New York, there died one, and he, the doctor declared most
soberly, was a very old man, and half dead with a chronic
(something) when he came on board. So much for burnt
chalk and — fresh air !

But seriously, this story, which, as I have repeated it, I
believe is essentially true, though not in itself a painful one,
not the less strikingly shows with what villanous barbarity,
by disregard or evasion of the laws of England, and the
neglect or connivance of the port officers, the emigrant traffic
is carried on. Some of the accounts of the three other
medical men on board, who are also returning from passages
in emigrant ships, would disgust a slave-trader. They say
that many of the passengers will never go on deck unless
they are driven or carried, and frequently the number of
these is so great, that it is impossible to force them out of
their berths, and they sometimes lie in them in the most
filthy manner possible, without ever stepping out from the
first heave of the sickening sea .till the American pilot is
received on board. Then their wives, husbands, children, as
the case may be, who have served them with food during

24 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

their prostration, get them up, and, if they can afford it,
change their garments, throwing the old ones, with the bed
and its accumulations, overboard. So, as any one may see,
from a dozen ships a day often in New York, they come
ashore with no disease but want of energy, but emaciated,
enfeebled, infected, and covered with vermin. When we
observe the listlessness, even cheerfulness, with which they
accept the precarious and dog-like subsistence which, while in
this condition, the already crowded city affords them, we
see the misery and degradation to which they must have
been habituated in their native land. When in a year after
wards we find that the same poor fellows are plainly growing
active, hopeful, enterprising, prudent, and, if they have been
favourably situated, cleanly, tidy, and actually changing to
their very bones as it seems — tight, elastic, well-knit muscles
taking the place of flabby flesh, as ambition and blessed
discontent take the place of stupid indifference, — -'we appre
ciate, as the landlords and the government men of Ireland
never can, what are the causes of that degradation and
misery.

Dr. M. gives much happier accounts of the English
governmental emigrant ships to Australia, in which he has
made two voyages. Some few of their arrangements are so
entirely commendable, and so obviously demanded by every
consideration of decency, humanity, and virtue, that I can
only wonder that the law does not require all emigrant
vessels to adopt them. Among these, that which is most
plainly required, is the division of the steerage into three
compartments : married parties with their children in the
central one, and unmarried men and women having separate
sleeping accommodations in the other two.

The others of our midship passengers are mostly English
artisans, or manufacturing workmen. There are two or three

MIDSHIP PASSENGERS. 25

farmers, a number of Irish servants, male and female, and
several nondescript adventurers ; two Scotchmen only,
brothers, both returning from Cuba sugar plantations where
they have been employed as engineers. They tell us the
people there are all for annexation to the United States, but
as they cannot speak Spanish, their information on this point
cannot be very extensive. Besides ourselves, there is but
one American-born person among them. She is a young
woman of quite superior mind, fair and engaging, rather ill
in health, going to England in hopes to improve it, and to
visit some family friends there. The young men are all
hoping the ship will be wrecked, so they can have the pleasure
of saving her — or dying in the attempt. One goes into the
main-chains and sits there for several hours, all alone, every
fine day, for no other reason that we can conceive, but to
drop himself easily into the water after her, in case she
should fall overboard. There are three or four other women,
and as many babies, and little boys and girls. They do not
cry very often, but are generally in high spirits, always in
the way, frolicking or eating, much fondled and scolded, and
very dirty.

The most notable character in our part of the ship, is one
Dr. T., another returning emigrant physician. He appears
to have been well educated^ and is of a wealthy Irish family.
His diploma is signed by Sir Astley Cooper, whose autograph
we have thus seen. Though a young man, he is all broken
down in spirit and body from hard drinking. He makes
himself a buffoon for the amusement of the passengers, and
some of the young men of the first cabin are so foolish as to
reward him sometimes with liquor, which makes him down
right crazy. Even the pale-faced student, who kept his
neighbours awake with his midnight prayers while he was sea
sick, has participated in this cruel fun. Dr. T. has been

3

26 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND,

smutten, as the second mate says, by a young lady of the first
cabin, who does not altogether discourage his gallant atten
tions. He keeps up the habits of a gentleman in the reduc
tion of his circumstances, eating his dinner at four o'clock,
(being thus enabled to cook it while the first-cabin people
are below eating theirs, which is served at half-past three).
He declares it was only to oblige the owners that he took a
berth in the second cabin, and he certainly should not have
done so, if he had suspected the promiscuous character of the
company he should be associated with there. The forenoon
he spends in combing his hair and whiskers, cleaning his
threadbare coat, smoothing his crushed hat, and polishing his
shoes. Now, indeed, since he has become conscious of the ten
der passion, and can feed on love, he has traded off a part of
his stock of bread for a pair of boots, which enables nim to
dispense with stockings and straps, much to his relief in dances
and fencing bouts. Towards noon he comes on deck with
his coat buttoned to the neck ; he wears a stock and no col
lar ; his hat is set on rakishly ; he has a yellow kid glove for
his right hand, the thumb only is missing — his thumb, there
fore, is stuck under the breast of his coat allowing the rest to
be advantageously displayed ; his other hand is carried habit
ually in the mode of Mr. Pickwick, under the skirt of his
coat. He has in his mouth the stump of a cigar that he
found last night upon the deck, and has saved for the occa.
sion. After walking until it is smoked out with the gentle
men — to whom he manages to give the impression that he
has just finished his breakfast — he approaches, with a really
elegant air to the ladies, and, gracefully bowing, inquires
after their health.- Then, after gazing upwards at the sun
a moment, he takes the attitude, " Napoleon at St. Helena,"
his left hand hidden under his right arm, and, in a deep,
tremulous voice, says, " Ourre nooble barruck still cleaves

CHARACTERS.— A POET. 27

the breeny ailiment, and bears us on with velucitay 'twarrd
th' expectant shoorres of Albeeon's eel. Ah ! what a grrand
expanse it is of weeld- washing waterrers ! Deleeghtful
waytherr, 'pon my worrud." He is a good fencer, boxer,
card player, and trickster ; a safe waltzer, even in a rolling
ship, and, when half-seas over, dances a jig, hornpipe, or
French pas seul, and turns a pirouette on the top of the cap
stan ; plays a cracked clarionet, and can get something out
of every sort of musical instrument; he spouts theatrically,
gives imitations of living actors, sings every thing, improvises,
and on Sunday chants from the prayer-book, so that even
then the religiously inclined may conscientiously enjoy his en
tertainment. A most rare treasure for a long passage. Some
of our passengers declare they would have died of dulness if
it had not been for him !

There is another Irishman (from the North), who has
written a poem as long as Paradise Lost, the manuscript of
which he keeps under lock and key, in a small trunk, at the
head of his bed, and, as they say, fastened to a life-preserver.
It is never out of his head, however, and he manages to find
something to quote from it appropriate to every occasion.
You might suppose he would be made use of as a butt, but
somehow he is not, and is only regarded as a bore. I incline
to think him a true poet, for he is a strange fellow, often
blundering, stupidly as it seems, upon " good hits," and,
however inconsistently, always speaking with the confidence
of true inspiration. We have a godless set around us, and
he is very impatient of their card-playing and profanity — par
ticularly if the weather is at all bad — declaring that he is not
superstitious, but that he thinks, if a man is ever to stand by
his faith, it should be when he is in the midst of the awful
ocean, and in an unlucky ship. "Nay," he asserts again,
" he is not superstitious, and no one must accuse him of it,

28 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

but if he were not principled against it, he would lay a large
wager that this ship never does arrive at her destined port."
His poem runs somewhat upon socialism, whether approv
ingly or condemnatory I have not yet been able quite to un
derstand. I rather think he has a scheme of his own for
remodelling society. He uses a good deal of religious phrase
ology ; he is liberal on doctrinal points, does not enlist under
any particular church banner, and says himself, that he can
bear " any sort of religion (or irreligion) in a man, so he is
not a papist." Towards all persons of the Roman church he
entertains the most orthodox contempt and undisguised
hatred, as becomes, in his opinion, an Irish Protestant-born
man.

There is a good-natured fellow who has been a flat-boat
man on the Mississippi, and more lately a squatter some
where in the wilds of the West. His painter and cat-fish
stories, with all his reckless airs and cant river phrases, have
much entertained us; of course he has no baggage, but a
"heap of plunder." He has a rough, rowdy, blustering, half-
barbarous way with him, and you would judge from his talk
sometimes, that he was a perfectly lawless, heartless savage ;
yet again there is often evident in his behaviour to individ
uals a singularly delicate sense of propriety and fitness, and
there is not a man in the ship with whom I would sooner
trust the safety of a woman or child in a time of peril. The
great fault of the man is his terrific and uncontrollable indig
nation at any thing which seems to him mean or unjust, and
his judgment or insight of narrow-mindedness is not always
reliable.

He has formed a strong friendship, or crony-ship, for an
Englishman on board, who is a man of about the same native
intelligence, but a strange contrast to him in manner, appear,
ance, and opinions, being short, thick-set, slow of speech, and

CHARACTERS. 29

husky voiced. He is a stone-cutter by trade, and returns to
England because, as he says, there is no demand for so fine
work as he is able to do, in America, and he will be better
paid in London. These two men are always together, and
always quarrelling. Indeed, the Englishman has, with his
slowness and obstinate deafness to reason on any matter that
he has once stated his views of, an endless battery of logic
and bante rings to reply to, for he is the only defender of an
aristocratic form of government amongst us, every other man,
Irish, Scotch, or English, being a thorough-going, violent,
radical democrat. Most of them, indeed, claim the name of
red republican, and carry their ideas of " liberty" far beyond
any native American I have known. What is more remark
able and painful, nearly all of them, except the Irish, are pro
fessedly Deists or Atheists, or something of the sort, for all
their ideas are evidently most crude and confused upon the
subject, and amount to nothing but pity, hatred, or contempt
for all religious people, as either fools or hypocrites, impos
tors or imposed upon. There is only one of them that seems
to have ever thought upon the matter at all carefully, or to
be able to argue upon it, and he is so self-satisfied (precisely
what he says, by the way, of every one that argues against
him), that he never stops arguing. Of him I will speak again.
A remark of one of the farmers, an Englishman, and a
very sensible fellow, upon these sentiments so generally held
among our company, seemed to me true and well expressed.
I think my observation of the lower class of Englishmen in
the United States generally confirms it. " I have often no
ticed of my countrymen," said he, " that when they cease to
honour the king, they no longer fear God." That is, as I un
derstand it, when they are led to change the political theory
in which they have been instructed, they must lose confi
dence in a religious creed which they owe about equally to

3*

30 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the circumstances of their birth, neither having been adopted
from a rational process in their own minds. Seeing the
childish absurdity of many forms which they have been
trained to consider necessary, natural, and ordered of God,
they lose confidence in all their previous ideas that have re
sulted from a merely receptive education, and religion and
royalty are classed together as old-fashioned notions, nursery
bugbears, and romances. It is partly the result of the
abominable masquerade of words which is still constantly
played off in England on all public occasions, clothing gov
ernment with antiquated false forms of sacredness. The
simple majesty and holy authority that depends on the exer
cise of justice, love, and good judgment, so far from being
made more imposing by this mummery, is lost sight of;
while all the folly, indiscretion, and injustice of the adminis
tration of the law by fallible and unsanctified agents, is inev
itably associated in the minds of the ignorant with all that
is holy and true.

The only idea now, these our shipmates entertain of
Christianity, seemed to be the particular humbug by which the
bishops and clergy make the people think that they must
support them in purple and fine linen, just as royalty is
the humbug on which the queen is borne, and government
the humbug by which the aristocracy are carried on their
shoulders, all, of course, in combination. And nothing would
convince them of the sincerity of the clergy short of their
martyrdom — even that, I fear, should the time come for them
to act as judges, they would rather attribute to pride, or, at
best, to an exceptional deluded mind. With these ideas,
nothing but thorough contempt for him, or fear of punish
ment, would prevent them from putting a bishop to the test
of the stake, if he should fall into their hands.

While this explanation, if it is correct, should not hinder

DEMOCRACY.— SKEPTICISM. 31

the promulgation of sound republican views, it strongly op
poses the fear that many have, of providing for the lower
classes an education that shall make them capable of free
independent thinking. It is long ago too late in any coun
try in the world, to prevent the masses from learning that
little that is dangerous. Yet, even in England, it is argued
by churchmen that education, unless managed by the church,
is the foe of their religion ! Surely, there must be conscious
ness of evil in this fear of the light. True religion is not a
machinery for fitting men with beliefs and morals. The free
man in Christ cannot be the subject of ignorance. It is as
much slavish and disloyal to God to be blindly led by a
priest, as to be wheedled by a politician ; and more than it
is to be ruled over and crushed by a tyrant. Let us remem
ber, too, that slaves to party or to creed are not confined to
monarchies, but that all churches and governments whose
authority is not dependent on the untrammelled and honest
judgment of free intelligent minds, are alike ungodly and
degrading.

If this view of the connection of liberal politics with reli
gious skepticism is correct, it follows that we may look with
less of horror and more of hope upon the infidelity which has
so scandalized the national character of France. We may
conceive it as the unnatural and convulsive action of a mind
which the last thrust of tyranny has suddenly aroused from a
long, false dream. Sitting in judgment over the wickedness
of tyrants and the licentiousness of courts, it would be
strange, unnatural, almost unreasonable, that a people whose
religious teachers had been dependent on those tyrants, — had
been the most active sycophants of those courts, — teachers,
who had taught them that the power there seated was sacred,
should hold in reverence for a moment longer, any of the
dogmas of a religion so debased. The authority, the stability

32 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLANJJ.

of the throne, which they have ground to powder and thrown
to the free winds, was a part of the very idea of the being and
government of the God in whom they had been instructed to
believe. Would they not be fools still to worship such an
idol of the imagination ? And what then ? The natural and
fearful reaction here also, from torpidity and stupid delusion,
which a little knowledge must provoke. And which is best
— a dead, superstitious morality, or a live, working-onward
infidelity — a slow poison, swallowed in a sugar-coated bolus,
or an active, painful, purging black-draught ? Let us yet
hope (for years are but hours wTith a nation), that repudiation
of lying forms and ignoble use of the name of God, and His
Holy Word is but a symptom which precedes a return of
healthy fidelity to the truth of God.

To return to the man that I mentioned as being more
thoughtful and fond of argument than the others, and who for
that reason I have reserved to speak of more particularly, as
affording a more tangible illustration of English popular skep
ticism and agrarianism of the day.

He was born near Sheffield, had been a good while in the
United States, and now returned to England, thinking that
some particular art, in smelting, I believe, that he had acquired,
would be more valued there. He had certainly been a serious
and constant thinker, but his information was limited, super
ficial, and inaccurate, and he was better at quibbling and
picking inconsistencies, than at sustained and thorough rea
soning. He was a man that would have a strong influence
with a certain kind of honest people, not able to think far
originally ; and as his activity would infuse itself into them,
and he was generally in earnest after something, his influence
might possibly in the end be more good than bad. No one
could sleep easily, at all events, while he was near them (as,

A DEIST. 33

literally, some of us had uncomfortable experience). He had
been brought up to the best of the cunning of his parents and
friends, a strict ist ; and nothing can be more character
istic of the blundering progress likely to be made by a man
cramped with an " education," after the cowardly fashion to
which the stiff-necked people of England so generally condemn
their children, than his account of his coming to Deism.

While quite young, he said that he saw inconsistencies in
the religious doctrines wrhich had been battered into him, and
for years labored painfully and devoutly to reconcile them ;
yet each dogma, however contradicted by another, seemed
plainly to rest on Bible language (always understanding that
language as interpreted by his teachers), constantly looking
into every thing else that came in his way, he obtained from
itinerant lecturers some knowledge of phrenology, and read
ing a few books upon it, and practising among his fellow-
workmen, he soon acquired not only a good deal of theo
retical understanding of the science, and acuteness in discern
ing character, but considerable skill as a manipulator. So,
as he moved from place to place, sometimes, I suspect, giving
lectures himself also upon it, he had accumulated experience
that to him incontestably proved the foundation in nature of
the science. He was still a church-going man, and still wor
shipped under the shadow of his congenital creed, still trying
to reconcile what seemed its discrepancies, when one day he
read in the religious newspapers of his sect an article on
phrenology, in which the reverend editor, in strong terms,
declared its devilish origin and untruth.

His argument, what there was of it, for his strength was
mostly spent in ridicule, denunciation, and everlasting con-
demnation, was based on the assumption that phrenology
was inconsistent with free will and moral responsibility,
therefore irreconcilable with the Bible. To listen to phre-

34 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

nologists, then, was to close the eye of faith ; " if you accept
phrenology as truth, you deny God. If the Bible is true,
phrenology is false ; if phrenology is true, the Bible is a lie
Phrenology is infidelity."

" Then," exclaimed he, " / am an infidel, for I know as
well as the nose on my face, that phrenology is true." He
forthwith began to study infidel books, soon so scandalized
his church, that he was publicly expelled from it, and thence
forth he had looked upon the Bible only as a block in the
road, over which every man must leap before he can become
free to truth. As the great barrier to the progress of his
race, he set himself diligently to searching out every cranny
of error and crevice of inconsistency from which he could
proudly poke the dust, and expose to reasoners equally shal
low with himself; unconscious, poor fellow, that he was merely
picking into blind traditions, uninspired translations, and hard-
squeezed interpretations ; rubbish of mortal church-builders
and vain-glorious creed-idolaters, accumulating for nineteen
centuries over the real under-laying adamant of divine truth.

He had even yet, while with us, all the zeal and activity
in this purpose that characterizes the young convert to any
faith ; talked to every one that would listen to him, and
lugged in his " cause" most pertinaciously with every com
pany he joined, no matter what might be the subject of con
versation before he entered. There was little use to argue
with him, for he would shift his ground as fast as it was
weakened under him, and by changing the question, never
knew that he failed to sustain himself. He would insist on
making the Bible responsible for every ridiculous notion that
foolish or designing men have ever professed to ground upon
it, and constantly insisted on taking part in those quarrels, it
was little matter to him on which side, which, like the fierce
little disputes one often hears in a family, only show the real

A DEIST. 35

bond of love, in the common interest, that can make matters
so trivial seem important. On the grand and simple purpose
of the Bible, from which all Christendom is nursed, he would
always avoid to look or argue.

I had myself always managed to avoid discussion with
him, till one night, as he came to me on deck to repeat the
good things with which he had successively sent to bed the
Episcopalian, the Unitarian, the Calvinist, and the poet, fear
ing that he presumed from my silence that I sympathized
with his opinions, and would enjoy his triumphs, I thought it
not honest to do so longer ; but as I really cared very little
for the views one way or the other against which the shafts
of his wit had been directed, I desired, if possible, to get him
to examine the broad, catholic citadel of which these, at best,
were insignificant outworks, in which alone, too, I had suffi
cient confidence to be willing to encounter him. I found it
almost impossible, however, to draw his attention from them.
They had been made to appear to him so much the most
important part of Christianity, that he could hardly for an
instant raise his eyes above them, or see through their ob
struction. This difficulty, common enough perhaps anywhere,
is peculiarly characteristic of English. working-men, and is, as
I imagine, a direct result of the prevalent views of education
among the religious classes of their country. I have seen
immense evil, as I think, arising from it, and have a strong
conviction of its exceeding folly and danger. I cannot, how
ever, presume upon the general interest of my readers in the
subject, and will not pursue it ; but as illustrating what I
mean, and also as showing what seems to me the best way
to meet the difficulties I have referred to, I will endeavour to
give, in the Appendix, for those who care to listen to it, a re
port of our conversation.* It is, of course, impossible to

* See Appendix A.

36 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

report minutely a conversation after a considerable lapse of
time. I wish to give the general ideas brought out, with so
much of their connection as shall show the manner in which
they were suggested, and the motive of presenting them, as
this must often greatly affect their force and character. The
reader is requested to bear this remark in mind in other con
versations which will be found in this book. It is the idea
given, and the exhibition of character presented in any way,
that I endeavour to recall and dramatize with all the truth
of my memory.

OUR SHIPS CREW. 37

CHAPTER III.

SAILORS. — "SOGERS." — BOOKS. — ANECDOTES.

IF the purport of my title would permit it, I should like to
write a long chapter on our ship's crew, and the general
subject of American officers and seamen. I will, however,
but give, in this one word, my testimony, as one having had
some experience as to the tyranny, barbarity, and lawlessness
with which in most of our merchant ships the common sea
men are treated ; and the vice, misery, and hopelessness to
which, as a body, they are left on our shores, by the neglect
or ill-judged and parsimonious assistance of those who com
pass sea and land to make proselytes of the foreign heathen.
Our ship's crew, as is usual in a Liverpool packet, are
nearly all foreigners — English, Scotch, Irish, Danes, French,
and Portuguese. One boasts of being " half-Welsh and half-
Heelander," judging from this specimen, I have not a very
high opinion of the cross. The mate is a Dane, the second
and third mates, Connecticut men. The captain, also, is
from somewhere down east. He is a good and careful
seaman, courteous in his manners, and a religious man, much
more consistently so than pious captains I have known before
proved to be, after getting on blue water. He never speaks
to the seamen, or directly has any thing to do with them.
In fact, except when he is taking observations, or in bad
weather, or an emergency, you would never see in him any

4

38 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

thing but a floating-hotel keeper. It is plain, nevertheless,
that his eye is everywhere, and a single incident will show
that the savage custom of the sea has not been without the
usual influence upon him. He went to the kitchen the other
day and told the cook he must burn less wood than he had
been doing. The cook, who is a peculiarly mild, polite,
peaceable, little Frenchman, replied that he had along been
careful not to use more than was necessary. The captain
immediately knocked him down, and then quietly remarking,
" You'll take care how you answer me next time," walked
back to join the ladies. The cook fell on the stove, and was
badly burned and bruised.

The men complain that their food is stinted and poor, and
they are worked hard, at least they are kept constantly at
work ; men never exert themselves much when that is the
case. It has been evident to me that they all soger systemat
ically. (Sogering is pretending to wTork, and accomplishing as
little as possible.) It is usually considered an insult to
accuse one of it, but one day I saw a man so evidently trying
to be as long as he could at some work he had to do in the
rigging, that I said to him, —

" Do you think you'll make eight bells of that job 1"

He looked up with a twirl of his tongue, but said nothing.

" Have you been at it all the watch 1"

" Ay, sir, I have."

" A smart man would have done it in an hour, I should
think."

" Perhaps he might."

" Do you call yourself a soger ?"

" Why, sir, we all sogers, reg'lar, in this here craft. D'ye
see, sir, the capten's a mean man, and 'ould like to get two
days' work in one out on us. If he'd give us watch-and-
walch, sir, there'd be more work done, you mote be sure, sir."

SAILORS' ETHICS. 30

Sunday is observed by sparing the crew from all labour
not necessary to the sailing of the ship, but as it is the only
day in which they have watch-and- watch, or time enough to
attend to such matters, they are mostly engaged in washing
and mending their clothes. We had selected a number of
books at the Tract-house, which we gave away among them.
They were received with gratitude, and the pictures at least
read with interest. The printed matter was read somewhat
also ; I noticed three men sitting close together, all spelling
out the words from three different books, and speaking them
aloud in a low, monotonous tone. If they had come to a
paragraph in, Latin, I doubt if they would have understood
what they read any less. The truth is, as I have often no
ticed with most sailors, a book is a booh, and they read it
for the sake of reading, not for the ideas the words are in
tended to convey, just as some people like to work out
mathematical problems for the enjoyment of the work, not
because they wish to make use of the result. I saw a sailor
once bargaining with a shipmate for his allowance of grog,
offering him for it a little book, which he said was "first-rate
reading." After the bargain was closed I looked at the book.
It was a volume of Temperance tales. The man had no
idea of making a practical joke, and assured me with a grave
face, that he had read it all through. One Sunday, in the
latter part of a passage from the East Indies, one of my
watchmates, an old sea-dog, closed a little carefully preserved
Testament, and slapping it on his knee, said, with a triumph
ant air, as if henceforth there was laid up for him a crown of
glory and no mistake, — " There ! I've read that book through,
every word on't, this voyage ; and, damme, if I ha'nt got
more good out on't than I should 'a got going aft long with
the rest on ye, to hear that old pharisee (the captain) make
his long prayers." Then, after gazing at it a few moments,

40 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

he added, musingly, as if reflecting on the mutability of
human affairs, " I hookt that book from a feller named Abe
Williams, to the Home, down to Providence, 'bout five year
ago. His name was in't, but I tore it out. I wonder what's
become on him now; dead, — as like as not" (puts it up and
takes out his pipe) ; " well, God'll have mercy on his soul,
I hope."

CAPE CLEAR.— GALE. 41

CHAPTER IV.

ON SOUNDINGS. ENGLISH SMALL CRAFT. — HARBOUR OF LIVERPOOL.

Sunday, May Zoih.

AT sunset yestesday the mate went to the royal yard to
look for land, but could not see it. By our reckoning we
were off Mizzen Head, a point to the westward of Cape Clear,
steering east by south, fresh wind and rising, going nine
knots, thick weather and rain. Several gannets (a kind of
goose with white body and black wings) were about us.
Some one said they would probably go to land to spend the
night, and there was pleasure in being so made to realize our
vicinity to it. Several vessels were in sight, all running inside
us, and steering northeast. We thought our captain over
anxious to give Cape Clear a wide berth, and were very sorry
not to make the land before dark. After sunset it grew
thicker, and the wind, which had been increasing all day, by
midnight was a gale. He got all sail in but the reefed top
sails ; then hove-to, and found bottom in fifty-five fathoms.
I was quite satisfied now with the captain's prudence ; the
sea was running high, and the cliffs of Ireland could not be
many miles distant. As it was, I felt perfectly safe, and
turned in, sleeping soundly till nine o'clock this morning.
About an hour later they made the light on the old Head of
Kinsale, where the Albion was lost some thirty years since.
The captain says we passed within ten miles of Cape Clear
light without seeing it. He was just right in his reckoning,

4*

42 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

and the vessels that went inside of us were all wrong, and
he thinks must have got into trouble. We are now nearly
up to Waterford, and off a harbour where, many years ago, a
frigate was lost, with fifteen hundred men. It is foggy yet,
and we can only see the loom of the land.

Monday, May tilth.

The Channel yesterday was thick with vessels, and I was
much interested in watching them. A collier brig, beating
down Channel, passed close under our stern. We were going
along so steadily before it that I had not before thought of
the violence of the wind. It was amazing to see how she was
tossed about. Plunging from the height of the sea, her white
figure-head would divide the water and entirely disappear,
and for a moment it would seem as if some monster below
had seized her bowsprit and was taking her down head fore
most ; then her stern would drop, a great white sheet of
spray dash up, wetting her foresail almost to the foretop ;
then she would swing up again, and on the crest of the billow
seem to stop and shake herself, as a dog does on corning out
of the surf; then, as the wind acted on her, she would fall
suddenly over to leeward, and a long curtain of white foam
from the scuppers would be dropped over her glistening black
sides. It was very beautiful, and from our quiet though rapid
progress, showed the superior comfort of a large ship very
strikingly. We have not rolled or pitched enough during all
the passage to make it necessary to lash the furniture in our
room. Afterwards we saw a Welsh schooner, then a French
lugger with three masts, then a cutter with one, all quite
different in rig and cut of sail from any thing we ever see on
our coast.

About four o'clock we sighted Tuscar light, and could see
beyond it, through the fog, a dark, broken streak, on which

ENGLISH CHANNEL. 43

we imagined (as the dull-eyed said) darker spots of wood and
lighter spots of houses, and which we called Ireland. We saw
also at some distance the steamer which left Liverpool the
day before for Cork. She was very long and low, and more
clipper-like in her appearance than our sea-going steamers of
the same class. At sunset we were out of sight of land again
and driving on at a glorious rate, passing rapidly by several
large British ships going the same course.

I was up two or three times during the night, and found
the captain all the while on deck in his India-rubber clothes,
the mate on the forecastle, look-outs aloft, every thing draw
ing finely, and nothing to be seen around us but fog, foam,
and fire-flashing surges. At three o'clock this morning, John
called me, and I again came on deck. It was still misty, but
there was LAND — dark and distinct against the eastern glow —
no more " imagination." It was only a large, dark ledge of
rocks, with a white light-house, and a streak of white foam
separating between it and the dark blue of the sea ; but it
seemed thrillingly beautiful. In a few minutes the fog opened
on our quarter, and disclosed, a few miles off, a great, sublime
mountain, its base in the water, its head in the clouds. The
rock was the Skerrys ; the mountain, Holyhead. Very soon,
high, dark hills, piled together confusedly, dimly appeared on
our right — dimly and confused, but real, substantial, unmis
takable solid ground — none of your fog-banks ! These were
on the island of Anglesea. Then, as the ship moved slowly
on, for the wind was lulling, past the Skerrys, the fog closed
down and hid it all again, and we went below to dress.
When again we came up it was much lighter, and the brown
hills of Anglesea were backed up by the blue mountains of
Wales distinct against the grey cloud behind them. Soon a
white dot or two came out, and the brown hill-sides became
p;reen, with only patches of dark brown — ploughed ground —

44 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

real old mother earth. As it grew still lighter, the white
spots took dark roofs, and coming to Point Linos, a telegraph
station was pointed out to us ; our signal was hoisted, and in
five minutes we had spoken our name to a man in Liverpool.
We had just begun to distinguish the hedgerows, when there
was a sudden flash of light, disclosing the cottage windows,
and Charley, looking east, exclaimed, "TiiE SUN OF THE
OLD WORLD."

A long, narrow, awkward ugly thing — a cross of a canal-
boat with a Mystic fishing-smack — with a single short mast,
a high-peaked mainsail, a narrow staysail coming to the
stem-head, and without any bowsprit ; so out from the last
fog-bank like an apparition comes the pilot-boat. Directly
she makes more sail, and runs rapidly towards us. Our
yachtman-passenger, coming on deck, calls her by name,
and says that she is here considered a model of beauty, and
that a portrait of her has been published. To say the right
thing for her, she does look stanch and weatherly, the sort
of craft altogether, if he were confined to her tonnage, and
more mindful of comfort than of time, that one might choose
to make a winter's cruise in off Hatteras, or to bang through
the ice after Sir John Franklin. The pilot she has now sent
aboard of us does not, in his appearance, contrast unfavourably
with our own pilots, as travellers have generally remarked
Liverpool pilots to. He is an intelligent, burly, sharp-voiced
Englishman — a reliable-looking sort of man, only rather too
dressy for his work. He brings no news ; pilots never do.
When we took on board the New York' pilot, in my passage
from the East Indies, we had had no intelligence from home
for more than six months. The greatest news the pilot
had for us, turned out to be that another edition of Blunt's
Coast Pilot was out. I contrived to keep myself within ear
shot of him and the captain, as they conversed for half an

PILOT.— STEAM-TUG. 45

hour after he came on our deck, and this was all I could learn,
and except the late arrivals and departures and losses of ves
sels, this was all we got from him for two days. Our Liv
erpool pilot, however, brings us a Price Current and Shipping-
List newspaper, in which we find an allusion to " the
unfavorable news from France" as affecting the state of
trade, but whether it is of floods, hurricanes, or revolutions,
there is no knowing. In the same way we understand that
the loyal English nation are blessed with another baby prince,
and are stopping their mills to give God thanks for it. There
is a slight fall in cotton too reported, and since he read of it,
our New Orleans man has been very busy figuring and wri
ting letters.

After the pilot came the first English shower (" It's a fine
day," says the boatman, just now coming on board — we have
only had three showers .this forenoon), and then it fell calm,
and the ship loitered as if fatigued with her long journey. It
is now noon, and while I am writing, a low, black, businesslike

scullion of a steamboat has caught hold of the ship, and means
to get her up to the docks before night. On her paddle-boxes

4<> A.\ AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

are the words in letters once white, and the only thing pre
tending to be white about her, "The Steam-Tug Company's
Boat, No. 5, the Liver of Liverpool." Long life to her then,
for she is a friendly hand stretched out from the shore to
welcome us. A good-looking little boat too she is, much
better fitted for her business than our New York tow-boats.

May 28th.

We were several hours in getting up to town yesterday,
after I had written you. Long before any thing else could be
seen of it but a thick black cloud — black as a thunder-cloud,
ind waving and darkening one way and the other, as if from
a volcano — our approach to a great focus of commerce was
indicated by the numbers which we met of elegant, graceful,
well-equipped and ship-shape-looking steamers, numerous
ships — graceful spider-rigged New York liners, and sturdy
quarter-galleried, carved and gilt, pot-sided, Bristol built,
stump-to'-gallant-masted old English East-Indiamen (both
alive with cheering emigrants, hopeful of Australian and
Michiganian riches, and yet defiant of sea-sickness), dropping
down with the tide, or jerked along by brave little steam-
tugs, each belching from her chimney, long, dense, swelling
volumes of smoke; with hosts of small craft lounging lazily
along, under all sorts of sooty canvass.

These small craft are all painted dead black, and you
cannot imagine how clumsy they are. The greater part of
them are single masted, as I described the pilot-boat to be.
In addition to the mainsail and fore-staysail (an in-board
jib), they set a very large gaff topsail, hoisting as .a flying
sail, with a gaff crossing the topmast (like our men-of-war's
boat sails), their bowsprit is a spar rigging out and in, like a
steering sail-boom, and with this they stretch out an enor
mous jib, nearly as long in the foot as in the hoist, and of

SAILING CRAFT OF THE CHANNEL,

47

this too, before the wind, some of them make a beam-sail.
If it blows fresh, they can shorten in their bowsprit and set a
smaller jib ; and about the time our sloops would be knotting
their second reef and taking their bonnets off, they have their
bowsprit all in board, their long topmast struck, and make
themselves comfortable under the staysail and a two-reefed
mainsail. If it comes on to blow still harder, when ours must
trust to a scud, they will still be jumping through it with a
little storm staysail, and a balance-reefed mainsail, as shown
in the cut.

These single-masted vessels are called cutters, not sloops
(a proper sloop I did not see in England) ; and our word cut
ter, wrongly applied to the revenue schooners, is derived from
the English term, revenue cutter, the armed vessels of the
British preventive service, being properly cutters. Cutters
frequently carry yards and square sails. We saw one to-day
with square-sail, topsail, top-gallant, and royal set. I have
heard old men say that when they were boys, our coasting
sloops used to have these sails, and before the revolution our
small craft were, not uncommonly, also cutter-rigged. In
stead of being of whitewashed cotton, the sails of the coast-

48 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

ers here are tanned hemp, having the appearance, at a little
distance, of old worn brown velvet. In sailing qualities the
advantage is every way with us ; in the build, the rig, and in
the cut, as well as the material of the sails ; for our cotton
duck will hold the wind a great deal the best. Ninety-nine
in a hundred of our single-masted market-boats, in a light
wind, would run around the fastest coaster in the Mersey
with the greatest ease. They are not calculated at all for
working to windward, but are stiff and weatherly, and do very
well for boxing through the Channel, I suppose ; but for such
business we should rig schooner fashion, and save the expense
of an extra hand, which must be wanted to handle their heavy
mainsail and boom. Further up, we saw on the beach sev
eral cutter-rigged yachts. They were wide of beam, broad
sterned, sharp built, and deep, like our sea-going clippers.

The immediate shores grew low as we entered the Mersey.
It was nearly calm, but though the surface of the water was
glassy smooth, it was still heaving with the long muscular
swell of the sea until we reached the town. We approached
nearer the land, where, on the right hand, there was a bluff
point, bare of trees, with large rocks cropping out at its base ;
beneath the rocks a broad, hard, sand beach, and ]ow on the
water's edge, a castle of dark-brown stone, the only artificial
defence, that I noticed, of the harbour. The high ground was
occupied by villas belonging to merchants of Liverpool, and
the place is called New Brighton, and bearing a resemblance
to our New Brighton. There is the same barrenness of
foliage, and some similarity in the style of the houses, though
there, are none so outrageously out of taste as some of those
that obtrude upon the scenery of Staten Island, and none
so pretty as some of the less prominent there.

As we entered the cloud that had hitherto interrupted our
view in front, we could see, on the left, many tall chimneys

ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 49

and steeples, and soon discerned forests of masts. On the
right, the bank continued rural and charming, with all the
fresh light verdure of spring. Below it we could distinctly
see, and quite amusing it was, many people, mostly women
and children, riding donkeys and driving pony-carriages on
the beach. It seemed strange that they did not stop to look
at us. There were bathing-wagons too, drawn by a horse
out into three or four feet water, and women floundering into
it out of them and getting back again very hastily, as if they
found it colder than they had expected. We approached in
complete structures of stone-work along the water's edge, in
which men and horses were clustering like bees. Soon we
passed them, and were looking up at the immense walls of
the docks, each with its city of shipping securely floating
fifteen or twenty feet higher than the water on which we
were, it being now low ebb. At five, in the rumble and roar
of the town, our anchor dropped. The ship could not haul
into the docks until midnight tide, and the steam-tug took us,
who wished it, to the shore, landing us across the Dublin
steamer at the Prince's Dock quay.

5

50 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST OF ENGLAND.— THE STREETS. - A RAILWAY STATION. - THE

AT NIGHT. - PROSTITUTES. - TEMPERANCE. - THE STILL LIFE OF LIVERPOOL.
- A MARKET.

AT the head of the gang-plank stood a policeman, easily
recognised and familiar, thanks to Punch, who politely
helped us to land, thus giving us immediate occasion to
thank the government for its hospitality, and its regard for
our safety and convenience. It was a real pleasure to stamp
upon the neat, firm, solid mason-work of the dock, and we
could not but be mindful of the shabby log-wharves we had
stumbled over as we left New York. We were immediately
beset by porters, not rudely, but with serious, anxious defer
ence and care to keep a way open before us. I was assisting
a lady, and carried her bag ; a man followed me pertina
ciously. " I tell you I have no baggage," said I. " But, sir,
this bag ?" " Oh, I can carry that." " Excuse me, sir ; you
must not, indeed ; gentlemen never does so in this country"
After handing the lady into a hackney-coach, we walked on.
The landing-place was spacious, not encumbered with small
buildings or piles of freight, and though there was a little rain
falling, there was a smooth, clean stone pavement, free from
mud, to walk upon. There was a slight smell of bituminous
smoke in the air, not disagreeable, but, to me, highly -pleas
ant. I snuffed it as if passing a field of new-mown hay —
snuffed and pondered, and at last was brought to my mind

LIVERPOOL.— RAILWAY STATION. 51

the happy fireside of the friend, in the indistinct memory of
which this peculiar odour of English coal had been gratefully
associated.

Coming on shore with no luggage or any particular busi
ness to engage our attention, we plunged adventurously into
the confused tide of life with which the busy streets were
thronged, careless whither it floated us. Emerging from the
crowd of porters, hackmen, policemen, and ragged Irish men
and women on the dock, we entered the first street that
opened before us. On the corner stood a church — not un-
American in its appearance — and we passed without stopping
to the next corner, where we paused to "look at the dray-
horses, immensely heavy and in elegant condition, fat and
glossy, and docile and animated in their expression. They
were harnessed, generally, in couples, one before another, to
great, strong, low-hung carts, heavy enough alone to be a
load for one of our cartmen's light horses. Catching the
bustling spirit of the crowd, we walked on at a quick pace,
looking at the faces of the men we met more than any thing
else, until we came to a wall of hewn drab stone, some fifteen
feet high, with a handsomely cut balustrade at the top. There
was a large gateway in it, from which a policeman was dri
ving away some children. People were going in and out, and
we followed in to see what it was. Up stairs, we found our
selves on a broad terrace, with a handsome building, in Tus
can style, fronting upon it. Another policeman here informed
us that it was a railway station. The door was opened as
we approached it by a man in a simple uniform, who asked
us where we were going. We answered that we merely
wished to look at the building. " Walk in, gentlemen ; you
will best take the right-hand platform, and return by the
other." A train was backing in ; a man in the same uniform
stood in the rear car, and moved his hand round as if turning

52 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

an imaginary driving-wheel, the engine at the other end being
governed by his motions : — forward — slower — slower — faster
— slower — stop — back. The train stopped, the doors were
unlocked by men in a more brilliant uniform, and there was
a great rush of passengers to secure good seats. Women
with bundles and band-boxes were shoved this way and that,
as they struggled to hoist themselves into the doors ; their
parcels were knocked out of their hands, porters picked them
up and threw them in, reckless where. So bewildered and
flustered did they all seem to be, that we could not refrain
from trying to assist them. There was nothing in the plan
or fittings of the Building that needs remark, and we soon re
turned to the terrace, where we remained some time observ
ing the peculiarities of the houses and the people passing in
the vicinity.

Going into the street again we wandered on till it was
quite dark, with no other object but to get a general impres
sion of the character of the town. We looked into a few
houses where we saw a sign of " Clean and well-aired beds,"
and found that we should have no difficulty in getting com
fortable lodgings at a very moderate price. From nine until
twelve we were waiting at the dock for the ship to haul in,
or trying in vain to get a boat to go on board of her. There
were many vessels laying near the great gates, all standing
by, when they should be opened at high-water, to be hauled
in.

The broad promenade outside the dock walls was occupied
by the police, stevedores, watermen, boarding-house keepers,
and a crowd of women, waiting to help in the ships or to
receive their crews when the tide should have risen enough
to admit them. I was surprised at the quietness and decency
of these " sailors' wives," as they called themselves ; they
were plainly and generally neatly dressed, and talked quietly

PROSTITUTES.— SAILORS. 53

and in kind tones to each other, and I heard no loud profanity
or ribaldry at all. Whether this was owing to the presence
of the police I cannot say, but I am sure it would be impos
sible to find, in America, vice, shame, and misery so entirely
unassociated with drunkenness or excitement and riot. They
were not as young as girls of the same sort in the streets of
New York, and in the strong gas-light their faces seemed
expressive of a quite different character ; generally they were
pensive and sad, but not ill-natured or stupid. It occurred to
me that their degradation must have been reached in a dif
ferent way, and had not brought with it that outcasting from
all good which they would suffer, with us. As they stood,
companioned together with each other, but friendless, some
with not even hats to protect them from the rain, others, with
their gowns drawn up over their head, and others, two to
gether, under a scanty shawl, it would have been difficult, I
thought, for a woman, who is always found most unforgiving
of her sister's sin, not to have been softened towards those
abandoned thus to seek support of life that night. We could
not but think the kind words with which the sailors recog
nised and greeted them, as the ships hauled near, were as
much dictated by pity and sympathy as by any worse im
pulses. They said, " If nobody else cares for you, we do."
If nobody else ;s waiting to welcome us, we know that you
will be glad that we are coming to the land once more, so,
cheer up, and we will help each other again to enjoy a short
space of jollity, excitement, and forgetfulness.

There is a benevolent enterprise on foot here for shipping
these victims of frailty by wholesale to Australia. A
strange way, it seems, to think of peopling a new Anglo-
Saxon world ; but who is prouder of his ancestry than your
Virginian, whose colony, it is thought, was originally fur
nished in much the same way with mothers'? The fact that

5*

54 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the project is favoured by intelligent, practical, religious men,
is gratifying, and the remarks they are reported as making in
public meetings on the subject, indicate a hopeful apprecia
tion of the effect of circumstances upon character.

Tired of waiting for the ship, and a good deal fatigued
with our tramps on the pavements, about half-past twelve we
went back into the town, and by the very obliging assistance
of the policemen found lodgings in a " Temperance Hotel,"
still open at that late hour. We were a little surprised to
find a number of men in the coffee-room drinking beer and
smoking. The subject of their conversation was some pro
ject of an association of working-men to combine their
savings, and make more profitable investment of them than
could be made of the small amounts of each separately.
There were late newspapers on the table, and we sat up some
time longer to read them, but they were still at it, puffing
and drinking, and earnestly discussing how they could best
use their money, when we went up to bed. We had good
beds in pleasant rooms for which we paid twenty-five cents
each.

The next morning we got our trunks from the ship, the
custom-house officers searching them before they left the
dockyard. Books, letters, and daguerreotypes were examined
minutely, but the officers were very civil and accommodating ;
so also were the cartmen that took them to the inn for us.
The expense of getting our luggage through the searching
office, and carting it a mile, was only twenty-five cents for
each trunk, and " tuppence for beer."

We went to a small lodging-house that we had examined
last night, and found neat and comfortable, and kept by an
agreeable woman. We have a large front room, comfortably
furnished, and down stairs is a quiet parlor and dining-room.
We breakfast in the house, and dine and sup at eating shops.

COST OF LIVING-.— BUILDING MATERIALS. 55

The whole cost of living so we make but about seventy-five
cents each a day. As good entertainment would cost more
than that in New York. We have made a few purchases of
clothing, and find every thing we want cheaper than in New
York.

Liverpool, Tuesday, 2Qth May.

The common building material here is a light, greyish-red
brick. Stone of different colours is used in about the same
proportion that it is in New York. The warehouses are
generally higher than the same class of buildings there, but
the dwelling-houses lower, seldom over three stories. The
old houses, in narrow streets, are generally small, and often
picturesque from the carvings of time upon them, or from the
incongruous additions and improvements that have been made
to them at intervals. At the railway station we noticed such
differences in the windows of a two-story house near us, as
these. There were two below ; one of these, being a shop
front, was entirely modern, with large panes of glass in light
wooden sashes. The other was of small panes, set in heavy
wood-work, such as you see in our oldest houses. One of
the upper windows had small square panes set in lead ; those
of the other were foze/^e-shaped, and in neither were they
more than three inches wide. The frames were much wider
than they were high, and they opened sideways. In the
newer part of the city, the fashionable quarter, there are a
good many brick-walled houses faced with stucco. Others
are of Bath stone, and these are not unfrequently painted over
of the original colour of the stone. Bath stone, which is the
most common material of mason work, is a fine-grained free
stone, very easy to the chisel. It is furnished much cheaper
than our brown stone, so much so that there would be a
chance of exporting it to America with profit. There is a finer
sort of it, called by the masons Caen stone, which is brought

56 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

from Normandy. The colour of both is at first buff, but rapidly
changes to a dark brown. There are some buildings of red
sandstone, of a little lighter colour than that now so much
used in New York. In buildings mainly of brick, stone is
used more considerably than with us ; and there are none of
those equivocating, sanded-wood parapets, porticos, steps, &c. ;
all is the real grit. The bricks are mottled, half red and half
greyish yellow ; the effect, at a little distance, being as I said
a yellow or greyish red, much pleasanter than the bright red
colour of our Eastern brick. Every thing out of doors here
soon gets toned down, as the artists say, by the smoke. Per
haps it is partly on this account that pure white paint is never
used ; but the prevailing taste is evidently for darker colours
than with us. The common hues of the furniture and fitting
up of shops, for instance, is nearly as dark as old mahogany.
This gives even the dram-shops such a rich, substantial look,
that we can hardly recognise them as of the same species as
our tawdry " saloons," that are so painted, gilded, and bedi
zened to catch flies with their flare. There are no -"oyster
cellars," but oysters " raw and in the shell," are exposed in
stands about the street, like those of our " hot corn," and
apple wromen. Liquor shops, always with the ominous sign
of " Vaults" are very frequent, and often splendid. The tea
and coffee shops are among the richest in the streets. The
bakers' fronts are also generally showy, and there are a great
many of them. It seems to be the general custom, for poor
families at least, to make their own bread, and send it in to
them to be baked. The first night we were ashore, we got
some bread and butter, and American cheese, at a baker's;,
and saw in ten minutes a dozen loaves called for. They had
sheet-iron checks, with numbers on them, which were given
up on the presentation of a corresponding check, and, for a
loaf of ten or twelve pounds, a penny for baking — in the

LIVERPOOL.— STREETS. 57

same way that passengers' baggage is checked on our rail
roads.

Wood is used in the interior of houses more than I had
imagined it would be. Its cost is high. I inquired the price
of what looked like a common "Albany board," such as I buy
in New York for sixteen cents ; it was of the value of about
thirty -five cents. The kitchens, as far as we have observed,
are on the street floor, level with the living apartments.
Coarse pottery and wicker-work utensils are more common
than with us. Few of the houses in the town have trees about
them. Occasionally an old mansion is set a little back, and
has a little shrubby foliage in front of it — most commonly of
elms dwarfed to the size and natural shape of a green-gage
plum-tree. There are, though, in the better part of the town,
some most charming public grounds. I have never seen any
thing in America to compare with them. I will speak of
them more particularly at another time.

The surface of the ground on which the town is built is
irregular, and the streets crooked and running at every angle
with each other. Generally they are short, and if long, at
every few blocks the names are changed. The names are
often singular ; many, far apart, have the same with different
prefixes, as Great and Little, North and South, &c. We are
in " Great Cross Hall street ;" after a slight turn it is called
"Tythe Bam street," and further on Chapel street. Tythe
Barn, I understand, is derived from the name of the building
in which the tithes were deposited when they were taken in.
kind — a tenth of the hay, wheat, poultry, &c. There is a
steep ascent near us called " Shaw's Brow ;" it is fitted with
smooth stone tracks for cart-wheels, with narrow stones be
tween them set on end for the horses' feet, double teams here
generally going tandem. The best streets are paved, as in New
York, only one-quarter the distance across them, the intermedi-

58 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

ate space being macadamized. This makes a very pleasant
road. There is generally a wide side-walk, which is flagged as
in our cities ; but in the commercial streets it is oflener paved
like the carriage-way, and in the narrowest there is none at
all. The streets are very clean, and all the side-walks, gut
ters, and untravelled spaces appear to be swept every day.

I have been through two markets. One of them is an
immensely large building, covering about two acres, right in
the centre of the town ; it is clean, light, and well ventilated.
What a wonder it is that the people of New York will put
up with such miserable, filthy, crowded hovels as their mar
kets are ! In this building there are over five hundred stalls
and tables. It has its own superintendant of weights and
measures, and a thorough and constant police. There are
twelve men whose employment is to keep it clean. The
garbage is passed readily through traps into vaults below,
from which it is removed at night. The rules for those who
use it, are excellent to secure healthy condition of food, neat
ness, order, and fair play, and they are strictly enforced. To
my mind, this structure, and the arrangements connected with
it, is an honour to Liverpool, not second to her docks. And
she has three other large public markets, besides small ones
for particular purposes. The meat stalls are frequently owned
by women, and, except a better supply of birds and rabbits,
did not offer any thing different from those of our butchers.
A part of the market seemed to be occupied by country
women for the sale of miscellaneous wares.

The fish market was in another building, which was en
tirely occupied by women, nice and neat, though skinning
eels and cleaning fish. The milk market also seemed to be
altogether in the hands of women. Milk is not peddled about
as in New York, but sold from cellar-shops. If one wants a
cup of tea, our landlady runs across the street for a penny-

MARKETS.— ECONOMIES.— HOURS. 59

worth of it. " From hand to mouth" so, seems to be com
mon with many things. The material for our breakfast is
mostly bought after we have ordered it. As we did not
mention what we would have till after the shops were closed
last night, we had to wait till nine o'clock for it this morning.
Business hours begin later than in America. I think the
market is not open till eight, which they speak of as " very
early." In this respect we have found no difficulty in accom
modating ourselves to English customs.

60 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PEOPLE AT LIVERPOOL. POVERTY. MERCHANTS. SHOPKEEPERS.—

WOMEN. SOLDIERS. CHILDREN. DONKEYS AND DRAY HORSES.

I HAVE mentioned the most general features of the town
which, at first sight, on landing in Europe from New York,
strike me as peculiar. Having given you its still life, you
will wish me to people it.

After we had wandered for about an hour through the
streets the first afternoon we were ashore, I remarked that
we had not yet seen a single well-dressed man, not one per
son that in America would have been described as "of
respectable appearance." We were astonished to observe
with what an unmingled stream of poverty the streets were
swollen, and J. remarked that if what we had seen was a fair
indication of the general condition of the masses here, he
should hardly feel justified in dissuading them from using
violent and anarchical means to bring down to themselves a
share of the opportunities and comforts of those "higher
classes" that seem to be so utterly separated from them.
There are a great many Irish in Liverpool, but the most that
we had thus far seen evidently were English, yet not En
glish as we have known them. Instead of the stout, full-faced
John Bulls, we had seen but few that were not thin, meagre,
and pale. There w^s somewhat rarely an appearance of ac
tual misery, but a stupid, hopeless, state-prison-for-life sort
of expression. There were not unfrequently some exceptions

LIVERPOOL PEOPLE. 61

to this, but these were men almost invariably in some uni
form or livery, as railroad hands, servants, and soldiers.

The next morning, in the court-yard of the Exchange (the
regular 'Change assemblage seemed to meet out of doors),
we saw a large collection of the merchants. There was noth
ing to distinguish them from a company of a similar kind
with us, beyond a general Englishness of features and an en
tire absence of all oddities — with astonishing beards and sin
gularities of costume. One young man only wore small
clothes and leggins, which would perhaps have disagreeably
subjected him to be noticed with us. They were stouter than
our merchants, and more chubby-faced, yet not looking in
vigorous health. They were, on the whole, judging by a
glance at their outsides, to be more respected than any lot
of men of the same number that I ever saw together in Wall
street. Many of them, and most of the well-dressed men
that we have seen in the streets, have had a green leaf and
simple posy in a button-hole of their coats.

The shopkeepers of the better class, or retail merchants,
are exactly the same men, to all appearance, that stand be
hind the counters with us. Merchant, means only a whole
sale dealer in England ; retailers are shopkeepers. The word
store is never applied to a building; but the building in
which goods are stored is a warehouse.

Women are more employed in trade than with us ; I have
no doubt with every way great advantage. The women in
the streets are more noticeably different from ours than the
men. In general, they are very cheaply and coarsely clad.
Many of the lower class have their outer garments ordinarily
drawn up behind, in the scrubbing-floor fashion. Caps are
universally worn, and being generally nice and white, they
have a pleasant effect upon the face. The very poorest wom
en look very miserably. We see bruised eyes not unfre-

6

62 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

quently> and there is evidently a good deal of hard drinking
among them. They are larger and stouter, and have coarser
features. There are neither as many pretty nor as many
ugly faces as with us ; indeed, there are very few remarkably
ill-favoured in that respect, and almost none strikingly hand
some. The best faces we have seen were among the fish-
stalls in market. With scarcely an exception, the fish-women
were very large and tall, and though many of them were in
the neighbourhood of fifty, they had invariably full, bright,
unwrinkled faces, beautiful red cheeks, and a cheerful expres
sion. English women, generally, appear more bold and self-
reliant, their action is more energetic, and their carriage less
graceful and drooping than ours. Those well dressed that
we have seen, while shopping, for instance, are no exceptions.
Those we have met to converse with are as modest and com
plaisant as could be desired, yet speak with a marked prompt
ness and confidence which is animating and attractive. We
met a small company last night at the residence of a gentle
man to whom we had a letter, and spent the evening precisely
as we should at a small tea-party at home ; we might easily
have imagined ourselves in New England. The gentlemen
were no way different, that we noticed, from cultivated men
with us, and the ladies only seemed rather more frank, hearty,
and sincere-natured than we should expect ours to be to stran
gers.* There was nothing in their dresses that I can think of
as peculiar, yet a general air, not American — a heavier look
and more crinkles, and darker and more mixed-up colours.
We see many rather nice-looking females, probably coming
in from the country, driving themselves about town as if
they understood it, in jaunty-looking chaises and spring-carts.

* These ladies were Irish. The remark hardly applies to English ladies,
certainly not unless you meet them domestically. The English in their
homes, and the English " m company," are singularly opposite characters.

CHILDREN'S DRESS.— DONKEYS. 65

As J. and I were standing this noon by the window of a curi
osity-shop, a lady addressed us : " This is very curious ; have
you noticed it ?" (pointing at something within the window).
" I wish you would help me to read what is written upon it."
She spoke exactly as if she belonged to our party. She was
not young or gayly-dressed, but had all the appearance and
used the language of a well-bred and educated woman. We
conversed with her for a minute or two about the article,
which was some specimen of Australian natural history.

There are a good many soldiers moving about in fine un
dress uniforms ; one regiment is in blue, which I did not
suppose the British ever used. The men look well — more
intelligent than you would suppose. Many are quite old,
grey-headed, and all are very neat and orderly in the streets.

The children look really punchy. It strikes me the young
ones are dressed much older, while the young men are clothed
much more boyishly than in America. Quite large children,
of both sexes, are dressed exactly alike, and whether girls or
boys (they look between both), you cannot guess — girls
with fur hats, such as full-grown men wear, and boys in short
dresses and pantalettes.

There are lots of the queerest little donkeys in the streets ;
some of them would not weigh more than Nep (my New
foundland dog), and most of them are not as large as our two-
year-old steers. They are made to draw most enormous
loads. I saw one tugging a load of coal, on the top of which
two stout Irishmen sat, and stopped them to ask the weight.
It was 1200 (besides themselves), and the top of the donkey's
back was just even with my waist. The driver said he bought
her five years ago for two pounds ($10), and she was then
called an old one. Here is one now coming up the hill with
a great load of furniture, a man on behind it, and a boy on

64 AN AMERICA^ FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the shafts — a poor little rat of a thing, with thi meekest ex
pression you can conceive of. It is just as mu^h as he can
stagger along with, and the boy jumps off to relieve — no !
the young satan has gone to his head and is cudgelling him.
The poor little donkey winks and turns his head, and drops
his ears, and nearly falls down. The boy stops (probably a
policeman heaves in sight) and takes his seat on the shaft
again, and the donkey reels on. The man aft has continued
his smoking all the while, without taking any notice of the
delay. As I write, there goes by another — a very handsome,
large fat one, drawing a market cart, with a pretty country
girl among the hampers driving.

BEGGARS.— PLACARD. 65

CHAPTER VII.

LIVERPOOL CONTINUED. IRISH BEGGARS. CONDITION OF LABOURERS. COST

OF LIVING. PRICES. BATH HOUSE. QUARANTINE. THE DOCKS. STREET

SCENE. " COMING YANKEE " OVER NONSENSE. ARTISTIC BEGGING.

I HAVE learned nothing reliable about the price of labour
here ; the Irish emigration keeps it lower in Liverpool
than elsewhere. This reminds me of beggars, and of a placard
posted everywhere about the streets to-day. The beggars are
not very frequent, and are mostly poor, pitiable, sickly
women, carrying half-naked babies. The placard is as fol
lows: — "The SELECT VESTRY inform their fellow-citizens,
that in consequence of the extremely low price of passage
from Ireland — 4d. (8 cts.), great numbers are coming here ap
parently with no other object than to beg. They earnestly
desire that nothing should be given them." As a specimen,
they mention the following : an Irish woman, pretending to be
a widow, was taken up, who had obtained 3s. 2d. (80 cts.) in
an hour and a half after her arrival. Her husband was found
already in custody.

The people all seem to be enjoying life more, or else to
be much more miserable than in America.* The labourers

* I was surprised to find this remark in my first letter from Liverpool,
for it is the precise counterpart of my impression on landing again in the
United States, after six months absence in Europe. I observe lately, 'that
the Earl of Carlisle has said something of similar import. I do believe the
people of the United States have less of pleasure and less of actual suffering

6*

66 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

seem haggard and stupid, and all with whom I have talked,
say a poor man can hardly live here. There is a strong
anti-free-trade growling among them, and they complain much
of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, asserting that American
ships are now getting business that was formerly in the hands
of the English alone, and so American sailors do the labour in
the docks which was formerly given to the stevedores and
working-men of the town.

Clothing, shoes, &c., and rents, are a good deal cheaper
than in New York, and common articles of food but little
higher. I have obtained the following, as specimens of prices
for a few ordinary necessaries of life (1st of June) :

Beef, mutton, and pork, fine, 12J cts. a pound; lamb,
16 cts. ; veal, 10 cts.

Salmon, 33 cts. a pound ; fresh butter, 27 cts. ; potatoes,
31 cts. a peck.

Foivls, 75 cts. a pair ; rabbits, 50 cts. a pair ; pigeons, 37
cts. each.

Best Ohio flour (" superfine "), $6 25 a barrel.

Bread, 2J cts. a pound, or a loaf of 12 Ibs., 30 cts.

Bread of best quality, 3 cts. per lb., or loaf of 12 Ibs.,
35 cts.

Sugar is higher, and tropical fruits, pine-apples, oranges,
&c., are sold by the hucksters for more money than in New
York.

$as. — The town is well lighted by gas. and it is much
used in private houses — much more generally than in New
York. Price $1 12 per 1000 feet.

Water. — Water is conveyed through the town and to the

than any other in the world. Hopefulness, but hope ever unsatisfied, is
marked in every American's face. In contrast with Germany, it is partic
ularly evident that most of us know but little of the virtuous pleasure God
has fitted us to enjoy in this world.

PRICES.— BATHING-.— DOCKS. 67

shipping in tubes, through which I believe it is forced by
steam-engines by several companies. The manner in which
they are remunerated I did not learn.

Bathing. — There is a very large and elegant bath-house
(covering half an acre), built of stone, by the corporation, at
an expense of $177,000. It is fitted with suitable accommo
dations for all classes of bathers, at various prices. There is
a public bath (45 by 27 feet) for gentlemen, and another for
ladies. The water is all filtered, and the cold baths have a
constant fresh supply and outflow. A steam-engine is em
ployed for pumping, etc. From what I saw, I should sup
pose the use of this establishment was fashionable. There
are also floating baths in the river, as at New York ; and
beach-bathing and sea-swimming can be enjoyed at a few
minutes' distance, by ferry, from the town.

Quarantine. — There are no buildings or ground employed
for quarantine, but a number of large hulks are moored in
the bay for this purpose. Quarantine vessels are anchored
near them, and keep a yellow flag flying. It is a great many
years since a vessel has been quarantined here, however, the
medical men being generally agreed that such precaution is
useless, or effective of more harm than good.

We have not made a business of sight seeing, and I
want to give you the general aspect of the town, rather than
show up the lions. The Liverpool docks, howrever, are so
extensive, and so different from any thing we have of the kind
in America, that you will wish me to give a few particulars
of them.

The Docks are immense basins, enclosed from the river,
or dug out from the bank, walled up on all sides by masonry,
and protected on the outside, from the sea, by solid stone
piers or quays. In these quays are gates or locks, through

68 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

which, at high-water, vessels enter or leave. When the water
has slightly fallen they are closed, and the water being
retained, the ships are left securely floating at a height con
venient for removing their cargoes. The docks are all en
closed by high brick walls, but between these and the water
there is room enough for passing of carts, and for the tempo
rary protection of goods under wooden sheds, as they are
hoisted out, and before they can be removed. The streets
about the docks are mostly lined with very large and strong
fire-proof warehouses. The quay outside the docks is broad
enough to afford a wide terrace upon the river, which is called
the Marine Parade, and is much resorted to as a promenade.
Stone stairs at intervals descend to the bottom of the river,
and there are similar ones within the docks to give access to
small boats. There are buoys and life-preservers lashed to
the rails of the bridges, and small houses, occasionally fur
nished with instruments and remedies, for the resuscitation of
drowning persons.

There are graving docks in which the depth of water can
be regulated at pleasure, for the inspection and repair of the
bottoms of vessels ; and there are large basins for coasters, to
which there are no gates, and in which the tide rises and falls,
leaving them in the mud at the ebb. The large docks are
connected with each other, and with the graving docks, by
canals, so a vessel can go from one to another at any time of
tide, and without going into the river.

But you have yet no idea of the spaciousness and gran
deur of the docks. Some of them enclose within their walls
ten or twelve acres, half of which, or more, is occupied by
vessels. The twelve now completed (there are more build
ing) extend along in front of the town uninterrupted by
buildings for more than two miles, or farther than from
Whitehall Stairs to Corl ear's Hook, in New York. On the

LIVERPOOL.— DO OKS. 69

other side of the river, a considerably larger extent of docks
is laid out and constructing. A basin for coasters, which
covers over sixteen acres, and in which there is twelve feet at
low water, is just completed there.

Each dock has its own dock-master, custom-house super-
intendant, and police force. The police is the most perfect
imaginable. It is composed of intelligent and well-instructed
young men, most courteous and obliging, at the same time
prompt and efficient. It quite surprised me to see our fierce
captains submit like lambs to have their orders countermand
ed by them.

There are three docks for the convenience of steamers
alone. The American steamers, I suppose, are too large to
go into them, for they are lying in the stream.

The docks were built by the town, and besides the won
derful increase of its commerce which they have effected, the
direct revenue from them gives a large interest on their cost.
The charges are more moderate than at other British ports,
and this has, no doubt, greatly helped to draw their commerce
here. This is the principal ground, for instance, of the selec
tion of Liverpool in preference to Bristol as the port of
departure for transatlantic steamers. The foreign commerce
of Liverpool is the most valuable of any town in the world.
Its immense business is probably owing to its being the best
port in the vicinity of the thickest manufacturing district of
England. It is not naturally a good harbour, but a very
exposed and inconvenient one. The port charges at Bristol
have been lately greatly reduced, and are now lower than
those of Liverpool, or any other port in the United Kingdom.
The amount paid by vessels for dockage has in some years
been $1,000,000, and the whole is expended by the corpora
tion in improvements of the town and for public purposes.

The small steam craft do not usually go into the docks, but

70 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

land passengers on the quays outside. The ferry-boats, of
which there are half a dozen lines crossing the Mersey, all
come to one large floating wharf, from which the ascent to
the quays is made easy at all times of tide, by a sufficiently
long, hinged bridge.

There is a Sailor's Home now building here, which will
certainly be a noble record of the justice and liberality of the
merchants of the port to their humble associates on the sea.
It is situated in an open public place, not far from the Custom
House and City Hall. It is built of stone, in the Elizabethan
Gothic style, and was considered a design worthy of giving
Prince Albert honour in the laying of its corner-stone. It is
already a stately edifice.

There are chapels for seamen in several (possibly in all)
of the docks.*

Later. We have left Liverpool, and while breathing this
delicious fragrance of hawthorn and clover, it is hard to think
back to the stirring dusty town, but I will try for a few min
utes to do so, and then bring you with me (I wish I could !)
out into the country.

A great deal that interested us at Liverpool I must omit
to tell you of. I should like to introduce you to some of the
agreeable acquaintances we met there, but in what we saw
of social life there, there was hardly any thing to distinguish

* The laws of the port req.tire, That for three hours at high water, there
shall be an efficient person on the deck of every vessel in the docks or ba
sins : That the anchor shall be in-board, jib-boom run in, &c. : That no
article of freight shall be allowed to remain on the dock-quays for more
than forty-eight hours [penalty, $1.25 an hour] : That no light or fire shall
be allowed [without special permission] on any vessel in the docks or ba
sins at any time. This last regulation prevents cooking on board, and
makes it necessary for the crews to live on shore. The consequent cus
toms are very inconvenient, expensive, and demoralizing to the seamen.

COMPARATIVE STREET-POVERTY. 71

it from America. We were much pleased with some of the
public gardens and pleasure-grounds that we visited, and
when we return here I may give you some account of them.
I meant to have said a little more about the style of building
in the newer and extending parts of the city ; it did not differ
much, however, from what you might see at home, in some
of the suburbs of Boston for instance.

It would be more strange to you to see long, narrow
streets, full from one end to the other, of the poorest-looking
people you ever saw, women and children only, the men
being off at work, I suppose, sitting, lounging, leaning on the
door-steps and side- walks, smoking, knitting, and chatting;
the boys playing ball in the street, or marbles on the flagging ;
no break in the line of tall, dreary houses, but strings of
clothes hung across from opposite second-story windows to
dry ; all dwellings, except a few cellar, beer, or junk shops.
You can see nothing like such a dead mass of pure poverty
in the worst quarter of our worst city. In New York, such
a street would be ten times as filthy and stinking, and ten
times as lively ; in the middle of it there would be a large
fair building, set a little back (would that I could say with a
few roods of green turf and shrubbery between it and the
gutter in which the children are playing), with the inscription
upon it, " Public Free School ;" across from the windows
would be a banner with the " Democratic Republican Nomi
nations ;" hand-organs would be playing, hogs squealing, per-
haps a stampede of firemen ; boys would be crying newspa
pers, and the walls would be posted with placards, appealing,
with whatever motive, to patriotism and duty, showing that
statesmen and demagogues could calculate on the people's
reading and thinking there. There would be gay grog-shops
too, with liberty poles before them, and churches and Sunday-
«4chool rooms (with lying faces of granite-painted pine) by

72 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

their side. The countenances of the people here, too, exhib
ited much less, either of virtuous or vicious character, than
you would discern among an equally poor multitude in
America, yet among the most miserable of them (they
were Irish), I was struck with some singularly intelligent, and
even beautiful faces, so strangely out of place, that if they had
been cleaned and put in frames, so the surroundings would
not appear, you would have taken them for those of delicate,
refined, and intellectual ladies.

TJiursday morning, May 8Qth.

We packed all our travelling matter, except a few necessa
ries, in two trunks and a carpet-bag, and I took them in a
public carriage to the freight station, to be sent to London.
The trunks were received, but the bag the clerks refused, and
said it must be sent from the passenger station. I had en
gaged to meet my friends in a few minutes at the opposite
side of the town from the passenger station, and the delay
of going there would vexatiously disarrange our plans. I
therefore urged them to take it, offering to pay the passenger
luggage extra, freight, &c. They would be happy to accom
modate me, but their rules did not admit of it. A carpet-bag
could not be sent from that station at any price. I jumped
on to the box, and drove quickly to the nearest street of shops,
where, at a grocer's, I bought for twopence a coffee-sack, and
enclosing the bag, brought it in a few minutes back to the
station. There was a good laugh, and they gave me a receipt
at once for a sack — to be kept in London until called for.

On the quay, I noticed a bareheaded man drawing with
coloured crayons on a broad, smooth flagstone. He had rep
resented, in a very skilful and beautiful manner, a salmon laid
on a china platter, opposite a broken plate of coarse crockery ;
between these were some lines about a " rich man's dish" and

STREET BEG-G-ING. 73

a "poor man's dinner." He was making an ornamental bor
der about it, and over all was written, " Friends ! I can get
NO WORK ; I must do this or starve"

His hat, with a few pence in it, stood by the side of this.
Was it not eloquent ?

7

74 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER VIII.

BIRKENHEAD. FERRY-BOATS. — GRUFF ENGLISHMAN. — THE ABBEY. — FLOUR.

MARKET. THE PARK. A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION. SUBURBAN VILLAS, &C.

rriHE ferry-boat by which we crossed to Birkenhead was
-L very small and dingy. There was no protection from the
weather on board of her, except a narrow, dark cabin under
deck. There were uncushioned seats all around the outside,
against the rail, and the rest of the deck was mostly filled up
with freight, spars, &c. She had a bowsprit, and a beautiful
light, rakish mast, and topmast fitted to carry a gaffsail. She
was steered with a wheel in the stern. The pilot or master
(a gentleman with a gold band on his hat and naval buttons),
stood on the paddle-boxes to direct, and a boy stood over the
engine to pass orders below. The engine was under deck,
the tops of the cylinders only appearing above it. It was,
however, entirely exposed to observation, and showed excel
lent workmanship, and was kept perfectly clean and highly
polished. It was of entirely different construction from any
American engine, having three oscillating cylinders. The
"hands'^ looked like regular tars, wearing tarpaulins, with the
name of the boat in gilt letters on the ribbon, blue baize
shirts, and broad-bottomed trowsers hung tight on the hips.
The boat came alongside the wharf, ran out her hawsers, and
took in her passengers by a narrow gang-plank ; and yet she
makes her trip once in ten minutes. There would not be

BIRKENHEAD. 75

room enough on her decks for one of our Rockaways to stand,
and she seemed to have no idea of ferrying any thing but
foot-passengers. What would the good people of Birkenhead
think of a Fulton ferry-boat, with its long, light, and airy
rooms, their floors level with the street, and broad carriage-
roads from stem to stern, crossing and recrossing without
turning round, or ever a word of command, or a rope lifted
from morning till evening and from evening till morning?
The length of the ferry is about the same as the South Ferry
of Brooklyn, and the fare one penny.

BIRKENHEAD is the most important suburb of Liverpool,
having the same relation to it that Charlestown has to Boston'
or Brooklyn to New York. When the first line of Liverpool
packets was established, there were not half a dozen houses
here ; it now has a population of many thousands, and is
increasing with a rapidity hardly paralleled in the New
World. This is greatly owing to the very liberal and enter-
prising policy of the land-owners, which affords an example
that might be profitably followed in the vicinity of many of
our own large towns. There are several public squares, and
the streets and places are broad, and well paved and lighted
A considerable part of the town has been built with reference
to generaLeffect, from the plans and under the direction of a
talented architect, GILESPIE GRAHAM.

We received this information while crossing in the ferry
boat from a fellow-passenger, who, though a stranger, entered
into conversation, and answered our inquiries with a frank-
ness and courtesy that we have thus far received from every
one in England. By his direction, we found near the landing
a square of eight or ten acres, about half of it enclosed by an
iron fence, and laid out with tasteful masses of shrubbery
(not trees), and gravel walks. The houses about it stood
detached, and though of the same general style, were suffi-

76 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

ciently varied in details, not to appear monotonous. These
were all of stone.

We left this, and were walking up a long, broad street,
looking for a place where we could get a bite of something
to eat, when the gentleman who had crossed at the ferry with
us joined us again, and said that as we were strangers we
might like to look at the ruins of an ABBEY which were in the
vicinity, and he had come after us that if we pleased he might
conduct us to it.

Eight in the midst of the town, at the corner of a new
brick house, we came upon an old pile of stone work. Old,
indeed ! — under the broken arch of a Gothic window, the
rain-water had been so long trickling as to wear deep chan
nels ; cracking, crumbling, bending over with age, it seemed
in many places as if the threatening mass had only been till
now withheld from falling prostrate by the faithful ivy that
clung to it, and clasped it tight with every fibre.

You cannot imagine the contrast to the hot, hurrying,
noisy world without, that we found on entering the little
enclosure of the old churchyard and abbey walls. It was
all overshadowed with dense foliage, and only here and there
through the leaves, or a shattered arch round which the ivy
curled with enchanting grace, would there be a glimpse of
the blue sky above. By listening, we could still hear the
roar of wheels, rumbling of rail-cars, clanging of steamboat
bells, and the shouts of jovial sea-captains, drinking gin and
water in a neighbouring tea-garden, over which the American
flag was flying. But within the walls there was no sound but
the chirps of a wren, looking for her nest in a dark cranny ;
the hum of bees about an old hawthorn bush ; the piping of
a cricket under a gravestone, and our own footsteps echoed
from mysterious crypts.

Our gui^e having pointed out to us the form of the ancient

BIRKENHEAD ABBEY.— SCHOOL-HOUSE. 77

structure, and been requited for his trouble by seeing the
pleasure he had given us, took his leave. We remained a
long time, and enjoyed it as you may think.

Did you ever hear of Birkenhead Abbey ? I never had
before. It has no celebrity; but coming upon it so fresh
from the land of youth, as we did, so unexpecting of any
thing of the kind — though I have since seen far older ruins,
and more renowned — I have never found any so impressively

A ruined end of the old prior's house had been repaired
and roofed over many years ago, and was used as a school-
house—many years ago, for the ivy on it was very strong
and knarled, and bushes and grass were growing all over the
roof. I send you a hasty sketch of it ; — wouldn't you like
the memory of such a school1? (See vignette, title page.}

At the market-place we went into a baker's shop, and,
while eating some buns, learned that the poorest flour in mar
ket was American and the best French. Upon examination
of his stock, we thought he had hardly a fair sample of
American flour, but his French flour was certainly remarka
bly fine, and would be so considered at Rochester. He said
it made much whiter bread than either American or English,
and he used but little of it unmixed, except for the most
delicate pastry. French and English flour is sold in sacks,
American in barrels. He thought American flour was not
generally kiln-dried,* and was much injured in consequence.

* The great bulk of the flour we are now exporting to England is of
inferior quality, worth about $3 50 when common superfine is $4 50. It
is used extensively by the millers in England to mix with a superior quality
of their own grinding of English wheat. By the way, the custom of taking
a toll in kind, as a compensation for grinding at grist-mills, which our
fathers brought from England, and which we retain, is now obsolete there.
The millers make their charges in money, and are paid as in any other
business.

78 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

When we left he obligingly directed us to several objects of
interest in the vicinity, and showed us through the market.
It is but little less in size, and really appears finer and more
convenient than the one I described in Liverpool.

The roof, which is mostly of glass, is high and airy, and
is supported by two rows of slender iron columns, giving to
the interior the appearance of three light and elegant arcades.
The contrivances to effect ventilation and cleanliness are very
complete. It was built by the town, upon land given to it
for the purpose, and cost 8175,000.

The baker had begged of us not to leave Birkenhead
without seeing their new park, and at his suggestion we left
our knapsacks with him, and proceeded to it. As we ap
proached the entrance, we were met by women and girls,
who, holding out a cup of milk, asked us — " Will you take a
cup of milk, sirs? — good, cool, sweet, cow's milk, gentlemen,
or right warm from the ass /" And at the gate was a herd
of donkeys, some with cans of milk strapped to th$m, others
saddled and bridled, to be let for ladies and children to ride.

The gateway, which is about a mile and a half from the
ferry, and quite back of the town, is a great, massive block
of handsome Ionic architecture, standing alone, and unsup
ported by any thing else in the vicinity, and looking, as I
think, heavy and awkward. There is a sort of grandeur
about it that the English are fond of, but which, when it is
entirely separate from all other architectural constructions,
always strikes me unpleasantly. It seems intended as an
impressive preface to a great display of art within ; but here,
as well as at Eaton Park, and other places I have since seen,
it is not followed up with great things, the grounds immedi
ately within the grand entrance being very simple, and appa
rently rather overlooked by the gardener. There is a large
archway for carriages, and two smaller ones for those on foot,

PEOPLES GARDEN. 79

and, on either side, and over these, are rooms, which probably
serve as inconvenient lodges for the labourers. No porter
appears, and the gates are freely open to the public.

Walking a short distance up an avenue, we passed through
another light iron gate into a thick, luxuriant, and diversified
garden. Five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent
in studying the manner in which art had been employed to
obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit
that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought
of as comparable with this People's Garden. Indeed, gar
dening, had here reached a perfection that I had never before
dreamed of. I cannot undertake to describe the effect of so
much taste and skill as had evidently been employed ; I will
only tell you, that we passed by winding paths, over acres
and acres, with a constant varying surface, where on all sides
were growing every variety of shrubs and flowers, with more
than natural grace, all set in borders of greenest, closest turf,
and all kept with most consummate neatness. At a distance
of a quarter of a mile from the gate, we came to an open field
of clean, bright, green-sward, closely mown, on which a large
tent was pitched, and a party of boys in one part, and a party
of gentlemen in another, were playing cricket. Beyond this
was a large meadow with rich groups of trees, under which a
flock of sheep were reposing, and girls and women with chil
dren, were playing. While watching the cricketers, we were
threatened with a shower, and hastened back to look for
shelter, which we found in a pagoda, on an island approached
by a Chinese bridge. It was soon filled, as were the other
ornamental buildings, by a crowd of those who, like ourselves,
had been overtaken in the grounds by the rain ; arid I was
glad to observe that the privileges of the garden were enjoyed
about equally by all classes. There were some who were
attended by servants, and sent at once for their carriages,

80 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

but a large proportion were of the common ranks, and a few
women with children, or suffering from ill health, were evi
dently the wives of very humble labourers. There were a
number of strangers, and some we observed with note-books
and portfolios, that seemed to have come from a distance to
study from the garden. The summer-houses, lodges, bridges,
&c., were all well constructed, and of undecaying materials.
One of the bridges which we crossed was of our countryman,
EEMINGTON'S patent, an extremely light and graceful erection.

I obtained most of the following information from the
head working-gardener.

The site of the park and garden was, ten years ago, a flat,
sterile, clay farm. It was placed in the hands of Mr. PAXTON,
in June, 1844, by whom it was laid out in its present form
by June of the following year. Carriage roads, thirty-four
feet wide, with borders of ten feet, and walks varying in
width, were first drawn and made. The excavation for a
pond was also made, and the earth obtained from these
sources used for making mounds and to vary the surface,
which has been done with much naturalness and taste. The
whole ground was thoroughly under-drained, the minor drains
of stone, the main, of tile. By these sufficient water is ob
tained to fully supply the pond, or lake, as they call it, which
is from twenty to forty feet wide, and about three feet deep,
and meanders for a long distance through the garden. It is
stocked with aquatic plants, gold fish, and swans.

The roads are macadamized. On each side of the carriage
way, and of all the walks, pipes for drainage are laid, which
communicate with deep main drains that run under the edge
of all the mounds or flower beds. The walks are laid first
with six inches of fine broken stone, then three inches cinders,
and the surface with six inches of fine rolled gravel. All the
stones on the ground which were not used for these purposes,

A MODEL FOR AMERICAN TOWNS. 81

were laid in masses of rock-work, and mosses and rock-plants
attached to them. The mounds were then planted with
shrubs, and heaths and ferns, and the beds with flowering
plants. Between these, and the walks and drives, is every
where a belt of turf (which, by the way, is kept close cut
with short, broad scythes, and shears, and swept with hair-
brooms, as we saw). Then the rural lodges, temple, pavilion,
bridges, orchestra for a band of instrumental music, &c., were
built. And so, in one year, the skeleton of this delightful
garden was complete.

But this is but a small part. Besides the cricket and an
archery ground, large valleys were made verdant, extensive
drives arranged— plantations, clumps, and avenues of trees
formed, and a large park laid out. And all this magnifi
cent pleasure-ground is entirely, unreservedly, and for ever
the people's own. The poorest British peasant is as free
to enjoy it in all its parts as the British queen. More
than that, the baker of Birkenhead has the pride of an OWNER
in it.

Is it not a grand good thing ? But you are inquiring who
paid for it. The honest owners — the most wise and worthy
townspeople of Birkenhead— in the same way that the New-
Yorkers pay for " the Tombs," and the Hospital, and the
cleaning (as they amusingly say) of their streets.

Of the farm which was purchased, one hundred and twenty
acres have been disposed of in the way I have described.
The remaining sixty acres, encircling the park and garden,
were reserved to be sold or rented, after being well graded,
streeted, and planted, for private building lots. Several fine
mansions are already built on these (having private entrances
to the park), and the rest now sell at $1.25 a square yard.
The whole concern cost the town between five and six hun
dred thousand dollars. It gives employment at present,

82 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

to ten gardeners and labourers in summer, and to five in
winter.*

The generous spirit and fearless enterprise, that has ac
complished this, has not been otherwise forgetful of the
health and comfort of the poor.f Among other things, I
remember, a public washing and bathing house for the
town is provided. I should have mentioned also, in connec
tion with the market, that in the outskirts of the town there
is a range ot stone slaughter-houses, with stables, yards, pens,
supplies of hot and cold water, and other arrangements and
conveniences, that enlightened regard for health and decency
vvould suggest.

The consequence of all these sorts of things is, that all
about the town, lands, which a few years ago were almost
worthless wastes, have become of priceless value ; where no
sound was heard but the bleating of goats and braying of
asses complaining of their pasturage, there is now the hasty
click and clatter of many hundred busy trowels and hammers.
You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately
edifices, where were only a few scattered huts, surrounded by
quagmires. Docks of unequalled size and grandeur are
building, and a forest of masts grows along the shore ; and

* "When the important advantages to the poorer classes, of such an
extensive and delightful pleasure-ground, are taken into consideration, no
one will be inclined to say that such an expenditure does not merit the
most unbounded success, and the deepest public gratitude. Here nature
may be viewed in her loveliest garb, the most obdurate heart may be soft
ened, and the mind gently led to pursuits which refine, purify, and alleviate
the humblest of the toil-worn."

t " Few towns, in modern times, have been built with such regard to
sanitary regulations, as Birkenhead, and in no instance has so much been
done for the health, comfort, and enjoyment of a people, as by those ener
getic individuals with whose names the rise and progress of Birkenhead
are so intimately connected." — Dr. J. H. Robertson.

LIBERAL ENTERPRISE AND PROSPERITY. 83

there is no doubt that this young town is to be not only re
markable as a most agreeable and healthy place of residence,
but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and profit
able commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever
saw that has been really built at all in accordance with the
advanced science, taste, and enterprising spirit that are sup
posed to distinguish the nineteenth century. I do not doubt
it might be found to have plenty of exceptions to its general
character, but I did not inquire for these, nor did I happen to
observe them. Certainly, in what I have noticed, it is a
model town, and may be held up as an example, not only to
philanthropists and men of taste, but to speculators and men
of business.

After leaving the park, we ascended a hill, from the top
of which we had a fine view of Liverpool and Birkenhead.
Its sides were covered with villas, with little gardens about
them. The architecture was generally less fantastic, and the
style and materials of building more substantial ^han is usu
ally employed in the same class of residences with us. Yet
there was a good deal of the same stuck up and uneasy pre
tentious air about them that the suburban houses of our own
city people so commonly have. Possibly this is the effect
of association, in my mind, of steady, reliable worth and
friendship with plain or old-fashioned dwellings, for I often
find it difficult to discover in the buildings themselves the
elements of such expression. I am inclined to think it is
more generally owing to some disunity in the design — often,
perhaps, to a want of keeping between the mansion and its
grounds or its situation. The architect and the gardener do
not understand each other, and commonly the owner or resi
dent is totally at variance in his tastes and intentions from
both ; or the man whose ideas the plan is made to serve, or
who pays for it, has no true independent taste, but had fancies

84 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

to be accommodated, which only follow confusedly after
custom or fashion. I think, with Ruskin, it is a pity that
every man's house cannot be really his own, and that he can
not make all that is true, beautiful, and good in his own
character, tastes, pursuits, and history manifest in it.

But however fanciful and uncomfortable many of the villa
houses about Liverpool and Birkenhead appear at first sight,
the substantial and thorough manner in which most of them
are built will atone for many faults. The friendship of nature
has been secured to them. Dampness, heat, cold, will be
welcome to do their best. Every day they will improve.
In fifty or a hundred years fashions may change, and they
will appear, perhaps, quaint, possibly grotesque; but still
strong, HOME-LIKE, and hospitable. They have no shingles to
rot, no glued and puttied and painted gimcrackery, to warp
and crack and moulder ; and can never look so shabby, and
desolate, and dreary, as will nine-tenths of the buildings of
the same denomination now erecting about New York, almost
as soon as they lose the raw, cheerless, impostor-like airs
which seem almost inseparable from their newness.

RAILROAD SCENES. 85

CHAPTER IX.

A RAILWAY RIDE. SECOND CLASS. INCONVENIENT ARRANGEMENTS. FIRST

WALK IN THE COUNTRY.— ENGLAND ITSELF.— A RURAL LANDSCAPE.—

HEDGES. APPROACH TO A HAMLET. THE OLD ALE-HOUSE AND THE OLD

JOHN BULL. A TALK WITH COUNTRY PEOPLE. NOTIONS OF AMERICA.

FREE TRADE. THft YEW TREE. THE OLD RURAL CHURCH AND GRAVE
YARD. A PARK GATE. A MODEL FARMER. THE OLD VILLAGE INN. A

MODEL KITCHEN. A MODEL LANDLADY.

TF"E were very tired when we again reached the baker's.
After passenger-life at sea, a man's legs need to be
brought into active service somewhat gradually. As we had
spent more time than we had meant to at Birkenhead, we
determined to rest ourselves for a few minutes, and get a
start of a few miles into the country by the railroad. A seat,
however, on the hard board benches of an English second-
class car, crowded, and your feet cramped under you, does
not remove fatigue very rapidly.

A heavy cloud darkened the landscape, and as we emerged
in a few moments from the dark tunnel, whirling out of town,
big drops of rain came slanting in upon us. A lady coughed,
and we closed the window. The road ran through a deep cut
ting, with only occasionally such depressions of its green-
sodded bank, that we could, through the dusty glass, get
glimpses of the country. In successive gleams : —

A market-garden, with rows of early cabbages, and let
tuce, and peas ; —

8

86 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

Over a hedge, a nice, new stone villas with the gardener
shoving up the sashes of the conservatory, and the maids
tearing clothes from the drying-lines ; —

A bridge, with children shouting and waving hats ; —

A field of wheat, in drills as precisely straight, and in
earth as clean and finely-tilled, as if it were a garden-plant ; —

A bit of broad pasture, with colts and cows turning tail
to the squall ; long hills in the back, with some trees and a
steeple rising beyond them ; —

Another few minutes of green bank ; —

A jerk — a stop. A gruff shout, "BROMBRO!" A great
fuss to get the window on the other side from us open ; call
ing the conductor ; having the door unlocked ; squeezing
through the ladies' knees, and dragging our packs over their
laps — all borne with a composure that thews them to be used
to it, and that they take it as a necessary evil of railroad
travelling. The preparations for rain are just completed as
we emerge upon a platform, and now down it comes in a
torrent. We rush, with a quantity of floating muslin, white
ankles, and thin shoes, under an arch. With a sharp whistle
and hoarse puffing the train rumbles onward ; grooms pick
up the lap-dog and baskets; flaunting white skirts are
moved again across the track ; another rush, in which a
diminutive French sun-shade is assisted by a New York um
brella to protect a new English bonnet ; a graceful bow m
return, with lifting eyebrows, as if in inquiry ; and we are
altogether crowded in the station-house.

In a few minutes they go off in carriages, and room is left
us in the little waiting-room to strap on our knapsacks. The
rain slackens — ceases, and we mount, by stone steps up a
bank of roses and closely-shaven turf, to the top of the bridge
over the cutting.

There we were right in the midst of it ! The country —

FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE "COUNTRY". 87

and such a country !— green, dripping, glistening, gorgeous!
We stood dumb-stricken by its loveliness, as, from the bleak
• April and bare boughs we had left at home, broke upon us
that English May— sunny, leafy, blooming May— in an En-
ghshlane; with hedges, English hedges, hawthorn hedges
all in blossom ; homely old farm-houses, quaint stables, and
haystacks; the old church spire over the distant trees; the
mild sun beaming through the watery atmosphere, and all so
quiet— the only sounds the hum of bees and the crisp grass-
tearing of a silken-skinned, real (unimported) Hereford cow
over the hedge. No longer excited by daring to think we
should see it, as we discussed the scheme round the old
home-fire ; no longer cheering ourselves with it in the stupid,
tedious ship; no more forgetful of it in the bewilderment of
the busy town-but there we were, right in the midst of it ;
long time silent, and then speaking softly, as if it were en
chantment indeed, we gazed upon it and breathed it— never
to be forgotten.

At length we walked on— rapidly— but frequently stop
ping, one side and the other, like children in a garden •
hedges still, with delicious fragrance, on each side of us, and
on, as far as we can see, true farm-fencing hedges ; nothing
trim, stiff, nice, and amateur-like, but the verdure broken
tufty, low, and natural. They are set on a ridge of eartli
thrown out from a ditch beside them, which raises and
strengthens them as a fence. They are nearly all hawthorn
which is now covered in patches, as if after a slight fall of
snow, with clusters of white or pink blossoms. over its light
green foliage. Here and there a holly bush, with bunches of
scarlet berries, and a few other shrubs, mingle with it. A
cart meets us— a real heavy, big-wheeled English cart;
and English horses— real big, shaggy-hoofed, sleek, heavy
English cart-horses ; and a carter— a real apple-faced, smock-

88 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

frocked, red-headed, wool-hatted carter — breeches, stockings,
hob-nailed shoes, and " Gee-up Dobbin" English carter. Little
birds hop along in the road before us, and we guess at their
names, first of all electing one to be Robin-Redbreast. We
study the flowers under the hedge, and determine them
nothing else than primroses and buttercups. Through the
gates we admire the great, fat, clean-licked, contented-faced
cows, and large, white, long-wooled sheep. What else was
there ? I cannot remember ; but there was that altogether
that made us forget our fatigue, disregard the rain, thought
less of the way we were going — serious, happy, and grateful.
And this excitement continued for many days.

At length as it becomes drenching again, we approach a
stone spire. A stone house interrupts our view in front ; the
road winds round it, between it and another ; turns again,
and there on our left is the church—the old ivy-covered,
brown-stone village church, with the yew-tree — we knew it
at once, and the heaped-up, green, old English churchyard.
We turn to the right ; there is the old ale-house, long, low,
thatched-roofed. We run in at the open door ; there he sits,
the same bluff and hearty old fellow, with the long-stemmed
pipe and the foaming pewter mug on the little table before
him. At the same moment with us comes in another man.
He drops in a seat — raps with his whip. Enter a young
woman, neat and trim, with exactly -the white cap, smooth
hair, shiny face, bright eyes, and red cheeks, we are looking
for — " Muggoyail, lass /"

_* » •-.. . » . Mug of ale ! — ay, that's it! Mug of
ale !— Fill up ! Fill up ! and the toast shall be
"MERRIE ENGLAND ! HURRAH !"

We sit with them for some time, and between puffs of
smoke, the talk is of " the weather and the crops." The maid

VILLAGE ALE-HOUSE. 89

leaves the door open, so we can look into the kitchen, where
a smart old woman is ironing by a bright coal fire. Two
little children venture before us. I have just succeeded in
coaxing the girl on to my knee, as C. mentions that we are
Americans. The old woman lays down her iron and puts on
her spectacles to look at us. The stout man who had risen
to take an observation of the weather, seats himself again and
calls for another mug and twist. The landlord (a tall thin
man, unfortunately) looks in and asks how times go where
we come from. Plenty of questions follow that show alike
the interest and the ignorance of our companions about
America, it being confused apparently in their minds with
Ireland, Guinea, and the poetical Indies. After a little straight-
ening out, and explanation of the distance to it, its climate
and civilized condition, they ask about the present crops, the
price of wheat, about rents, tithes, and taxes. In return, we
get only grumbling. "The country is ruined;" "things
weren't so when they were young as they be now," and so
on, just as a company of our tavern-lounging farmers would
talk, except that every complaint ends with blaming Free-
Trade. " Free-Trade— hoye sirs,— free-trade be killing the
varmers."

We left them as soon as the shower slackened, but stopped
again immediately to look at the yew through the churchyard
gate. It was a very old and decrepit* tree, with dark and
funereal foliage— the stiff trunk and branches of our red-cedar,
with the leaf of the hemlock, but much more dark and glossy
than either. The walls of the church are low, but higher in
one part than another. The roof, which is slated, is high amf
steep. The tower is square, with buttresses on the corners,
on the tops of which are quaint lions rampant. It is sur
mounted by a tall, symmetrical spire— solid stone to the
ball, over which, as I am the son of a Puritan, is a weather-

90 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

cock. There are little, narrow windows in the steeple, and
swallows are flying in and out of them. Old weather-beaten
stone and mortar, glass, lead, iron, and matted ivy, but not a
splinter of wood or a daub of paint. Old England for ever !
Amen.

A mile or two more of such walking as before the shower,
and we came to a park gate. It was, with the lodges by its
side, neat, simple, and substantial. The park was a handsome
piece of old woods, but, as seen from the road, not remarkable.
We were told, however, that there was a grand old hall and
fine grounds a long ways within. Near the park there were
signs of an improving farmer : broad fields of mangel-wurzel
in drills ; large fields, partly divided by wire fences, within
which were large flocks of sheep; marks of recent under-
draining ; hedges trimmed square, and every thing neat,
straight, and business-like.

As it grows dark we approach another village. The first
house on the left is an inn — a low, two-story house of light
drab-coloured stone. A bunch of grapes (cast in iron) and a
lantern are hung out from it over the foot-path, and over
the front door is a square sign — " THE RED LION— licensed
to sell foreign spirits and beer, to be drunk on the premises"
We turn into a dark hall, and opening a door to the left, en
ter — the kitchen. S^uch a kitchen ! You would not believe
me if I could describe how bright every thing is. You would
think the fireplace a show-model, for the very bars of the
grate are glistening. It is all glowing with red-hot coals ; a
bright brass tea-kettle swings and sings from a polished
steel crane — hook, jack, and all like silver ; the brass coal
scuttle, tongs, shovel, and warming-pan are in a blazing glow,
and the walls and mantel-piece are covered with bright plate-
covers, and I know not what other metallic furniture, all bur
nished to the highest degree.

THE COUNTRY INN. 91

The landlady rises and begs to take our wet hats— a
model-landlady, too. What a fine eye !— a kind and welcom-
ing black eye. Fair and stout; elderly — a little silver in
her hair, just showing its otherwise thick blackness to be
no lie; a broad-frilled, clean white cap and collar, and a
black dress. Ah ha ! one of the widows that we have read
of. We hesitated to cross the clean-scoured, buff, tile floor
with our muddy shoes ; but she draws arm-chairs about the
grate, and lays slippers before them, stirs up the fire, though
it is far from needing it, and turns to take our knapsacks.
" We must be fatigued— it's not easy walking in the rain ; she
hopes we can make ourselves comfortable."

There is every prospect that we shall.

92 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER X.

TALK WITH A FARMER; WITH A TENDER-HEARTED WHEELWRIGHT — rAN

AMUSING STORY. NOTIONS OF AMERICA. SUPPER. SPEECH OF THE EN
GLISH. PLEASANT TONES. QUAINT EXPRESSIONS. THE TWENTY-NINTH OF

MAY. ZACCHEUS IN THE OAK TREE. EDUCATION. BED-CHAMBER. A

NIGHTCAP AND A NIGHTCAP.

one side near the fire there was a recess in the wall, in
which was a settle (a long, high-backed, wooden seat).
Two men with pipes and beer sat in it, with whom we fell to
talking. One of them proved to be a farmer, the other a
jack-of-all-trades, but more distinctly of the wheelwright's,
and a worshipper of and searcher after ideal women, as he
more than once intimated to us. We were again told by the
farmer that free trade was ruining the country — no farmer
could live long in it. He spoke with a bitter jocoseness of
the regularity of his taxes, and said that though they played
the devil with every thing else, he always knew how tithes
would be. He paid, I think he said, about a dollar an acre
every year to the church, though he never went to it in his
life ; always went to chapel, as his father did before him. He
was an Independent ; but there were so few of them there
abouts that they could not afford to keep a minister, and onlv
occasionally had preaching. When he learned that we were
from America, he was anxious to know how church matters
were there. Though a rather intelligent man, he was utterly
ignorant that we had no state church; and though a dis

TALK WITH A FARMER. 93

senter, the idea of a government giving free trade to all sorts
of religious doctrine seemed to be startling and fearful to him.
But when I told him what the rent (or the interest on the
value) of my farm was, and what were its taxes, he wished
that he was young that he might go to America himself; he
really did not see how he should be able to live here much
longer. He rented a farm of about fifty acres, and was a man
of about the same degree of intelligence and information that
you would expect of the majority of those owning a similar
'farm with us. Except that he was somewhat stouter than
most Yankees, he did not differ much in appearance or dress
from many of our rather old-fashioned farmers.

The tender-hearted wheelwright could hardly believe that
we were really born and brought up in America. He never
thought any foreigners could learn to speak the language so
well. He too was rather favourably struck with the idea of
going to America, when we answered his inquiries with re
gard to mechanics' wages. He was very cautious, however,
and cross-questioned us a long time about the cost of every
thing there — the passage, the great heat of the climate, the
price of beer ; and at length, touching his particular weak
ness, he desired to be told candidly how it would be if he
should marry before he went. If he should get a wife, a real
handsome one, would it be safe for him to take her there ]
He had heard a story — perhaps we knew whether it was true
or not — of a man who took a handsome wife out with him,
and a black man, that was a great rich lord in our country,
took a great liking to her, and offered the man ten thousand
pounds for her, which he refused ; and so the great black lord
went away very wroth and vexed. When he was gone, the
woman upbraided her husband: "Thou fool, why didst thee
not take it and let me go with him 1 I would have returned
to thee to-morrow." Then the man followed after the black

94 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

lord, and sold his \vife to him for ten thousand pounds. But
the next day she did not return, nor the next, neither the
next ; and so the man went to look for her ; and lo ! he found
her all dressed up in silk and satin, 'lighting from a coach, and
footmen waiting upon her. So he says to her, " Why didst
thee not return the next day1?" "Dost take me for a fool,
goodman ?" quoth she, and stepped back into her fine coach
and drove off; and so he lost his handsome wife.

Besides the kitchen, there were, on the lower floor of the
inn, two or three small dining or tea rooms, a little office or'
accounting closet for the mistress, and & tap-room, which is a
small apartment for smoking and drinking. These are all
plainly but neatly furnished. There is a large parlour above
stairs, somewhat elegantly furnished. The kitchen, tap-room,
and office are low rooms, and over these is the parlour. The
dining-rooms are higher, and over them are the bed-chambers.
Thus the parlour is allowed a high ceiling, level with the eaves
of the roof, and you enter it from a landing some steps lower
than the bed-chambers. The latter are carried up under the
roof, with dormer windows, and are very pleasant rooms. It
will be seen that all the^travellers' rooms or apartments are
thus made spacious at the expense of height in the others,
and that yet there is a convenient arrangement and connec
tion of the whole.

We had supper in a little back room, as neat as care and
scouring could make and keep it. The table was much such
a one as Mrs. Marcombe, in Hanover, would have set for a
couple of tired White Mountain pedestrians, except the ab
sence of any kind of cakes or pies. The ham had a peculiar
taste, and was very good, C. says, the least unpleasant of
any he was ever tempted to eat. It had been dried by
hanging from the ceiling of the kitchen, instead of being
regularly smoked, as is our practice. The milk and butter

THE ENGLISH IN CONVERSATION. 95

(which was not in the least salted) were very sweet and high-
flavoured.

In the evening we had a long talk with the old woman
and her daughter. The latter was a handsome person with
much such a good, beaming face as her mother, but with youth,
and more refinement from education and intelligence. She
also was a widow with two sweet, shy little girls.

There are peculiarities in the speech of these women that
would distinguish them anywhere from native Americans.
Perhaps the novelty of them is pleasing, but it has seemed
to us that the speech of most of the people above the lowest
class of labourers that we have met, is more agreeable and
better than we often hear at home. Perhaps the climate
may have effect in making the people more habitually ani
mated — the utterance more distinct and varied. Sentences
are more generally finished with a rising inflection, syllables
are more forcibly accented, and quite often, as with our land
lady, there is a rich musical tone in the conversational voice
to which we are not yet so much accustomed, but that it
compels us to listen deferentially. 1 wonder that beauty of
speech is not more thought of as an accomplishment. It is
surely capable of great cultivation, and should not be for
gotten in education.

Except in the lower class, the choice of words seems
often elegant, and we hear very few idiomatic phrases or
provincialisms. Where we do notice them, in the class I am
now speaking of, it would not seem an affectation of singular
language in an educated person with us, but rather a fortunate
command of vigorous Saxon words. We have never any
difficulty in understanding them, while we do sometimes
have to reconstruct our sentences, and find substitutes for
some of our words, before we are plainly understood. The
"H" difficulty is an exception to all this, with nearly all the

96 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

people, except the most polished, that we have met. Is i\
not singular 1 Among the lowest classes, however, there are
many words used that puzzle us ; others are pronounced
curiously, and many of our common words are used in new
combinations. There is an old-fashioned, quaint set of words
in common use that we only understand from having met
with them in old books — in the Bible, for instance. The
words Master and Mistress (instead of Mister and Misses, as
we have got to pronounce them), and lad and lass, are usual.
"Here, lad!" " Well, Maister?" I first heard in the Liver
pool market. I passed a man there, too, leading a dray-
horse, with a heavy load, up one of the steep streets. He
was encouraging him in this way : " Coom on, my lad !
Coom on, my good lad !" When he had reached the brow
he stopped and went before the noble beast, who, with glisten
ing eyes, and ears playing beautifully, bowed his head to be
patted, " Good lad! good lad! Well, thee's done it!"*

We had noticed yesterday in Liverpool that the omni
buses were decorated with branches of trees, ribbons, and
flags ; the union-jack (British ensign) was hoisted in several
places, the children seemed to be enjoying a half-holiday in
the afternoon, and once we saw them going together in an
irregular procession, carrying a little one dressed with leaves
and crowned with a gilt-paper cap, and singing together in
shrill chorus some verses, of which we only understood the
frequent repetition of the words : " The twenty-ninth of
May ! the twenty-ninth of May !" It occurred to C. to ask
whether all this was intended to celebrate any thing. " Oh,

* A gentleman, riding towards Chowbet, and seeing a boy in the road,
shouted out to him, " My lad, am I half-way to Chowbet 1" Young
Lancashire looked up at the querist, and said, "Hah con aw tell, tha'
foo', when I doon't know wheear ta' coom fra ?" — Liverpool paper.

SCRIPTURAL EDUCATION. 97

surely," our hostess said, "it was the twenty-ninth of
— King-Charles-and-the-Oak day." In her husband's time,
they used always to keep it in good style, ornamenting their
house all over with oak boughs, and all the stage-coaches and
the horses used to be decked with oak boughs too. " How
beautifully," says C., aside, "do such pretty simple customs
keep alive the remembrance of old historic facts !" " But
why do they carry about the child ?" She did not recollect
clearly, but she had the impression that King Charles was a
baby when it occurred. She had forgotten exactly how it
was, she said, " but it told all about it in the Bible." " In
the Bible ! mother ; you mean in the History of England, do
you not 1" said her daughter, smiling. " Was it 1" replied
the old lady, " I never had time to read much in the large His
tory of England. Let me see — why, no ; nowr I am sure it
was in the Bible. Don't you remember — what's his name
— Zack — Zack — Zacheriah ? yes, Zacheriah ; how he climbed
up into an oak tree to see King Charles go by !"

A large and most powerful class, including many even of
the more conservative of the dissenters in England, are terri
bly afraid of a national system of education that shall be
free from Church influence. The people had better be left to
grow up in ignorance, rather than that they should not be
instructed in theological dogmas. I have actually heard a
refined and educated gentleman, occupying an influential po
sition, advocate the idea that all the education the common
people needed was so much as attild enable them to read
their Bible, prayer-book, and ca^Biism. Except for this, he

Icftiever let them have a t^Bner, but would leave them
He would break up every dissenter's school

— have no school in the land that was not a part^>f the
The godless system of education which was now
favoured in high quarters (on the plan of our New- England

9

98 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

common schools !) he verily believed, if adopted, would be
a national sin that God would arise in his anger to punish.

Our landlady had lived almost to old age under the shadow
of the Church, in which the story of Zaccheus is every year
read aloud, and in which a religious celebration of the resto
ration of King Charles is by law performed every 29th of
May. But a person of sound faculties, native-born, could not
probably be found in New-England, whose godless education
would not have made impossible such a confusion of religious
instruction as had been given her.*

I am writing now in my bedroom. Though the ceiling is
low, it is large and well furnished. There are large pitchers
of water, foot-bath, and half-a-dozen towels. The bed is very
large, clean, and richly curtained. The landlady has sent me
up a glass of her home-brew^ed beer, with a nightcap which I
noticed she hung by the fire when I left the kitchen. The
chambermaid has drawn down the bed-clothes, and says,
" The bed has been well aired, sir." Good night.

* There is a service for the 29th of May in the Book of Common Prayer,
which, by royal order (commencing " Victoria Regina. It is our Eoyal
Will and Pleasure," &c., and countersigned by Lord John Kussell on the
21st of June, 1837), is to be performed in every church, college, and
chapel in the United Kingdom every year. It is most blasphemously
absurd and false in its historical allusions and slavish moralizings.

\

FAMILIAR ENGLISH LANDSCAPE. 99

CHAPTER XI.

THE BREAK OF DAY.— A FULL HEART.— FAMILIAR THINGS.— THE VILLAGE AT

SUNRISE. FLOWERS. BIRDS. DOG KENNELS. "THE SQUIRE" AND "THE

HALL." ROOKS. VISIT TO A SMALL FARM. THE COWS. THE MILKING.

THE DAIRY-MAIDS. THE STABLES. MANURE. BONES. PASTURE. WHITE

CLOVER. IMPLEMENTS. CARTS. THE ENGLISH PLOUGH AND HARROW.

Slst May.

TT was very early this morning when I became gradually
J- aware of the twittering of house-sparrows, and was soon
after brought to more distinct consciousness of time and place
b;y the long clear note of some other stranger bird. I stepped
from bed and kneeled at a little, low, latticed window, cur
tained without by a woodbine. Parting the foliage with ray
hands, I looked out upon a cluster of low-thatched cottages,
half overgrown with ivy ; a bloQming hawthorn hedge, enclo
sing a field of heavy grass and clover glistening with dew ; a
few haystacks ; another field beyond, spotted with sheep ;
a group of trees ; and then some low hills, over which the
dawn was kindling, with a faint blush, the quiet, smoky
clouds in a grey sky. It may seem an uninteresting land
scape, but I gazed upon it with great emotion, so great that
I wondered at it. Such a scene I had never looked upon be
fore, and yet it was in all its parts as familiar to me as my
native valley. Land of our poets ! Home of our fathers !
Dear old mother England ! It would be strange if I were
not affected at meeting thee at last face to face.

100 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

I dressed, and worked my way through the dark, crooked
stairs to the kitchen, where, on the bright steel fender, I
found ray shoes dry and polished. I walked through the
single short street of the hamlet. The houses were set closely
together, with neat little gardens about them. They were of
every age ; one I noticed marked with the date 1630 — about
the time of the first settlement in Connecticut. It was of
stone, narrow, with a steep roof covered with very small
slates ; the windows much wider than high, and filled with
little panes of glass set in strips of lead. Except in this and
the materials of which it was built, it was not unlike some of
the oldest houses that we yet see in our first Puritan villages,
as Hadley and Wethersfield.

A blackbird hopped before me, but did not whistle, and
plenty of little birds were chirping on the walls and rose
bushes, but there was nothing like the singing we have at
home of a spring morning.* At the other end of the vil
lage was another inn — " The Blue Lion," I believe, and a tall
hostler opening the stable doors was dressed just as I wanted
to see him — jockey -cap, long striped waistcoat, breeches, and
boots.

As I returned I saw the 'farmer that had been at the inn
the night before, and asked him to let me see his cows. He
said they were coming down the lane, and if I went with him
I should meet them. Passing a group of well-built, neat,
low buildings, he said they were the squire's kennels. They
were intended for greyhounds, but he had his pointers in
them now.

" The squire's ! But where's the squire's house ?"

" Yon's the hall," pointing to a distant group of trees,
above which a light smoke was rising straight up in the calm

* An English friend, now in America, thinks I ain wr-onj in this.

ROOKS.— VISIT TO A FARM. 101

air, and a number of large black birds were rapidly rising
and falling. " Ton's the hall ; ye see the rooks."
" The rooks ! Then those are rooks, are they f
" Ay, be they— rooks— do ye not know what rooks be f
" Yes, but we don't have them in America."
" No ! not have rooks ? They be main good in. a pie, sir."
We met the cows, of which there were about a dozen,
driven by a boy towards the farm-house. Any one of them
would have been considered remarkably fine in America.
They were large and in good order; with soft, sleek skin, and
like every cow I have seen in England, look as if they had
just been polished up for exhibition. He could tell nothing
of their breed except of one, a handsome heifer, which he said
came partly of Welsh stock. He took me across a field or
two to look at a few cows of the squire's. They were finer
than any of his, and seemed to be grade short-horns.

The cows were driven into hovels, which he called ship,
pens, and fastened at their mangers by a chain and ring
sliding on an upright post (the latest fashion with us), eight
of them in an apartment, standing back to back. Three or
four of his daughters came out to milk — very good-looking,
modest young women, dressed in long, loose, grey, homespun
gowns. They had those high wooden tubs to milk in that
we see in the old pictures of sentimental milkmaids. It
seems constantly like dreaming to see so many of these
things that we have only known before in poetry or painting.
The dairy-house and all the farm buildings were of brick,
interworked with beams of wood and thatched. They were
very small, the farm being only of fifty acres, and the
hay and grain always kept in stacks. The arrangements for
saving manure were poor— much the same as on any tolerably
good farm with us— a hollowed yard with a pool of liquid on
one side. He bought some dung and bones in Liverpool

9*

102 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

but not much. He esteemed bones most highly, and said
they did immense good hereabout. They made a sweeter,
stronger, and more permanent pasture. Where he had ap
plied them twelve years ago, at the rate of a ton to an acre,
he could see their effect yet. He took me into an adjoining
field which, he said, was one of the best pastures in the village.
It had been ploughed in narrow lands, and the ridges left
high, when it was laid down. The sward was thicker, better
bottomed, than any I ever saw in America. He sowed about
a bushel of grass seeds to the acre, seeding down with oats.
For cheese pasture, he valued white clover more than any
thing else, and had judged, from the taste of American
cheese, that we did not have it. For meadows to be mowed
for hay, he preferred sainfoin and ray -grass. He had lately
underdrained some of his lowest land with good effect. His
soil is mostly a stiff clay resting on a ledge of rocks.

The farm-carts were clumsy and heavy (for horses), with
very large wheels with broad tires and huge hubs, as you
have seen the English carts pictured. The plough was a very
long, sharp, narrow one, calculated to plough about seven
inches deep, and turn a slice ten inches wide, with a single
pair of horses. The stilts, of iron, were long and low, and
the beam, also of iron, very high, with a goose-neck curve.
It is a very beautiful instrument, graceful and strong ; but its
appearance of lightness is deceptive, the whole being of iron ;
and this, with its great length, though adding to its efficiency
for nice, accurate work in perfectly smooth and clear, long
fields, would entirely unfit it for most of our purposes. On
the rocky, irregular, hill-side farms of New England, or the
stump lands of the West, it would be perfectly useless ; but
I should think it might be an admirable plough for our New
York wheat lands, or perhaps for the prairies after they had
oeen once broken.

THE ENGLISH PLOUGH.

103

The harrow used on the farm was also of iron, frame and
all, in three oblong sections, hinged together. These were

about all the tools I saw, and they were left in a slovenly
way, lying about the farm-yard and in the road.

104 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XII.

BREAKFAST AT THE INN. A TALE OF HIGH LIFE. THE GARDEN OF THE INN.

AN OLD FARM-HOUSE. TIMBER HOUSES. LABOURERS' COTTAGES. WAT
TLES AND NOGGIN WALLS. A " FERME ORNEE." A LAWN PASTURE. COP
PER-LEAVED BEECHES. TAME BLACK CATTLE. APPROACH TO CHESTER.

T RETURNED to my room in the inn, and had written a
-*- page or two of this before any one was stirring. Then I
heard the mistress waking the servants, and soon after "John
the boots" came to my door to call me, as I had requested
him to.

After with difficulty prevailing upon the landlady and her
daughter to breakfast with us, we had a very sociable time
with them over the tea and eggs which they had prepared for
us. They were interested to hear of the hard coal we burned
(anthracite) that made no smoke, and of wood fires, and of
our peculiar breakfast dishes, griddle-cakes, and Indian bread.
They told us of other members of their family — two or three
in Australia — and of the clergy and gentry of the neighbour
hood. They spoke kindly and respectfully of the vicar — " a
sporting man, sir, and fond of good living," the old lady
added, after mentioning his charity and benevolence. In
speaking of the gentry, it was difficult for her to believe that
we did not know the general history of all the families. We

asked about a park we had passed. It was Park, and

had a remarkable story to be told of it ; but so constantly
did she anticipate our knowledge, taking for granted that we

A TALE OF man LIFE. 105

knew all that had occurred until within a short time, that it
was long before we could at all understand the news about it.
As you are probably equally ignorant, I will tell you the tale
connectedly, as we finally got it.

It had been the property of Sir T , who occupied the

hall in it until his death, a year or two ago, and had been in
his family many hundred years. The estate included several
villages — the whole of them, every house and shop, even the
churches— and was valued at £800,000 ($4,000,000). On the
death of Sir T., Sir W., his son, inherited his title and estate.
But Sir W. was a sporting man, and had previously gambled
himself in debt to Jews in London £600,000. He came to
the hall, however, and remained there some time, keeping
two packs of hounds. He was a good landlord, and the
family were beloved. Lady M. had established and main
tained a national (church) school ; and in the winter was in
the habit of serving out a large quantity of soup every day
to the poor of the estate. But-at length the bailiffs came, and
Sir W. went to France, and his family dispersed among their
relatives all over the kingdom. Lady M. last winter had
been very ill, and nothing ailed her, the physicians said, but
sorrow.

And now they were going to sell it — they did not know
how they could — but they showed us a considerable volume,
illustrated with maps and lithographs, of" plans and particu
lars" of the estate, on the first page of which, " Messrs.

had the honour to announce that they had been instructed by
the honourable proprietor, to sell at auction, on a certain six
days, upwards of fifteen hundred acres of very fine rich land,
let to an old and respectable tenantry, including the whole

of the town of , together with several manors and

manorial rights, which have been commuted at £500 per an
num" They showed us also another volume, containing in

106 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

one hundred and twelve quarto pages, descriptions of the fur
niture, plate, library, paintings, wines, &c., with many en
gravings — a strange exposure of noble housekeeping to our
republican eyes. Seeing that we were much interested in
this, the landlady offered to give it to us ; it was of no use
to her, she said, and we were quite welcome to it. It was
really of some value in several ways, and we offered to pay
for it, but she would not sell it.

Before we left, they showed us through the little garden
of the inn ; it was beautifully kept, and every thing growing
strongly. Then, after buckling on our knapsacks, and bring
ing us another mug of home-brewed, our kind entertainers
took leave of us with as much good-feeling and cordiality as
if we were old friends, who had been making them a short
visit, following us out into the street, with parting advice
about the roads and the inns, and at last a warm shaking of
hands.

The country we walked over for a few miles after leaving
the village, was similar to that we saw yesterday — flattish,
with long, low undulations — the greater part in pasture, and
that which was not, less highly cultivated than I had expected
to find much land in England, the stock upon it almost
altogether cows, and these always looking admirably well ;
the fields universally divided by hedges, which, though they
add much to the beauty of the landscape, when you are in a
position to look over it, greatly interrupt the view, and al
ways are ill- trimmed, irregular, and apparently insecure. We
met no one on the road, saw very few habitations, and only
two men at work, ploughing, for several miles ; then a
cluster of cottages, an inn, and a large old timber-house. As
i had been informed (very wrongly) that these were getting
rare in England, and it was very peculiar and striking, I
stopped to sketch it.

OLD TIMBER FARM HOUSE. 107

Imagine a very large, old-fashioned New England farm-
house with the weather-boarding stripped off and all the tim
ber exposed. Fill up the intervals with brick, and plaster
them over even with the outer surface of the beams; then
whitewash this plastered surface and blacken the timber, and
you have the walls of the house. A New England house,
however, would have three times as many windows. The

roof is mostly of very small old slates, set with mortar, and
capped (ridged) with thick quarried stones. It is repaired
with large new slates in several places, and an addition that
has been made since the main part was erected, which is
entirely of brick in the walls, with no timber, is heavily
thatched with straw, as are also all the out-buildings.

The rear of the farm-house probably contains the dairy,
and is covered with thatch to secure a more equable temper
ature.

^All the other buildings in the hamlet were similarly
built— timber and whitewashed walls, and thatch roofs.
While I was sketching, the farmer, a great stout old man, and
the first we have seen in top-boots, came out and entered into

108 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

conversation with us. He was much amused that I should
think his house worth sketching, and told us it had been long
(rented) in his family. He had no idea how old it was. He
described the cottages, which were certainly very pretty to
look at, as exceedingly uncomfortable and unhealthy — the
floors, which were of clay, being generally lower than the
road and the surrounding land, and often wret, and always
damp, while the roofs and w^alls were old and leaky, and full
of vermin. The walls of these cottages were all made by
interlacing twigs (called wattles) between the timbers, and
then plashing these with mud (noggin), inside and out, one
layer over another as they dried, until it was as thick as was
desired ; then the surface was made smooth with a trowel and
whitewashed.

A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pas
ture, bounded by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a
simple gate, from which a private road ran curving among a
few clumps of trees to a mansion about a furlong distant.
We entered, and rested ourselves awhile at the foot of some
large oaks. The house was nearly hidden among trees, and
these, seen across the clear grass land, were the finest groups
of foliage we had ever seen. A peculiar character was given
it by one or two copper-leaved beeches — large, tall trees,
thickly branched from the very surface of the ground. (These
trees, which are frequently used with great good effect in
landscape gardening in England, are rare in America, though
they may be had at the nurseries. There are two sorts, one
much less red than the other.) The cattle in this pasture-
lawn were small and black, brisk and wild-looking, but so
tame in reality, that as we lay under the tree, they came up
and licked our hands like dogs. The whole picture com
pletely realized Willis's beautiful ideal, " The Cottage Insou-
cieuse"

APPROACH TO CHESTER. 109

The country hence to Chester was more elevated and
broken, and the walk delightful. We saw many beautiful
things, but have seen so many more interesting ones since,
that I can hardly remember them. The road, too, was more
travelled. We met a stage-coach, with no inside passengers,
and the top overloaded, and a handsome carriage and four,
the near wheeler and leader ridden by postilions in bright
livery, and within, an old gentleman under a velvet cap, and
young lady under a blue silken calash. The fields, too, were
more tilled ; and one of fifty acres, which was ridged for
some root crop, was the most thoroughly cultivated piece of
merely farming ground I ever saw. There were several wom
en at work in the back part of it. I could not make out
what they were doing.

About the middle of the forenoon, we came to the top of
a higher hill than we had before crossed, from which we
looked down upon a beautiful rich valley, bounded on the
side opposite us by blue billowy hills. In the midst of it
was the smoke and chimneys and steeples of a town. One
square, heavy brown tower was conspicuous over the rest,
and we recognised by it the first cathedral we had seen.

As we approached the town, the road became a crooked
paved street, lined with curious small antique houses, between
which we passed, stopping often to admire some singular
gable, or porch, or grotesque carving, until it was spanned by
a handsome brown stone arch, not the viaduct of a railroad,
as at first seemed likely, nor an arch of triumph, of the pic
tures of which it reminded us, but one of the four gateways
of the city. Passing under it, we found on the inner side a
flight of broad stone stairs leading on to the wall, which we
ascended. At the top, on the inside of the wall, was a printer's
shop, in which guide-books were offered for sale. Entering this
we were received by an intelligent and obliging young man

10

110 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

who left the press to give us chairs, and with whom we had an
interesting conversation about the town and about his trade.
Printers' wages, if I recollect rightly, were about one quarter
more in New York than in Chester. After purchasing a
guide-book and a few prints of him, we accepted his invita
tion to leave our knapsacks in his shop, and take a walk on
the walls before entering the town.

A WALK ABOUT CHESTER. Ill

CHAPTER XIII.

CHESTER WITHOUT. — A "WALK ON THE WALLS. ANTIQUITIES. — STRIKING

CONTRASTS.

Chester, June 2d.

Tl/TY journal is behindhand several days, what little time
-"•*• I have had to write being occupied in finishing my last
letter. Meantime, I have seen so much, that if I had a week
of leisure I should despair of giving you a good idea of this
strange place. But that you may understand a little how
greatly we are interested, I will mention some of the objects
that we have seen, and are seeing. Use your imagination to
the utmost to fill up the hints, rather than descriptions, of
these that I shall give you. You need not fear that when
you come here the reality will disappoint you, or fail to as
tonish you with its novelty, its quaintness, and the strange
mingling of venerable associations with its modern art and
civilization.

We were about to leave the printer's for a walk on the
wall. I will not detain myself with a detailed account of our
proceedings, but imagine that you are with me, while 1 point
out to you a few of the note-worthy objects.

We are on the top of the wall, a few feet from the side of
the archway through which we entered the town. Look down
now on the outside. The road, just before it enters the gate,
crosses, by a bridge, a deep ravine. In it, some seventy feet

112 AX AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

below us, you see the dark water, perhaps of old the fosse,
but now a modern commercial canal. A long, narrow boat,
much narrower than our canal-boats, laden with coals, is com
ing from under the bridge ; a woman is steering it, and on
the cabin, in large, red letters, you see her name, " Margaret
Francis" and the name of the boat, the " Telegraph." That
arch was turned by a man now living, but that course of stones
— the dark ones between the ivy and the abutment — was laid
by a Roman mason, when Rome was mistress of the world.
Walk on. The wall is five feet wide on the top, with
a parapet of stone on the outside, and an iron rail within.
Don't fear, though it is so far and deep to the canal, and the
stone looks so time-worn and crumbling ; it is firm with true
Roman cement, the blood of brave men. Here it is strength
ened by a heavy tower, now somewhat dilapidated. Look
up, and you see upon it a rude carving of a phoenix ; under it
an old tablet, with these words : —

" ON THIS TOWER STOOD CHARLES THE FIRST, AND SAW HIS ARMY DEFEATED."

Within the tower is the stall of a newsman. Buy the
London Times, which has come some hundred miles since
morning, with the information that yesterday the honourable
president of a Peace Society was shot in a duel. (A fact.)

Pass on. On one side of us are tall chimneys, through
which, from fierce forge fires, ascend black smoke and incense
of bitumen to the glory of mammon. Close on the other
side stands a venerable cathedral, built by pious labour of de
vout men to the laud and service of their God. We look into
the burying-ground, and on the old gravestones observe many
familiar names of New England neighbours.

Narrow brick houses are built close up to the wall again,
and now on both sides ; the wall, which you can stride across,
being their only street or way of access. Here, again, it

STREET SCENES. 113

crosses another broad road, and we are over another entrance
to the city — the " new gate ;" it is not quite a century old.
We look from it into the market-place. Narrow, steep-ga
bled houses, with their second story frowning threateningly
over the sidewalks, surround it. But the market-building is
modern. See ! the sparrow lighting on the iron roof burns
her' feet and flies hastily over to the heavy, old, brown thatch,
where the little dormers stick out so clumsily cosy.

Odd-looking vehicles and oddly-dressed people are pass
ing in the street below us : a woman with a jacket, driving
two stout horses in one of those heavy farm-carts ; an omni
bus, very broad, and carrying passengers on the top as well
as inside, with the sign of "The Green Dragon ;" the driver,
smartly-dressed, tips his whip with a knowing nod to a pretty
Welsh girl who is carrying a tub upon her head. There are
lots of such damsels here, neat as possible, with dark eyes and
glossy hair, half covered by white caps, and fine, plump forms,
in short striped petticoats and hob-nailed shoes. There goes
one, straight as a gun-barrel, with a great jar of milk upon
her head. And here is a little donkey, with cans of milk
slung on each side of him, and behind them, so you cannot
see why he does not slip off over his tail, is a great brute,
with two legs in knee-breeches and blue stockings, bent up
so as to be clear of the ground, striking him with a stout stick
across his long, expressive ears. A sooty-faced boy, with a
Kilmarnock bonnet on his head, carrying two pewter mugs,
coming towards us, jumps suddenly one side, and, ha ! out
from under us, at a rattling pace, comes a beautiful sorrel
mare, with a handsome, tall, slightly-made young man in
undress military uniform ; close behind, and not badly
mounted either, follow two others — one also in uniform,
with a scarlet cap and a bright bugle swinging at his side ;
the other a groom in livery, neat as a pin ; odd again, to

114 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

American eyes, those leather breeches and bright top-boots.
Who was it ? Colonel Lord Grosvenor, going to review the
yeomanry. We shall see them the other side of the city.
His grandfather built this gate and presented it to the corpo
ration ; you may see his arms on the key-stone. But now
go on.

On the left, you see an old church tower, and under it
the ragged outline and darker coloured stone of still older
masonry. A swallow has just found a cranny big enough
to build her nest in, that Father Time has been chiselling
at now for eight hundred years. Eight hundred ? Yes ; it
was rebuilt then. You can see some of the older, original
w^all at the other end — no, not that round Saxon arch, but
beyond the trees — a low wall with a heavy clothing of ivy.
The steamboat is just coming out from behind it now. In
the year 973, King Edgar landed at this church from a boat,
in which he had been rowed by eight kings, whom he had
conquered. An ugly, smoky old tub is that steamboat ; it
would hardly be thought fit for the conveyance of criminals
to prison in America. But doubtless it is a faster and
more commodious craft than King Edgar's eight-king power
packet.

We cross another gateway, and pass a big mill. The
dam was built, I don't know when. The Puritans, they say,
tried to destroy it, for its bad name, perhaps, but could not,
because, like a duck, it kept under a high flood of water until
the Cavaliers, making a rush to save it, spiked their guns.

Our path turns suddenly, and runs along the face of a
stone wall, supported by brackets high above the water of
the river, but some distance below the parapets — parapets of
a castle. Soon we pass a red-coated sentry, and now you
see a tower that looks older than the rest. The battle-axes
of William the Conqueror once clanged where that fellow is

QUEENS AND BEGGARS. 115

lounging with a cigar. Beyond, on the esplanade, were wont
to assemble the formidable feudal armies of the Earls of
Chester, whose title is now borne by the German Prince Al
bert's eldest son. Quite a different appearance they must
have made from this regiment of Irishmen in red-cloth coats
and leather helmets.

Stop a moment to look at the old bridge — step back to
the angle — there you see it — half-a-dozen arches of different
forms and shades of colour, not particularly handsome, but
worth noticing. The blackest of the arches was turned half a
century before Jamestown was founded — that is, it was then
rebuilt. The old bridge, from which the stones for it were
taken, was built by Queen Ethefleda. Who was she ? I am
sure I don't know — some one who reigned ,here a thousand
years ago, I believe, though I never heard any thing else of
her. You'll be shown her great-grandmother's cradle some
where about town very likely.

Just above is another bridge. What a fine arch ! Yes ;
the longest in the world, it is said. That was not built by a
queen, but a little girl was the first to cross it, who afterwards
developed up into "her most gracious Majesty, Victoria,
whom God long preserve," as the loyal guide-book has it.

" . . . . Poor fellow ! he is very lame, isn't he !"

" Oh, he is begging ; probably an impostor. Don't encour
age him."

" He only asks a penny to keep him from starving ; his
son has not been able to get any work lately, or he would not
let him beg."

" Let him go to America ; there's enough work for him if
he really wants it ; its what they all say. Give him a
ha'penny then, and be rid of him. Now, look over there,
between the trees, and see the entrance to the Marquis of

116 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

Westminster's park." — A great, fresh pile of bombasti
towers and battlements to shelter a gate and protect the
woman who opens it from — rain and frost. It is but re
cently finished, and costs, says the printer, £10,000.

What says the beggar ? Free trade and the Irish havt
cut down wages, since he used to work on the farms, from
five shillings to eighteen pence. I don't believe it.

He reasserts it, though. He has stood himself at Chester
Cross on the market day, and refused to work for four and
sixpence, and all the beer he could drink. It may be true —
the printer tells us ; in the old Bonaparte years, in harvest
time, it was not unlikely to have been so. With wheat
at a guinea a bushel, the farmers did not have the worst of
it even then. Those were good times for farmers. Soldiers
can't reap, but they must eat. The government borrowed
money to pay the farmers for supporting the war, and now
the farmers are paying the debt.

" Give me something to buy a little bread, good sirs,'
repeats the old man ; "I can't work, and my son ....
These dirty Irish and this cussed free trade "

Hark ! horns and kettle-drums ! Come on. It is the

band of the yeomanry ; we shall see them directly

There ! Five squadrons of mounted men trotting over a
broad green meadow below us. Well mounted they seem
to be, and well seated too. Ay ; fox hunting will make
good cavalry. Doubtless many of those fellows have been
after the hounds.

Possibly. But never one of them charged a buffalo herd,
I'll be bound.

This green plain — a sort of public lawn in front of the
town — is about twice as large as Boston Common, and is
called "The Roodee." It is free from trees, nothing but a

RUINS AND RAILROADS. 117

handsome meadow, and a race-course runs round it. On this
course, by the way, the greatest number of horses ever en
gaged in a single match have been run. In 1848, the entries
were one hundred and fifty-six, of which one hundred and six
accepted.

Right below us, on the meadow, there is pitched a mar
quee. It belongs to a cricket club. I want you to notice
the beautiful green sward of their playing ground. It is
shaven so clean and close. You see men are sweeping it
with hair-brooms.

Here again, in this garden on the other side of the wall,
there used to be a nunnery. There is the entrance to a sub
terranean passage, by which, if you could keep a candle burn
ing, you might pass under the city back to the cathedral.

.... Are you tired of ruins 1 Here is one more that
may rouse your Puritan blood : a heavy tower built into
the wall, connected with a larger one at some distance out
side. How old they look ! No paintings and no descriptions
had ever conveyed to me the effect of age upon the stone it
self of these very old structures. How venerable! how
stern ! how silent — yet telling what long stories ! We will
not ask for the oldest of them, but — you see there, where
the battlements are broken down in one place — that breach
was made by a ball thrown from the hill yonder ; and the
cannon that sent it was aimed by OLIVER CROMWELL.

How beautiful, how indescribably beautiful, are those thick
masses of dark, glossy, green ivy, falling over the blackened
old ramparts, like the curls of a child asleep on its grand
father's shoulder ! — Whew I dont let the sparks get in your
eye \ They have pierced the wall right under us, and here
goes an express train fifty miles an hour, from Ireland to
London by way of Holyhead, with dispatches for her Ma-

118 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

jesty (by way of Lord Palmerston's head). The Roman
masonry that resisted the Roundhead batteries, has yielded
to the engines of peace.

But, as we move on, even higher marks of civilization are
pointed out to us. Here, close to the wall, and in the shadow
of the old tower, is a public bath and wash-house. A little
back is a hospital for the poor, and near it a house of correc
tion. Across the valley is a gloomy-looking workhouse,
and in another direction a much more cheering institution,
beautifully placed on a hill, among fine, dark, evergreen
trees, through which you can see the bright sunshine and
smile of God falling upon it. It is the Training College — a
normal school, for preparing teachers for the church schools
of the diocese. And here, on the left, as we approach the
north gate again, is an old charity school-house, the Blue-coat
Hospital. The boys at play are all young George Washing-
tons, dressed in long-skirted blue coats, and breeches, and
stockings.

.... So here we are, back at the good-natured printer's
office, having been a circuit of three miles on the walls of the
city. Its population is twenty -five thousand (mostly within).
If you have observed that nearly all the houses are low, you
will not suppose that much room is taken up by streets and
unoccupied grounds, where that number is accommodated in
such limited space, and you will be .ready to explore the in
terior with great curiosity. If your taste for the quaint and
picturesque is at all like mine, you will be in no danger of dis
appointment.

OLD STREET ARRANGEMENT. 119

CHAPTER XIV.

CHESTEE WITH IX. PECULIARITIES OF BUILDING. THE ROWS. A SEA-CAP
TAIN. ROMANCING. AN OLD INN. OLD ENGLISH TOWN HOUSES. TIMBER

HOUSES. CLAIMING AN INHERITANCE. A COOK SHOP. ONE OF THE AL
LEYS. BREAKING INTO THE CATHEDRAL. EXPULSION. THE CURFEW.

THE four gates of the city are opposite, and about equally
distant from each other. Four streets run from them,
meeting in the centre and dividing it into four quarters.
These principal streets are from one to three rods wide, and
besides them there are only a few narrow alleys, in which
carts can pass. But the whole city is honeycombed with
by-ways, varying from two to five feet in width ; sometimes
open above, and sometimes built over ; crooked and intri
cate, and if he cares where they lead him to, most puzzling
to a stranger. Besides these courts, alleys, and foot-paths,
there is another highway peculiarity in Chester, which it will
be difficult to describe.

Imagine you have entered the gate with us after the walk
about the wall. The second story of most the old houses is
thrown forward, as you have seen it in the " old settler's"
houses at home. Sometimes it projects several feet, and is
supported by posts in the sidewalk. Soon this becomes a
frequent, and then a continuous arrangement ; the posts are
generally of stone, forming an arcade, and you walk behind
them in the shade. Sometimes, instead of posts, a solid wall
supports the upper house. You observe, as would be likely

120 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

in an old city, that the surface is irregular ; we are ascending
a slight elevation. Notwithstanding the old structure over
head, and the well-worn, thick, old flagging under foot, we
notice the shop fronts are finished with plate-glass, and all the
brilliancy of the most modern commercial art and taste.
Turning, to make the contrast more striking, by looking at
the little windows and rude carvings of the houses opposite,
we see a bannister or hand-rail separates the sidewalk from
the carriage-way, and are astonished, in stepping out to it, to
find the street is some ten feet below us. We are evidently
in the second story of the houses. Finding steps leading
down, we descend into the streets and discover another tier
of shops, on the roofs of which we have been waling.

Going on, we shortly come to where the streets meet in
the centre of the town. Passing over the ground where the
cross, and the pillory, and other institutions of religion, and
justice, and merry-making formerly stood, we ascend steps,
and are again in one of those singular walks called by the
inhabitants the Eows. There are no more stylish shop fronts,
but' dark doorways and old windows again, and on almost
every door-post little black and red checkers, which hiero
glyphics, if you are not sufficiently versed in Falstaffian lore
to understand, you can find rendered in plain black and white
queen's English (or people's English by our law), under some
woman's name, painted on the beam overhead — " Licensed to
sell beer," &c. Generally there will be an additional sign,
naming the inn or tavern, always in letters and almost never
in portraiture. I remember " The Crown and Castle?" " The
Crown and Anchor," "The Castle and Falcon," "THe, King's
Head," "The' Black Bear," "The Blue Boar," "The .Pied
Bull," "The Green Dragon," "The White Lion," "The Sun
and Apple Tree," "The Colliers' Arms," "The Arms of
Man," "The Malt Shovel," etc., etc.

HOUSE HUNTING. —THE OLD SHIP-MASTER. 121

Instead of columns and a hand-rail, or a dead-wall on the
street side of the row, it is now and then contracted by a
room, which is sometimes occupied by a shop, and sometimes
seems to be used as a vestibule and staircase to apartments
overhead, for we see a brass plate with the resident's name,
and a bell-pull, to the door.

On the inner side are frequent entrances to the narrow
passages that I mentioned, which may be long substitutes for
streets, communicating, after a deal of turning and splitting
into branches, with some distant alley or churchyard, or
other main street, with the front doors of wealthy citizens'
houses opening upon them ; or they may be merely alleys
between two tenements leading to a common yard in the
rear; or again, if you turn into one, it may turn out to be a
private hall, and after one or two short turns end in a kitchen.
Never mind — don't retreat ; put on a bold face, take a seat
by the fire as if you were at home, and call for a mug of
beer. Ten to one it will be all right. Every other house
keeper, at least, is a licensed taverner.

We had great sport the first hour or two we were in town
hunting for lodgings. We were disposed to sleep under the
very oldest English architecture in which we could be conv
fortably accommodated. Many of the places at which we
applied were merely houses of refreshment, and had no spare
bedrooms. In one of these, " The Boot Inn," we found an
old sea-captain, who, some twenty years ago, had traded to
New York, and enjoyed talking and making inquiries about
persons he had met and places he had visited. Fortunately
we knepisome of them, and so were constrained to sit down
to some bread and cheese and beer, and listen to some tough
yarns of Yellow Jack and Barbary pirates. At one end of
the kitchen was a table with benches on three sides of it, and
a great arm-chair on the other. Over the chair hung a union

122 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

jack, and before it on the table was a strongly-bound book,
which proved to be " The Record of the Boot Inn Birthday
Club." The bond entered into by each member on entering
this association was, that he should treat the club to plenty
of good malt liquor on his every future birthday. There was
a constitution and many by-laws, the penalty for breaking
which was always to be paid in " beer for the club."

At other inns we would be shown, by delightfully steep,
narrow, crooked, and every way possible inconvenient stair
ways, up through low, dark spaces of inclined plane, into
long, steep-roofed, pigeon-house-like rooms, having an air as
gloomy and mysterious as it was hot and close. Then, upon
our declining to avail ourselves of such romantic and typhous
accommodations, instead of being reconducted down by the
tortuous path of our ascent, we would be shown, through a
back door in the third story, out upon a passage that seemed
to be also used as a public street (footway), doors opening
from it which were evidently entrances to residences in the
rear.

Finally we were suited ; and now I am writing on an old
oak table, with spiral legs, sitting in an old oak chair, with an
Elizabethan carved back, my feet on an old oak floor (rather
wavy), stout old oak beams over my head, and low walls of
old oak wainscot all around me. Resting on an old oak bench
by the window, is a young man with a broad-brimmed felt
hat slouched half over his face. Across the street, so near
we might jump into it if we were attacked from the rear,
is a house with the most grotesquely-carved and acutely-
pointed gable possible to be believed real, and not a paste
board scene, with the date "1539" cut in awkward figures
over the cockloft window, high in the apex. For fifteen min
utes there has been a regular "clink, clink" deadening all
other sounds but the clash of sabres against spurs, and distant

OLD ENGLISH INTERIOR. 123

bugle-calls, as a body of horsemen are passing in compact
columns through the narrow street, from the castle, out by
the north gate, towards Roioton Moor.

To be sure, it is a California and not a Cavalier sombrero
that shades my friend, and the men of war outside are but
mild militiamen, carrying percussion-lock carbines indeed,
but who have fought for nothing so valiantly as for the corn
laws. But when shall I again get as near as this to Prince
Charlie and the Ironsides 1 and shall I not make the most of
it ] At least, there is no prompter's bell, no carpenters in
their shirt-sleeves rushing in and sliding off the scenery. That
1539 over the way is TRUE ; I can see the sun shine into the
figures. Away, then, with your 1850 ! I will drink only old
wine — or better — What ho ! a cup of sack ! Shall I not take
it easy in mine inn ?

The house is full of most unexplainable passages and un
accountable recesses, of great low rooms and little high
rooms, with ceilings in various angles to the walls, and the
floor of every one at a different elevation from every other,
so that from the same landing you step up into one and down
into another, and so on. Back of a little kitchen and big
pantry, down stairs, we have another parlour. In it is a grand
old chimney, and opposite the fireplace a window, the only
one in the room. It is but three feet high, but, except the
room occupied by a glass buffet in one corner and a turned-up
round-table in the other, reaches from wall to wall. To look
out of it, you step on to a raised platform, about three feet
broad, in front of it, and on this is an old, long, high-backed
settee. I must confess that it is not the less pleasant in the
evening for an unantique gas-light.

As I lay in bed last night, I counted against the moon
seventy-five panes of glass in the single window of our sleep
ing apartment. The largest of them was four by three, and

124

AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the smallest three by one inches. They are set in lead
sashes, and the outer frame is of iron, opening horizontally
on hinges.

There are none but timber houses all about us ; the walls
white or yellow, and the timbers black. The roofs are often
as steep as forty-five degrees with the horizon, and the gables
always front on the street. If the house is large there
will be several gables, and each successive story juts out,

overhanging the face of that below. There is no finical verge-
board, or flimsy " drapery" in the gable, but the outermost
rafter (a stout beam that you cannot expect to see warped

OLD CARVINGS.— THE FATHER LAND. 125

off or blown away) is boldly projected, and your attention
perhaps invited to it by ornamental carving. Porches, bow-
windows, dormers, galleries (in the rows), and all the promi
nent features of the building are generally more or less rudely
carved. One house near us is completely covered with
figures. C. says they represent Bible scenes. There is one
compartment which he supposes a tableau of the sacrifice of
Isaac, Abraham being represented, according to his exeyesis,
by a bearded figure dressed in long flapped waistcoat and
knee-breeches.

Another house has these words cut in the principal hori
zontal beam : God"1 s Providence is mine Inheritance — 1652.
It is said the family residing in it was the only one in the city
that entirely escaped the great plague of that year.

You may imagine how intensely interesting all this is.
We cannot keep still, but run about with a real boyish
excitement. We feel indeed like children that have come
back to visit the paternal house, and who are rummaging
about in the garret among their father's playthings, ever and
anon shouting, " See what I've found ! see what I've found !"
If we had been brought here blindfolded from America, and
were now, after two days' visit, sent back again, we should
feel well repaid for the long sea-passage. If we were to stay
here a month, we should scarcely enjoy less than we now do,
rambling about among these relics of our old England.*

* Some months later than this we were at a supper party, after some
old English ballads and songs had been sung, when one of the company
apologized for it, saying, " We forget our American friends. It is selfish
in us to sing only these national songs in which we are peculiarly interested.
Have you nothing American, now?" "Excuse me, sir," I replied, "those
are our national songs as much as yours. You forget that we are also
countrymen of Will Shakspeare, and Eobin Hood, and Eichard the Lion-
hearted. Our mothers danced with your fathers under that same ' green
wood,' and around the ' May-pole.' Our fathers fought for their right in

11*

126 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

Going into a cook-shop for supper, the first afternoon we
were in Chester, we were shown through three apartments
into a kitchen, and from that into a long, narrow, irregularly-
shaped room, with one little window high above our heads,
and twenty-seven old wood engravings in frames about the
walls. We had a very tolerable supper given us, and were
served by a six-foot-high Welsh girl that could understand but
little of our English. When we were ready to leave, a back
door was opened, and we were told that the first opening to
the left would bring us to the street. We found ourselves in
one of the narrow covered ways, and instead of turning off
to the street as directed, kept on in it to go where it should
happen to lead. Sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, run
ning first, as it appeared, between a man's kitchen and his
dining-room ; then into a dust-yard ; then suddenly narrowed,
and turned one side by a stable ; then opening into a yard,
across which a woman over a \vash-tub was scolding her hus
band, sitting with a baby and smoking at a window ; then
through a blacksmith's shop into a long, dark, crooked,
passage, like the gallery of a mine, at the other end of which
we found ourselves on a paved street not far from the
cathedral.

We entered the burying-ground, and seeing tnat a small
door, that is cut in the large door of the cathedral, was ajar,
pushed it open and went in. It was dark, silent, and chill.
We felt strangely as we groped our way over the unobstruct
ed stone floor, and could make nothing of it until our eyes,

this land against Turk, Frenchman, Spaniard, and Pretender. We have
as much pride in Old England, gentlemen, as any of you. "We claim the
right to make ourselves at home on that ground with you. You must not
treat us as strangers." "You are right ; you are welcome. Give us your
hand. The old blood will tell !" And the whole table rose with a hurrah,
shaking our hands with a warmth that only patriotic pride will excuse
among Englishmen.

THE CURFEW BELL. 127

becoming adapted to the dimness, we discovered gilded organ-
pipes, and were going towards them, when a small door in
front of us was opened, and a man came out, saying impa
tiently, " Who are you ] what do you want ? Take off
your hats."

" We are strangers, looking at the cathedral."

" Can't see it, now ; can't see it, now. Service every day
at four and ten o'clock."

As we were going out, a great bell began to toll. " What
is that, sir?" said I.

"What?"

" That bell tolling— what is it for f

" Why, that's the cuffew," and he closed and bolted the
door, while we stood still without ; and as the long weaving
boom of the bell pulsed through us, looked wonderingly at each
other, as if America and the nineteenth century were a fading
dream, slowly repeating, " The curfew ; the curfew."

128 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XV.

CHESTER MARKET.— -THE TOWN COMMON. RACE-COURSE. THE YEOMANR7

CAVALRY, AND THE MILITIA OF ENGLAND. PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE. " MR.

CHAIRMAN."

lE day after we came to Chester was market-day, and
the streets were busy at an early hour with people corn
ing in from the country to sell produce or purchase the sup
plies for their families for the coming week. The quantity
of butter exposed for sale was very large, and the quality
excellent. The fish-market also was finely supplied. The
dealing in both these articles was mostly done by women.*

After walking through the market we went to the Roodee,
and ther6 saw the yeomanry reviewed. They wore a snug
blue uniform, were armed with sabres, carbines, and pistols,
and were rather better mounted and drilled than any of our
mounted militia that I have seen. The active commander
seemed to be a regular martinet. If the lines got much out
of dress while on the trot, he would dash up, shaking his fist,
and loudly cursing the squadron at fault. I noticed, also,
that when pleased he sometimes addressed them in the ranks

* We noted the following as the common prices : —
Butchers' meat, 10 to 14 cents per Ib.
Best fresh butter in balls of H Ibs., 35 cents.
Salmon, fresh from the Dee, 35 cents per Ib.
Turbot, 35 cents per Ib.
Soles and other fish, 16 cents per Ib.

MILITIA SYSTEM OF ENGLAND. 129

as "gentlemen." He was probably some old army officer,
engaged to drill them.

A young man in the dress of an officer, but dismounted,
said, in answer to our inquiries, that their number was 800,
in five companies. Most of them were farmers, every farmer
of a certain age in the county (as we understood him) being
obliged to serve three years, but allowed to send a substi
tute if he chooses, and sometimes is represented by his servant.
They are out but once a year for training, and then for eight
days, and while engaged receive 75 cents a day. They can
not be ordered out of the country, and are never called into
any active service, except to quell liots.

I frequently asked afterwards for more information about
the yeomanry, but never of a person that seemed to know
much about them. A man in the ranks of the Denbighshire
yeomanry told us the service was optional. In some counties
there is no such body, and the organization, laws, and cus
toms of it seem to vary in the different regiments. There is
a regular foot-militia organization throughout England (the
"train bands"), but none of them, I believe, have been para
ded for many years.

According to a parliamentary return of 1838, there were
then of the mounted yeomanry, 251 troops and 13,594 pri
vates ; the annual expense of maintaining them was $525,000.
The enrolled militia of England in 1838 numbered 200,000
men. The officers of these forces, when in service, rank with
those of the army of the same grade. A part of the uniform
and mountings of the yeomanry are paid for by the govern
ment, and some small daily compensation is allowed the pri
vates when in service. A drill-sergeant and a trumpeter is
also permanently attached to each troop, with a salary from
the state. •

NAPIER mentions that the greater part of the 16,000 Brit-

130 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

ish troops who gained the battle of Talavera were men drafted
from the militia at home, and that they had but very recently
joined the army in Spain.

Coming up from the Eoodee, we visited the castle. It is
of no importance in a military way, except as a depot. There
are 30,000 stand of arms, and a large quantity of gunpowder
stored in it. It is garrisoned by an Irish regiment at present,
which, as well as the yeomanry, has a very good band of
music, by which the town benefits.

We afterwards visited the public baths and wash-house.
In its basement there are twenty square tubs, each with hot
and cold water cocks, wash-board, and pounder, a drying-
closet heated by steam to 212° F., &c. In the first story are
the usual private baths, and a swimming tank or public bath,
having a constant influx of fresh water by a jet from below,
and an overflow. It is 45 by 36 feet, 2^ feet deep at one
end, 6 at the other, contains -36,000 gallons, and is furnished
with swings, diving-stage, life-buoys, &c. It was built by a
committee of the citizens, and bought by the town very soon
after it went into operation. The whole cost was $10,000,
most of which was raised by a stock subscription. The water
is supplied from the canal, and is all filtered — the cost of the
filtering machine being $200. The principal items of current
expenses are fuel and salaries. The cost of coal (very low
here) is $5 a week. There are four persons constantly em
ployed in the establishment, viz., superintendent and wife, who
are paid $10 a week, and receive something besides as perqui
sites (supplying bathing-dresses, for instance, at a small charge);
the bath- attendant, and the fireman, who each have $7 50 a
week. Total salaries $25 a week. The charges for the use of
the clothes-washing conveniences is about one cent an hour.
For the baths it varies from two to twenty-five cents, select

PUBLIC WASHHO USE.— MODERATE DRINKER. 131

hours being appointed for those who choose, by paying a larger
sum, to avoid a crowd. There are also commutations by the
year at lower rates : boys, for instance, have a yearly ticket
for a little over a dollar. During the first year it has some
thing more than paid expenses. The number of bathers the
last week (in May) was over one thousand. I mention these
statistics, as this establishment is rather smaller than most of
the kind, and they may serve the projectors of a similar one
in some of our smaller cities.

We had had at breakfast the company of a little, fat dig
nified person, whose talk much amused us by its likeness to
that of some of Dickens' characters. On returning to the inn
at noon, wre found sitting with him a cadaverous-faced man,
with long hair, and very seedy clothes, who seemed from his
expressions to be an artist. Beer had just been brought into
them as we entered, but the painter after taking a long
draught, mildly suggested that "something stronger might
facilitate business." The fussy man replied that he never
took any thing but malt liquors before dinner. The artist
said that he required something more. " I haven't had any
thing but beer this morning, except a couple of glasses of
brandy, and a little go o'rum with a dab of butter and sugar
in it." Here he looked at me with a smile and a nod, that
invited my good fellowship, and I ventured to ask how
much beer he might have had besides that. " Not more than
half a dozen glasses, sir." " Really, I should have supposed
that would be drink enough for half a day." " Not for a
man like me; I have drank thirty-six glasses — half pints — of
strong Welsh ale in a day, and all the better of it." The
stout man said he never drank over a dozen, or at the high
est, fifteen, in a day, and never, except in peculiar circum
stances, took spirits before dinner; after dinner he would go

132 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

as far as any body. He often had to preside at public din
ners, and though of course, he then, for the sake of example,
had to drink more than any one else, he always kept on his
seat as long as there was any one to drink with him, " as you
very well know, sir," he added, appealing to the artist.
" Undoubtedly, Mr. Chairman," the latter replied, " tmioubt-
edly, sir."

LAND SO APE GARDENING. 133

CHAPTER XVI.

VISIT TO EATON HALL. THE LARGEST ARCH IN THE WORLD. THE OUTER

PARK. — BACKWOODS' FARMING. — THE DEER PARK. — THE HALL. — THE PAR
TERRE. THE LAWX. THE FRUIT GARDEN. STABLES.

IN the afternoon we walked to Eaton park.
Probably there is no object of art that Americans of
cultivated taste generally more long to see in Europe, than
an English park. What artist, so noble, has often been my
thought, as he, who with far-reaching conception of beauty
and designing power, sketches the outline, writes the colours,
and directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature
shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work
he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.

Eaton hall and park is one of the seats of the Marquis of
Westminster, a very wealthy nobleman, who has lately been
named " Lord High Chamberlain to her Majesty," a kind of
state-housekeeper or steward, I take it — an office which
Punch, and a common report of a niggardly disposition in
his private affairs, deems him particularly appropriate to.

We left town by the new, or Grosvenor bridge — a sim
ple, grand, and every way excellent work, crossing the Dee
by a single arch, which we are told is the largest in the
world. It is entirely free from decorative ornament, and the
effect of it, as seen looking from the river side, is most im
posing. I know of nothing in America to compare with it.

12

134 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

It was built by the marquis, whose family name is Grosve-
nor, at a cost of $180,000 (£36,000). The designer was
Thomas Harrison, an architect of note, who formerly lived
in Chester.*

By the side of the road we found an oratory, or small
chapel, building, and gardeners laying out grounds for a rural
cemetery. Beyond this we came to the great castellated edi
fice that I have before spoken of as the gateway to the park.
Such we were told it was, and were therefore surprised to find
within only a long, straight road, with but tolerable mowing
lots alternating by the side of it, with thick plantations of
trees, no way differing from the twenty-year old natural wood
of my own farm, except that hollies, laurels, and our common
dog-wood were planted regularly along the edge. After a
while we pushed into this wood, to see if we could not scare
up some of the deer. We soon saw daylight on the outside,
and about twelve rods from the road, came to an open field,
separated from the road only by a common Yankee three-rail
fence, which I had not expected to see in England ; very poor
it was too, at that.

A stout boy, leaning heavily on the stilts, was ploughing
the stubble-ground (apparently a summer fallow}. We jumped
over and asked what crop the ground was preparing for. The
horses stopped of their own accord when we spoke. The boy
turned and sat upon the stilts-brace, and then answered —
" Erdnow."

The same answer, or some other sounds that we could not
guess the meaning of, followed several other questions. The

* The main arch spans two hundred feet, and its height is forty feet,
and there two dry arches, each twenty feet wide and forty feet high.
From the surface of the water to the road is over sixty feet. The parapet
walls are three hundred and fifty feet long, with a carriage-way and foot
path between, oftlairty f«Bt.

GENTLEMAN FARMING.-PARK SCENERY. 135

plough had a wooden beam, bound round with hoop iron The
horses, one black and the other white, seemed to be worn-out
hacks ; the harness was mended with bits of rope - the fur
rows were crooked and badly turned. Altogether^ a more
iiRfarmer-like turn-out, and a worse piece of work I never saw
m our own backwoods. When we last saw the ploughman,
he had taKen off his woollen cap and seemed about lighting a
pipe and the horses were beginning to nibble at the stubble
which stuck up in tufts all over the ploughed ground. In get
ting back to the road we crossed a low spot, sinkin. ankle
eep m mire, and noticed several trees not eight inches thick
which showed signs of decay.

We tramped on for several miles through this tame
scenery and most ungentlemanly forming, until it became
really tiresome. At length the wood fell back, and the road
was lined for some way with a double row of fine elms.
U no deer. A little further, and we came to a cottage
most beautifully draped with ivy; passed through another
gate. Ah ! here is the real park at last.

A gracefully, irregular, gently undulating surface of close-
cropped pasture land, reaching way off inimitably dark
green in colour; very old, but not very large trees scattered
singly and m groups-so far apart as to throw long unbroken
shadows across broad openings of light, and leave the view in
several directions unobstructed for a long distance. Herds
fallow-deer, fawns, cattle, sheep, and lambs quietly feedin^
near us, and moving slowly in masses at a distance ; a warm
atmosphere, descending sun, and sublime shadows -from fleecy
cloudy transiently darkening in succession, sunny surface, cool
woodside, flocks and herds, and foliage.

The road ran on winding through this. We drew a long
breath, and walked slowly for a little way, then turned aside
at the nearest tree, and. lay down to take it all in satisfac-

136 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

torily. Then we rose and went among the deer. They were
small and lean, all with their heads down feeding. Among
them was one pure white fawn. I believe none of them had
antlers, or more than mere prongs. They seemed to be quite
as tame as the sheep ; but suddenly, as we came still nearer,
all, as if one, raised high their heads, and bounded off in a
high springing gallop. After going a few rods, one stopped
short, and facing about, stood alone with ears erect, and
gleaming eyes, intent upon us. A few rods further the whole
herd stopped and stood in the same way, looking at us.
One by one the heads again dropped ; a fawn stepped out
from among them ; the one nearest us turned and trotted to
it, and then all fell quietly to feeding again.

The sheep were of a large, coarse-wuolled variety, some of
them nearly as large, only not standing quite so high, as the
deer — not handsome at all (as sheep) even for a mutton
breed ; but in groups at a distance, and against the shadows,
far prettier than the deer. The cattle were short horned,
large, dapple skinned, sleek, and handsome, but not remark
able.

We concluded that the sheep and cattle were of the most
value for their effect in the landscape ; but it was a little ex
citing to us to watch the deer, particularly as we would some
times see them in a large herd leisurely moving across an
opening among the trees, a long way off, and barely distin
guishable ; or still more when one, two, or three, which had
been separated from a nearer herd, .suddenly started, and
dashed wildly by us, within pistol shot.

" I don't think they are as large as our Maine fallow deer.'*

"I wonder if they'd taste as good as they did that niglit"

" Well, I reckon not — no hemlock to toast them over."

" Or to sleep on afterwards, eh !"

'* And no wolves to keep you awake."

ETON HALL.— THE POINTED GOTHIC. 137

" No ! How the bloody rascals did howl that night
though, didn't they T

Following the carriage road, we came near a mass of
shrubbery, over and beyond which the trees were closer and
taller. It was separated from the deer park by an iron fence.
Passing this by another light gate, and through a screen of
thick underwood, we found ourselves close to the entrance
front of the Hall.

" It is considered the most splendid specimen of the pointed Gothic.
It consists of a centre and three stories, finished with octagonal turrets,
connected -with the main part by lofty intermediate towers, the whole en
riched by buttresses, niches, and pinnacles, and adorned with elaborately
carved heraldic designs, fretwork, and foliage, surmounted throughout by
an enriched battlement."

So much from the Guide Book. It is not my business to
attempt a criticism of " the finest specimen of the pointed
Gothic" iu England ; but I may honestly say that it did not,
as a \vhole, produce the expected effect of grandeur or sub
limity upon us, without trying to find reasons for the failure.
Even when we came to look at it closely, we found little to
admire. There wras no great simple beauty in it as a mass,
nor yet vigorous original character enough in the details to
make them an interesting study. The edifice is long and
low, and covered with an immense amount of meaningless
decoration.

Such wTas our first impression, and we were greatly dis
appointed, you may be, sure. We admired it more after
wards on the other side, from the middle of a great garden,
where it seems to stand much higher, being set up on ter
races, and gaining much, I suspect, from the extension of
architectural character to the grounds in its front. Here we
acknowledged a good deal of magnificence in its effect. Still
it seemed as if it might have been obtained in some other

12*

138 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

style, with less labour, and was much frittered away in the
confusion of ornament.

This garden is a curiosity. It is in the geometrical style,
and covers eight acres, it is said, though it does not seem nearly
that to the eye. It is merely a succession of small arabesque
figures of fine grass or flower beds, set in hard, rolled, dark-
coloured gravel. The surface, dropping by long terraces from
the steps of the hall to the river, is otherwise only varied by
stiff pyramidal yews and box, and a few vases. On the whole,
the effect of it in connection with the house, and looking towards
it, is good, more so than I should have expected ; and it falls
so rapidly, that it affects the landscape seen in this direction
from the house but very little. This is exquisitely beautiful,
looking across the Dee, over a lovely valley towards some
high, blue mountains. From other parts of the hall grand
vistas open through long avenues of elms, and there are some
noble single trees about the lawn.

This English elm is a much finer tree than I had been
aware of — very tall, yet with drooping limbs and fine thick
foliage ; not nearly as fine as a single tree as our elm, but
even more effective, I think, in masses, because thicker and
better filled out in its general outline.

The hall was undergoing extensive alterations and re
pairs ; and all* the grounds immediately about it, except the
terrace garden, were lumbered up with brick and stone, and
masons' sheds, and in complete confusion. Being Saturday,
all the workmen had left, and it was long before we could
find any one about the house. We had got very thirsty, and
considering that such a place would not be left without any
tenants, determined to rouse them out and get a drink.
After hammering for some time at a door under the principal
entrance, a woman came and opened it a few inches, and
learning our wish, brought us a glass of water, which she

BOX STABLES. 139

passed out through the narrow opening, never showing her
face. We were amused at this, which she perceiving, told us
the door was chained and padlocked, so she could not open
it wider.

Soon after, while looking for an entrance to the fruit gar
den, we met a gamekeeper, who was followed by a pet cub
fox. He very obligingly, and with a gentlemanly manner
showed us through such parts of the establishment as he was
able to. There was nothing remarkable in the gardens or glass
houses, except some very large and wonderfully wTell-trained
fruit trees on walls. Every thing was neglected now, however,
and we did no more than glance at them. There were some
new stables nearly finished, the plans of which I studied with
interest. Each horse is to have a private box for himself.
1 do not recollect the exact size, but it is at least twelve feet
square on the floor, and more than that high. In the ceiling
is a ventilator, and in one corner an iron rack for hay (much
like a fire-grate), and there is probably intended to be a,
small manger for fine and wet feed. There is a grating for
drainage in the floor, and, besides these, no other fixtures
whatever. The horse is to be left free within the walls.

140 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XVII.

GAMEKEEPER. GAME PRESERVES. ECCLESTON, A PRETTY VILLAGE. THE

SCHOOL-HOUSE. DRAINING. CHILDREN PLAYING. THE RIVER-SIDE WALK.

PLEASURE PARTIES. A CONTRASTING GLIMPSE OF A SAD HEART.

SATURDAY NIGHT. BALLAD SINGER. MENDICANTS. ROW IN THE TAP
ROOM. — WOMAN'S FEEBLENESS. — CHESTER BEER, AND BEER-DRINKING

FT1HE gamekeeper advised us to return to Chester by another
J- read, and following his direction, we found a delightful
path by the river side. We had not gone far before we
overtook another keeper carrying a gun. It is hard for us to
look upon wild game as property, and it seemed as if the
temptation to poach upon it must be often irresistible to a
poor man. It must have a bad effect upon the moral charac
ter of a community for the law to deal with any man as a
criminal for an act which in his own conscience is not deemed
sinful. Even this keeper seemed to look upon poaching as
not at all wrong — merely a trial of adroitness between the
poacher and himself, though it was plain that detection would
place the poacher among common swindlers and thieves, ex
clude him from the society of the religious, and from reputa
ble employment, and make the future support of life by
unlawful means almost a necessity. He said, however, there
was very little poaching in the neighbourhood. Most of the
farmers were allowed to shoot within certain limits, and the
labouring class were generally wanting in either the means
or the pluck to attempt it.

GAME PRESERVES. 141

Evidently a man has a right to foster and increase the
natural stock of wild game upon his own land, that is, in a
degree to domesticate it ; and the law should protect him in
the enjoyment of the results of the labour and pains he has
taken for this purpose. The exceedingly indefinite and unde-
fmable character of such property, however, makes the attempt
to preserve it inexpedient, and often leads to injustice ; and
when the preserve is sustained at the expense of very great
injury to more important means of sustaining human life in
a half-starved community, the poacher is more excusable
than the proprietor.

That this is often the case in England I more than once
saw evidence. A picture, drawn by the agricultural corres
pondent of the London Times of Nov. 11, 1851, represents a
scene of this kind, more remarkable however than anjsthat
came under ray notice :

'; At Stamford we passed into Northamptonshire; obtain
ing a glimpse of the Marquis of Exeter's finely wooded park
and mansion of Buiieigh. This magnificent place, founded by
Queen Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer Cecil, with its grand old trees
and noble park, is just the place to which a foreigner should
be taken to give him an idea of the wealth of our English
nobility.

" The tenants on this estate* are represented as being in the
most hopeless state of despondency on account of the present
low prices of agricultural produce, and as they were com
plaining vehemently, the marquis offered to have the farms
of any tenants who desired it revalued. Only one on this
great estate accepted the offer. There have been no farms of
any consequence yet given up, and for those which do come
into the market there are plenty of offerers, though men of
capital are becoming chary, and will only look at very desira
ble farms. The estate is said to be low-rented. Small

142 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

farmers, of whom there are many, are suffering most severely,
as they have not saved any thing in good times to fall back
upon now. Some of them are, indeed, greatly reduced, and
we heard of one who had applied to his parish for relief.
Others have sold every thing off their farms, and some, we
were told, had not even seed corn left with M'hich to sow
their fields.

" In a fine country, with a gently undulating surface and a
soil dry and easy of culture, laid into large fields moderately
rented, one is surprised to hear that there is so much com
plaint and so much real suffering among the poorer class of
farmers. It is only in part accounted for by the devastation
of game, which on this and some other noblemen's estates in
North Northamptonshire is still most strictly preserved. On
the 24th of January last, seven guns, as we were told, on the
marquis's estate killed 430 head of game, a most immoderate
quantity at such a late period of the season. The fields are
all stuck about with bushes to prevent the poachers netting;
and the farmers feel most severely the losses they sustain in
order that their landlord and his friends may not be deprived
of their sport. The strict preservation of game on this and
some other estates in the northern parts of the county was
described to us in the bitterest terms, as ' completely eating
up the tenant farmer, and against which no man can farm or
live upon the farm.' It is ' the last ounce that breaks the
camel's back,' and men who might have made a manful
struggle against blighted crops and low prices, are overborne
by a burden which they feel to be needlessly inflicted and of
which they dare not openly complain.

" In consequence of the distress among the small farmers
many of the labourers would have been thrown out of em
ployment had work not been found for them by the marquis
in stubbing and clearing woodland, which will thus be re-

A PICTURESQUE VILLAGE. 143

claimed for cultivation. The improvement is expected to be
amply remunerative in the end, and it is one of the unlooked-
for results of free trade, which are to be met with in every
part of the country, that a landlord is compelled by circum
stances, various in kind, to improve the neglected portions
of his estate, and which, without such impelling cause, might
have long lain unproductive. Every such improvement is
not merely an addition to the arable land of the kingdom, but
it becomes also an increased source of employment to the
labourer."

I witnessed immense injury done to turnip crops by
shooting over them in Scotland. I was once visiting a farmer
there, when for a whole half day a "gentleman" with three
dogs, was trampling down his Swedes, not once going out of
the field. He was a stranger, and the farmer said it would
do no good to remonstrate ; he would only be laughed at
and insulted.

We passed near a rookery, and the keeper was good
enough to shoot one of the rooks for us to look at. It was a
shorter-winged and rather heavier bird than our crow, with
also a larger head and a peculiar thick bill. At a distance
the difference would not be readily distinguished. The caw
was on a lower note, and more of a parrot tone, much like
the guttural croak of a fledgling crow. The keeper did not
confirm the farmer's statement of their quality for the table.
When they were fat they made a tolerable pie only, he said,
not as good as pigeons. The rookery was, as we have often
seen it described, a collection of crows' -like nests among the
tops of some large trees.

We turned off from the river a little ways to look at Eccle-
ston, a kind of pet village of the marquis, on the border
of the park, and about the prettiest we saw in England,
though rather too evidently kept up for show.

144 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

The cottages were nearly all of the timber and noggin
walls I have described as common at Chester, covered with
thick thatched roofs, with frequent and different-sized dor
mers, often with bow-windows, porches, well-houses, &c., of
unpainted oak or of rustic work (boughs of trees with the
bark on), broad latticed windows opening on hinges, a profu
sion of creeping vines on trellises, and often covering all the
walls and hanging down over the windows, little flower gar
dens full of roses, and wallflowers, and violets, and migno
nette, enclosed in front by a closely-trimmed hedge of yew,
holly, or hawthorn, sometimes of both the latter together,
and a nicely-sloped bank of turf between it and the road.

A cut from a sketch I made of one of the largest houses
will be found on page 207. An intelligent labouring man
talked with me while I was drawing it, and said it was the
residence of the schoolmaster, and the village school was kept
in it. The main part (which was covered with our American
ivy) was over three hundred years old ; a part of the wing
was modern.

This labourer had been digging drains in the vicinity. He
said the practice was to make them from 18 to 36 inches
deep, and from 5 to 7 yards apart, or ': in the old buts " —
"The buts?" "Ay, the buts." He meant what we some
times call the " 'bouts" (turnabouts ?) or furrows between the
lands in ploughing, which here are often kept unaltered for
generations for surface drainage, and, oddly enough, consider
ing the many manifest inconveniences of retaining them,
as we were often told, on account of the convenience of
measuring or dividing fields by them (as our farmers are
often guided in their sowing by the lands, and estimate areas
by counting the panels offence). Pipe-tiles, such as are being
now introduced with us, an inch or an inch and a half in di
ameter (without collars), were laid in the drains to conduct

CHILDREN AT PLAT. 145

the water. The usual crop of potatoes in the vicinity he
thought about three measures to a rood, or 225 bushels to an
acre ; of wheat, 30 bushels.

We went into a stylish inn to get some refreshment, and
while waiting for it, watched some little girls playing in the
street. They stood, four, holding hands, dancing and singing
round one (" Dobbin") lying on the ground :

Old Dobbin is dead,

Ay, ay;

Dobbin is dead,
He's laid in his bed,

Ay, ay.

There let him lie,

Ay, ay;

Keep watch for his eye,
For if he gets up
He'll eat us all UP—

and away they scampered and Dobbin after them. The one
he first catches lays down again for " Dobbin," when it is
repeated. (Shown in the cut page 207.)

The church was a little one side of the village on an ele
vation, and so hidden by trees that we could only see a
square tower and vane. Near it, we passed a neat stone
building, which I thought probably the parsonage, and point
ing towards it soon after, asked a man if he knew who lived
in it. His reply was, " Why, there's none but poor peoples'
houses there, sir !" The vicarage he showed us in another
direction — a fine house in spacious grounds.

From Eccleston we had a delightful walk in the evening
to Chester. There is a good foot-path for miles along the
river bank, with gates or stiles at all the fences that run down
to it, and we met great numbers of persons, who generally

13

146 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

seemed walking for pleasure. There were pleasure-boats,
too, with parties of. ladies under awnings, rowing up and
down the river, sometimes with music.

We were stopped. by some labouring people going home,
who asked us to look after a poor woman we should see sit
ting by the water side over the next stile, who, they feared,
had been unfortunate, and was going to drown herself. She
had been there for an hour, and they had been for some time
trying to prevail on her to get up and go home, but she would
not reply to them. We found her as they had said — a very
tall, thin woman, without hat or cap on her head, sitting un
der the bank behind some bushes, a little bundle in a hand
kerchief on her knees, her head thrown forward, resting upon
it, her hands clasped over her forehead, and looking moodily
into the dark stream. We drew back and sat on the stile,
where we could see if she stepped into the water. 'In a few
minutes she arose, and avoiding to turn her face towards us,
walked rapidly towards the town. We followed her until she
was lost in a crowd near the gate.

We found the streets within the walls all flaring with gas
light, and crowded with hawkers and hucksters with donkey-
carts, soldiers, and policemen, and labouring men and women
making purchases with their week's earnings, which it is a
universal custom in England to have paid on Saturday night.
We heard a ballad-monger singing with a long, drawling,
nasal tone, on a high key, and listened for awhile to see what
he had. One after another he would hold them up by a gas
light, and sing them. The greater number were protection
songs, with "free trade" and " ruin" oft repeated, and were the
worst kind of doggerel. One (sung to " Oh, Susannah !") I
recollect as follows : —

MENDICANTS. 147

" Oh, poor farmers,

Don't wait and cry in vain,
But bo off to Californy,

If you cannot drive the wain.'1'1

He read also choice scraps from confessions of murderers ;
parts of the prayer-book travestied so as to tell against free-
trade ; and other such literature. In another place we found
a crowd about a man with a flute, a woman with a hurdy-
gurdy, and three little children singing what we guessed
must be Welsh songs — regular wails. The youngest was a
boy, not appearing to be over five years old, and was all but
naked.

In front of our inn a man held in his arms a fine, well-
dressed little boy, and cried in a high, loud, measured, monot
onous drawl, continuously over and over — " His mother died
in Carlisle we have travelled twenty-seven miles to-day I
have no money she left this boy yesterday he walked eighteen
miles I have no supper he is five years old I have walked two
hundred miles this is no deception I have seen better days
friends his feet are macerated I am in search of work I am
young and strong he cannot walk his mother died in Carlisle
help me in my lamentations I have but sixpence for myself
and boy friends I am compelled to beg I am young and strono-
his mother died in Carlisle I am in search of work his feet are
lacerated" — and so on. ' We watched him from the rows per
haps two minutes, and saw seven persons drop coppers into
his hat : two little girls that a man was leading, a boy, a
German lace-pedler, a woman with a basket of linen on her
head, another woman, and a well-dressed gentleman.

The rest of the evening we sat round a bright coal fire, in
what had been the great fireplace of the long back parlour.
We are the only inmates of the inn except Mrs. Jones, the
landlady, and her maid. About eleven o'clock we were drs-

148 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

turbed by some riotous men in the tap-room, which is the
other side of the big chimney. Mrs. Jones seemed trying to
prevail on them to leave the house, which they refused to do,
singing " We won't go home till morning." Mrs. Jones is a
little, quiet, meek, soft-spoken woman, and we were appre
hensive for her safety. I was about to go to her assistance,
when the maid entered and said, " If you please, sir, my mis
tress would like to see you." I went hastily round into the
tap-room, and found two stout, dirty, drunken men, swinging
pewter mugs, and trying to sing " There was a jolly collier."
Mrs. Jones stood between them. I pushed one of them aside,
and asked her what she wished me to do — expecting that she
would want me to try to put him into the street. The men
made such a noise that I could not hear her mild voice in re
ply, which, she perceiving, turned again and said, in a tone
that at once quelled them, " Stop your noise, you brutes !"
— and then to me, "will you please step into the kitchen, sir?"
She only wished to know what we would like to have for our
breakfast and dinner, as the shops would close soon, and, to
morrow being Sunday, they would not be open before noon.
You talk about woman's feebleness !

The next morning, when we were going out, she came to
unlock the door of the passage or entry, and told us she was
obliged by law to keep it locked till two o'clock. At two
o'clock we found it open, and immediately after saw a man
drinking beer in the tap-room again.

There is a continual and universal beer-drinking in Ches
ter. Mrs. Jones tells us that the quality of the beer made
here has long been a matter of town pride, though now there
is very little brewed in families, every one almost being sup
plied, at a great saving of trouble, from the large breweries.
She says there used to be a town law that whoever brewed
poor beer should be publicly ducked. Sunday night, young

SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE INN

149

men with their sweethearts and sisters, of very reputable ap
pearance, and quiet, decent behaviour, came into our back-
parlour, and sitting by the round-table ordered and drank
each their glass or two of beer, as in an American town they
would take ice-cream. Now and then a few remarks would
be made about the sermon and who had been at church, or
about those who had been, or were soon going to be, married,
or^ other town gossip ; but for the most, they would sit and
drink their beer in silence, perhaps embarrassed by our
presence.

SKETCH IN CHESTER.

150 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHARACTER OF THE WELSH. THE CATHEDRAL: THE CLERGY, SERVICE, IX-

TONING, THE LUDICROUS AND THE SUBLIME. A REVERIE. A REVELATION.

THE SERMON. COMMUNIONS. OTHER CHURCHES. SUNDAY EVENING.

CHARACTER OF THE TOWNSPEOPLE.

Sunday, June 2d.

"TT7E were awakened this morning by a sweet chiming of
* ' the cathedral bells.

After breakfast, Mrs. Jones introduced us to a young
female relative who had come to visit her. She was intelli
gent and handsome, having a beautifully clear though dark
complexion, thick, dark hair, and large swimming eyes. This
style of beauty seems common hereabouts, and is probably
the Welsh type.

She lived among the mountains near Snowdon, and told
us the country there was bleak and sterile ; agriculture con
fined mostly to grazing, small patches only of potatoes and
oats being cultivated. She spoke highly of the character of
the peasantry in many respects, but said they had very strong-
prejudices, usually despising the English and refusing to asso
ciate with them. Many of them could not speak English,
and those who could would often affect not to understand if
they were addressed by an Englishman. Among themselves
they were very neighbourly, clannish, honest, and generous,
but strangers they would impose upon most shamelessly.
She had known very few to emigrate, and those that did

THE CATHEDRAL.— OLD MASONRY. 151

usually went to Australia, she thought. In her neighbourhood
they were mostly dissenters ; Methodists, and Baptists, and
with the exception of deceit to strangers, were of good moral
character, much better than the English labourers. They
had, however, many traditional superstitions.

We attended service in the morning at the cathedral.
Its outline upon the ground is, with some irregularities, in
the form of a cross. Its great breadths and lengths, the com
parative lowness and depth of its walls, strengthened by thick,
rude buttresses, and its short square massive tower, together
with its general time-worn aspect, impressed me much as an
expression of enduring, self-sustaining age. Like the stalwart
trunk of a very old oak, stripped by the tempests of much of
the burden of its over-luxuriant youth, its settled, compact,
ungamished grandeur, was vastly more imposing than the
feeble grace and pliant luxuriance of more succulent struc
tures. The raggedness of outline, the wrinkles and furrows
and scars upon the face of all the old masonry, are very re
markable. The mortar has all fallen from the outside, and
the edges of the stones are worn off deeply, but irregularly,
as they vary in texture or are differently exposed. The
effect of rain and snaw and frost, and mossy vegetation and
coal smoke, for six hundred years upon the surface, I know
of no building in America that would give you an idea of.
The material of construction is a brown stone, originally
lighter than our Portland sandstone, but now darker than I
have ever seen that become. It has had various repairs at
long intervals of time, and is consequently in various stages
of approach to ruin — some small parts, not noticeable in a
cursory view, being in complete and irreparable demolish-
in ent, and others but yesterday restored to their original
lines and angles, with clean-cut, bright-coloured stone and
mortar — bad blotches, but fortunately not prominent.

152 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

It was once connected with an abbey, and other religious
houses that stood near it, and by a long under-ground pas
sage with the nunnery at the other side of the town. Think
of the poor girls walking with a wailing chant, through that
mile of darkness, to assist in the morning service at the ca
thedral.

Our approach to it this morning was by a something less
gloomy and tedious way. We were accidentally in an alley
in the vicinity, when we saw a gentleman in a white gown,
and a square or university cap on his head, with a lady on
his arm, enter an old, arched, and groined passage. We fol
lowed him adventurously, not being sure that it was not the
entrance to his residence. After passing to the rear of the
block of buildings that fronted on the alley, we found our
selves in a kind of gallery or covered promenade attached to
the cathedral. (The cloisters.) From this we passed into
the nave (or long arm of the cross). Its length, its broad,
flat stone floor, entirely free from obstruction, except by a
row of thick clustered columns near the sides, and the great
height and darkness of its oak-ceiled roof, produced a sensa
tion entirely new to us, from architecture. Its dignity was
increased by a general dimness, and -i)y the breadth of the
softened, coloured light, that flowed in one sheet through a
very large stained- glass window at one end. In the end op
posite this were wide piers that support the tower, and be
tween the two central of these were the gilded organ-pipes
that we had seen in our nocturnal visit.

Under these was an arched door, on each side of which
stood about thirty boys, from ten to fifteen years old, dressed
in white robes ; the " singing boys" or " choristers." Walk
ing leisurely up and down the otherwise vacant floor of the
nave were " my Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells" (I believe
that is the title), the dean and canons, &c. A lot of eccle-

A CLERICAL AND LAY PROCESSION. 153

siastical dignitaries, whose very titles were all strange to
me; but altogether forming, what Mrs. Jones said we should
«e, « a very pretty pack of priests." The bishop was a thin
man, with a mean face and crisp hair, brushed back from his
forehead; dressed in a black gown with white lawn sleeves
and a cap on his head. The dean, a burly red-faced man,'
strikingly contrasting with the bishop, particularly when
hey laughed, in white gown with a sort of bag of scarlet
>ilk, perhaps a degenerate cowl, tied around his neck, and
dangling by strings down his back. The others had some-
tnng of the same sort, of different colours. We were told
afterwards, that these were university badges, and that the
colour was a mark of rank, not in university honours, but in
the scale of society— as nobleman or commoner— (a pretty
thing to carry into the worship of the Father, is it not ?) The
others were in black.

We walked about for a few minutes outside the columns
reading the inscriptions on the stones of the floor, which
showed that they covered vaults for the dead, and looking at
the tablets and monumental effigies that were attached to the
walls and columns. They were mostly of elaborate heraldic
design, many with military insignia, and nearly all excessive-
ly ugly, and entirely inappropriate to a place of religious
meditation and worship.

After a while the great bell ceased tolling, and some men
m black serge loose gowns, two bearing maces of steel with
silver cups on the ends, the rest carrying black rods, entered
and saluted the bishop. A procession then formed, headed
by the boys, in double file, followed by the bishop, dean
subdean, canons major and minor, archdeacon, prebendaries'
&c, and closed by three Yankees in plain clothes; passed
between the vergers, who bowed reverently and presented
arms, through the door under the organ into the choir— a

154 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

part of the edifice (in the centre of the cross) which is fitted
up inconveniently for public worship.

It is a small, narrow apartment, having galleries, the occu
pants of which are hidden behind a beautiful open-work carv
ed wood screen, and furnished below with three or four tiers of
pews (slips), and a few benches. Under the organ loft were
elevated armed seats, which were occupied indiscriminately
by the unofficiating clergy and military officers in uniform : the
governor of the castle ; Lord Grosvenor (as " colonel of the
militia,") Lord de Tapley, and others. Stationing soldiers
among the canons, it struck us, was well enough for a joke,
but as part of a display of worshipping the God of peace,
very objectionable. It is one of those incongruities that a
state church must be constantly subject to.*

Half way between these elevated seats and the chancel
was the reading desk and pulpit, and on each side of this the
choristers were seated. Several persons rose to offer us their
seats as we approached them, and when we were seated,
placed prayer-books before us. The pews were all furnished
with foot-stools, or hassocks, of straw rope made up like a
straw bee-hive.

Much of the service which in our churches is read, was
sung, or, as they say, intoned. Intoning is what in school
children is called " sing-song'1'' reading, only the worst kind,
or most exaggerated sing-songing. I had never heard it be
fore in religious service, except in a mitigated way from some
of the old-fashioned Quaker and Methodist female exhorters,

* I remember when I was a child, seeing on the Sunday preceding the
first Monday in May — the atonual training day — in one of the most old-fash
ioned villages in Connecticut, the officers of the militia come into the meet
ing-house in their uniforms. The leader of the choir was a corporal, and the
red stripes on his pantaloons, the red facings and bell-buttons of his coat,
as he stood up alone, and pitched the psalm tunes, was impressed irre
trievably on my mind.

INTONETG A DEVOUT EXPRESSION. 155

and I was surprised to hear it among the higher class of En-
glish clergy, and for a time perplexed to account for it. But
I at length remembered that nearly all men in reading Scrip
ture, or in oral prayer, or in almost any public religious ex
ercises, use a very different tone and mode of utterance from
that which is usual or natural with them, either in conversa
tion or in ordinary reading. And this is more noticeable in
persons of uncultivated minds; so it is probably an impulse
to distinguish and disassociate religious exercises from the
common duties of life, that induces it. The effect is, that the
reading of the Bible, for instance, instead of being a study of
truth, or an excitement to devotion and duty, as the indi
vidual may intend, becomes an act of praise or prayer— the
real, unconscious purpose of the reader, finding expression in
his tone and manner. So- we may often hear the most arrant
nonsense in oral prayers; a stringing together of scriptural
phrases and devout words in confusing and contradicting sen
tences, while the tone and gesture and the whole manner of
the devotee show that he is most sincerely, feelingly, enthu
siastically in earnest supplication. What for ? Not for that
which his words express, for they may express nonsense or
utter blasphemy. It is simply an expression or manifesta
tion by the act of uttering words in a supplicating tone, of the
sense of dependence on a superior Being— of love, of grati
tude, and of reverence. David did the same thing by dancing
and playing upon the harp. It is done now, as it seems to
us, more solemnly, by the playing upon church organs. It is
done by monuments, as in the decorations of churches. It is
done by the Catholics, in listening and responding to prayers
in a language which they don't pretend to understand, and in
mechanically repeating others, the number of them counted
by beads, measuring the importance or intensity. of their pur
pose. It is done by abstaining from meat on Friday, and by

156 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

confession to one another, in the form prescribed by their
church government. It is done by the Japanese, in twirling
a teetotum ; by the Chinese, in burning Joss-sticks ; by the
Fakirs, in standing on one leg ; by the Methodists, in groans
and inarticulate cries ; by the Shakers, in their dance ; by
the Baptists, in ice-water immersions ; by Churchmen, in
kneeling ; by Presbyterians, in standing ; by New-England-
ers, in eating a cold dinner and regularly going to meeting on
Sunday ; by the English, in feasting, and the Germans, in
social intercourse on that day as well as by more distinctly
devout exercises.

It was plain to me that the tone of the reader was meant
to express — " Note ye that this reading is no common read
ing, but is the word derived from God, not now repeated for
your instruction, plainly and with its true emphasis, but
markedly otherwise, that we may show our faith in its sacred
character, and through it acknowledge our God — I by repeat
ing its wrords as men do not those of another book — you by
your presence and reverent silence while I do so."

It was evident, too, by the occasional difficulties and con
sequent embarrassment and confusion of our reader, causing
blushing and stammering, that it was not with him a natural
expression of this purpose as was the nasal tone of the Puri
tan, but a studied form, which had originated in some person
more musically constituted.

Whether I was right with regard to the theory or not,
there was no doubt that practically such was the operation of
much of the service. The portion of the Old Testament read
was one of those tedious genealogical registers that nobody
but an antiquary or a blood nobleman would pretend to be
interested in. The psalm, one of the most fearful of David's
songs of vengeance and imprecation, alternately sung by
the. choristers and intoned by the reader, one often running

THE COMICALITIES OF THE CATHEDRAL. 157

into the other with most unpleasant discord. The same with
the Litany. Even the prayers could with difficulty be under
stood, owing partly to echoes, in which all distinctness was
lost.

Despairing of being assisted by the words of the service,
therefore, I endeavoured to " work up" in myself the solem
nity and awe that seemed due to the place and the occasion
by appropriate reflections. Under this vaulted ceiling, what
holy thoughts, what heavenly aspirations have been kindled
—what true praise of noble resolution has, like unconscious
incense, grateful to God, ascended from these seats. On these
venerable walls, for hundreds of years, have the eyes of good
men rested, as from their firm and untottering consistency
they gained new strength and courage to fight the good fight,
— and again I raised my eyes to eaten communion with them.
They fell upon a most infamous countenance, like to the
representations of FalstafF's, — a man with one eye closed and
his tongue tucked out the side of his mouth,— his body tied
up in a sack, his knees being brought up each side of his chin
to make a snugger bundle. I turned away from it imme
diately ; but there was another face in most doleful grimace,
as if a man that had been buried alive had suddenly thrust
his head out of his coffin, and was greatly perplexed and dis
mayed at his situation. Again I turned my eyes — they fell
upon the face of a woman under the influence of an emetic —
again upon a woman with the grin of drunkenness. Every
where that any thing like a knob would be appropriate to the
architecture were faces sculptured on the walls that would
be a fortune in a comic almanac.

I closed my eyes again, and tried to bring my mind to a
reverent mood, but the more I tried the more difficult I found
it. My imagination was taken possession of by the funny
things, and refused to search out the sublime. Not but that

14

158 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the sublime, the grand, and the awful were not apparent
also, all over and around — ay, and consciously within me;
but, like a stubborn child, my mind would resist force. I
gave it up, envying those who would have been so naturally
elevated by all these incitements and aids to devotion.

I could not understand a sentence of the service, but sat,
and rose, and kneeled, thus only being able to join in the
prayer, and praise, and communion of the congregation.

Soon my thoughts, now wandering freely, fell to moving
in those directions of reverie that I have found they are apt
to take when I am hearing what those who listen with critical
ear shall call fine music : doubtless it is the best and truest
that can effect this; though when I listen attentively and try
to appreciate it, my opinion would only be laughed at by
them. I had been wantlering in a deep, sad day-dream, far
away, beyond the ocean — beyond the earth . . . dark — lost
to remembrance — when I was of a sudden brought back and
awakened again in the dim old cathedral with such emotion,
as if from eternity and infinity, I was remanded to mysterious
identity and sense of time, that I choked and throbbed ; and
then, as the richest, deepest melody I must ever have heard
passed away, softly swelling through the vaulted ceiling, caught
up tenderly by mild echoes in the nave, and again and again
faintly returning from its deepest distances, I kneeled and
bowed my head with the worshippers around me, acknowl
edging in all my heart the beauty and sublimity of the place
and the services.*

The sermon was from an elderly man, with a voice slightly

* I try in vain to express a sensation, which I have many times in my
life experienced, and which, I presume, is common to other men, that forces
on me a belief, strong at the time as knowledge, of immortality and eter
nity, both backward and forward, vastly stronger than all arguments can
effect.

SERMON ON MODERN PHARISEEISM. 159

broken, and an impressive manner, whom we were afterwards
told was Canon Slade, a somewhat distinguished divine. It
was one of the best, plain, practical, Christ-like discourses I
ever heard from a pulpit. It was delivered with emphasis
and animation, in a natural, sometimes almost conversational
tone, directly to individuals, high and low, then and there pre
sent, and of course was listened to with respectful attention.
The main drift of it was to enforce the idea, that a knowledge
of the truth of God was never to be arrived at by mere learn
ing and dry study ; that these were sometimes rather encum
brances ; that love was of more value than learning. He had
been describing the Pharisees of old, and concluded by say
ing, that the Pharisees, satisfied with their own notions, and
scorning new light, were not scarce in our day. "There are
some of them in our Church of England : would that there were
fewer; that there were less parade and more reality of heav
enly knowledge." He made but little use of his notes, and
pronounced an extemporaneous prayer at the conclusion with
extreme solemnity.

I remained in company with a large proportion of the
women present, and half a dozen men, at the communion ser
vice. The Church of England service, which has always
seemed to me more effective than most others to the practical
end of the ceremony, never was so solemn, impressive, and
affecting. It was administered by the bishop, unassisted,
with great feeling and simplicity. There was not the least
unnecessary parade or affectation of sanctity; but a low,
earnest voice, and a quiet, unprofessional manner that be
tokened a sense of the common brotherhood of us all united
by God in Christ. The singing was " congregational," the
choristers having left, and without assistance from the organ.
A considerable proportion of the congregation were ser
vants in livery ; and besides these and the soldiers and clergy,

160 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

the men present were generally plainly, and many shabbily,
dressed. The women, many of them, seemed of a higher
class, but were also simply dressed, generally in dark calicoes.

In the south transept (or short arm of the cross) of the
cathedral another congregation were assembling as I came
out. I followed in a company of boys, marching like soldiers,
dressed in long-skirted blue coats, long waistcoats, breeches,
and stockings, and with the clerical bands from their cravats.
Within were several other such companies — boys and girls in
uniform, from charity schools, I suppose. ,The girls were
dressed in the fashion of Goody-Two-Shoes, with high-backed
white caps, and white " pinafores " over blue check gowns.

This transept is a large place of worship in itself, though
but a small part of the cathedral, and is occupied by the
parish of St. Oswald, morning and evening service being held
in it immediately after that of the cathedral church. On the
doors were notices, posted in placards, addressed to persons in
certain circumstances, among others, to all who used hair-
powder, to give notice to the appointed officers that they might
be rightfully taxed.

In the afternoon we visited a Sunday-school of the Unita
rians, where we saw about sixty well-behaved children, — the
exercises, much the same as in ours. Afterwards we heard a
sensible sermon, on faith and works, in the Independent
chapel. The clergyman, who has been a missionary in the
East, and has also travelled in America, was good enough to
call on us and invite us to his house the next day. The con
gregation seemed to be of a higher grade than most of that we
had seen at the cathedral, more intelligent and animated, and
more carefully dressed, yet very much plainer, more modestly
and becomingly, and far less expensively than you could often
see any congregation with us.

We had a delightful walk, later in the afternoon, on the

SUNDAY EVENING RECREATION. 161

walls, where we met a very large number of apparently very
happy people. I never saw so many neat, quiet, ungenteel,
happy, and healthy-looking women, all in plain clean dresses,
and conversing in mild, pleasant tones ; squads of children'
too, all dressed ridiculously, bright and clean and stiff, not
a dirty one among them, and as well behaved as dolls, most
comically sober and stately. The walls form a good prom-
enade, elevated and dry. The landscape view across the
river, in the sunset haze, seemed in communion with the
minds of the people, tranquil and loving. An hour later, and
we found the streets lighted up and almost as crowded as on
Saturday night, yet very quiet, and no impudence, black,
guardism, or indecency shown us. On the whole, spite of the
universal beer-drinking, we received a high opinion of the
character of Chester people, quite as high, as respects moral
ity and courtesy, as a stranger passing a Sunday in a New
England town of the same size would be likely to obtain of it.

162 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XIX.

CLANDESTINE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES. A VISIT TO THE MARQUIS OF

WESTMINSTER'S STUD. — STABLE MATTERS.

Monday,

EARLY in the morning we visited the old church of St.
John's, and afterwards several curious places, relics of Ro
mans, Saxons, and Normans, in the suburbs — after all, noth
ing so interesting to me as the commonest relics of English
men but two or three centuries old. As we returned through
the town at seven, the early risers seemed to be just getting
up. Passing the cathedral as the bell tolled for morning
prayer, we turned in. There are services every day at 7, 11,
and 3 o'clock. The service was performed in the Lady Chapel,
which we did not enter. The attendance must have been
rather meagre, as we saw no one going to it but two ladies
with an old man-servant. We remained some time hunting
on tip-toe for traces of the Norman transition in the architec
ture, and found we had had already practice enough to readily
detect it in various parts. Stealing softly into the choir,
from which the Lady Chapel opens, we examined the bishop's
throne. It is adorned with many figures of saints and angels,
kings and queens, and having been once broken to pieces,
in the repairs upon it the old heads were generally put on
young shoulders, and vice versa , producing in some instances
a very ludicrous effect, particularly where the men's heads,
beards and all. are set on female bodies. We then got out

ELECTION ROWS.— AMERICAN BOOKS. 163

into the cloisters, and from them into the chapter-house, in
which the heavy-groined arches, simple, and without the
slightest ornament, have a grand effect. The date is about
1190. We saw here some very strongly marked faces which
in stone represent certain Norman abbots whose graves were
under us.

Without the cathedral yard, the ruins of the old abbey
appear frequently among the houses, the old black oak tim
ber and brick work of the time of Cromwell, mingling pictu
resquely with the water-worn carvings of the older, old ma
sonry. This morning we saw a stout, round, old Saxon arch
giving protection to a fire-engine, which brought to mind the
improbability of the present race of New-Yorkers sending
down to posterity such memorials of itself. Well, it will
send better perhaps, and more lasting than in stones — or
stocks.

On the town-hall is a large statue, said to be of Queen
Anne, but so battered and chipped, that it might stand for
any body else, in a long dress. The hands and nose, and all
the regalia are knocked off. And how, do you suppose ? By
the super-sovereign people in election demonstrations. Thank
God, we may yet boast, that in our thoroughly democratic
elections, where the whole national policy is turning, and the
most important private and local interests are at issue, we
leave no such memorials of our time. (I beg pardon of the
" bloody Sixth.")

Going into a book-shop for a direction, we saw Emerson's
" Representative Men." and Irving's " Sketch-Book," on the
counter, with newspapers and railway guides, and the propri
etor told us he had sold a great many of them.

We passed through a crockery shop to see a Roman bath,
which had been discovered in excavating a cellar in the rear
of it. Such things are being every year brought to light.

164 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

After breakfast we once more took our knapsacks, and
left Chester by the foot-path on the bank of the Dee.

The Marquis of Westminster owns some of the finest
horses in the kingdom; in passing through Eccleston, we
asked a man if he could direct us where we could see some
of them. He informed us that he was head groom of the
stud to the marquis, and he would take pleasure in showing
it to us. He took us first to the paddocks, which are fields
of from two to five acres, enclosed by stone walls, ten feet
high, some of them with sheds and stables attached, and
some without. In these were thirty or forty of the highest
bred, and most valuable mares and fillies in the world. Un
fortunately I am not a horse-man, and cannot attempt to de
scribe them particularly. It needed but a glance, however, to
show us that they were almost any of them far the most
beautiful animals we had ever seen. The groom, whose name
is Nutting, and whose acquaintance I recommend every trav
eller this way to endeavour to make, was exceedingly obli
ging, not only taking us into every paddock and stable, and
giving us an account of the pedigree, history, and perform
ances of every horse, but calling our attention to the points,
all the peculiarities of form which distinguished each individ
ual. It was evident his heart was in his business, and that
his regard was appreciated, for as soon as he unlocked the
gate, and showed himself within the enclosure, some of the
older, mares would trot up to be caressed with the most ani
mated, intelligent, and gratified expression. The most cele
brated among them was Bee's-wing. She is seventeen years
old, and very large, but most perfect in form ; I should think
better than her daughter, Queen-Bee, who is lighter and more
delicate. The extraordinary beauty of " Ghuznee" and " Cru
cifix," both distinguished on the turf, was also obvious. These,
I think, do not belong to the marquis. In one of the pad-

THE ETON STUD. 165

docks were a number of foals, pretty, agile, fawn-like crea
tures. They came around us dancing and capering, catching
our knapsacks with their teeth, then springing off, and coming
back again, like dogs at play. The mares, fillies, and colts
were all of dark bay colour, but one, which was dark iron-
grey, nearly black.

Just as we left the colts, a great cart-horse, belonging to
the marquis, was passing on the road. The contrast was
wonderful. He was seventeen hands and one inch high (with
in a trifle, six feet), and putting both my thumbs to the
smallest part of his leg, I could not make my fingers meet
around it.

From the paddocks we went to the stables to see the
stallions. They were all loose boxes (no stalls), thirteen
feet by sixteen, some with rack and manger across the side,
some with the same in a corner. Touchstone is a magnificent
creature, beyond conception. It is impossible to imagine
such high condition, indicated not less in the happy and spir
ited expression and action, than in the bright, smooth, supple,
and elastic feel of his skin. I never saw any thing to equal
it in America ; and it was nearly as remarkable in the mares.
Five thousand guineas (over $25,000) have been offered and
refused for Touchstone.* Springy. Jack is a younger stallion ;
by Nutting esteemed even higher than Touchstone. Nothing
in the world of animal life can be finer than the muscular de
velopment of his neck. Touchstone is a little coarse in the
withers. They were intending to put him in pasture the next
week, and in preparation for it, he had some fresh grass mixed
with hay to eat. He stood in a deep bed of straw, and

* Mares are sent here from all parts of the kingdom, to be served by
Touchstone, perhaps the most esteemed stock-getter in England. He is
allowed forty in a year, and the charge is $150 to $200, and $2.25 a week
for pasture.

166 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

was not curried — groomed merely with a cloth, yet he was
so clean, that it would not have soiled a white linen handker
chief to have been rubbed upon him.

In the granary we saw some very plump and bright
Scotch oats. They were bought for 42 Ibs. to the bushel,
but would overweigh that. The common feed was oat and
bean meal mixed with cut hay. The hay was cut very
fine (not more than \ inch lengths) by a hand machine. I
believe, cut as it usually is by our machines (-J inch to 1 inch),
it is more thoroughly digested. I use Sinclair's, of Baltimore,
which is intended for corn-stalks, driven by horse-power, and
cuts hay and straw from one to three inches, which I prefer
to the finer.* The machine here cost £6 ($30), and was in no
way superior, that I could see, to Ruggles', of Boston, which
is sold at half that price.

The farm buildings were not fine or in good order, ma
nure wasting, old carts and broken implements thrown care
lessly about, and nothing neat. Nor were the cattle remark
able — most of them below the average that we have seen on
the road-side. It is evident the marquis is more of a horse-
jockey than a farmer.

The groom's house, which we entered, was very neat and
handsomely built of stone. All the cottages hereabout are
floored with tiles, nine inches square. They vary in colour, but
are most commonly light brown.

Nutting showed us a cow of his own, which I took to be
a direct cross of Devon and Ayrshire, and which had as fine
points for a milker as I ever sa*v in any thing. She was very
large, red and white, and a good feeler. He assured us she
was giving now on pasture feed thirty-two quarts a day.

* I do not wish to recommend this machine for hay and straw, which
it does not cut as rapidly as some others, but for stalks it cannot be sur
passed — cutting and splitting them in small dice.

DUTCH BARNS,— A POLITE GROOM. 167

The hay was partly stored under slate roofs, supported by
four strong stone columns, the sides open. This plan differs
from the hay barracks, common where the Dutch settled in
America, in which the roof, thatched or boarded, is attached
to posts in such a way that it can be easily set up or down,
and adjusted to the quantity of hay under it. These erections
are here called Dutch barns. Nutting thought hay was pre
served in them better than in any way he knew, and this has
been my opinion of that from our barracks. Close barns he
particularly objected to. Probably hay suffers more in them
here than it does in America.

After showing us all about the farmery, he walked on with
us to a shady pasture by the river side, where was a herd of
fine mares. We sat here under an old elm for some time,
looking at them as they clustered around us, and talking with
him about the agriculture of the district. He was so easily
good-natured, and conversed so freely, asking as well as an
swering questions, that we were greatly puzzled to tell
whether he expected a fee, or would be offended by our offer-
ing it. At length, when he was about to leave, we frankly
stated our difficulty, explaining that we were foreigners, and
not familiar with the English customs on such occasions. He
answered pleasantly, that he was always glad of a chance to
converse with gentlemen on such subjects as we appeared to
be interested in ; if they liked to give him something he did
not refuse it, but he did not wish any thing from us. We
assured him that we were much indebted to him, and begged
that he would not make an exception of us, handing him a
half crown, which he dropped into his pocket without looking
at it or thanking us, but politely replying that he considered
himself fortunate in having met us. He then said he would
walk on a little further to direct us on a path much pleas-
anter than the regular travel, and from which we might see

168 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

one of the best dairy farms in the country, with an excellent
herd of one hundred and fifty cows. The path would run
through the park, and was not public, but if we would men
tion his name at the lodges they would let us pass.

We soon came in sight of the cows. They were large,
half-bred Ayrshires, which seem to be the favourite dairy
stock throughout the country. Pure-bred stock of any breed
were not in favour, but the Ayrshire blood was most valued.

SOIL AND CLIMATE IN CHEESE-MAKING. 169

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHESHIRE CHEESE DISTRICT AND ENGLISH HUSBANDRY UPON HEAVY
SOILS. PASTURES.— THEIR PERMANENCE. THE USE OF BONES AS A MA
NURE IN CHESHIRE. A VALUABLE REMARK TO OWNERS OF IMPROVED

NEAT STOCK. BREEDS OF DAIRY STOCK. HORSES.

soil of a considerable part of this county being a
tenacious clay, favourable to the growth of grasses, and
difficult of tillage, its inhabitants are naturally dairy-men,
and it has been particularly distinguished for many centuries
for its manufacture of cheese. Its distinction in this respect
does not appear to be the result of remarkable skill or pecu
liar dairy processes, but is probably due to the particular
varieties of herbage, to the natural productions of which, the
properties of its soil, and perhaps of its climate, are peculiarly
favourable.*

The grounds for this conclusion are the general value
placed by the farmers upon their old pastures, where the
natural assortment of herbage may be considered to have
entirely obtained and taken the place of the limited number
of varieties which are artificially sowed, the fact that the
butter of the district is not, as a general rule, highly esteemed,

* The best cheese is made on cold, stiff, clay-soils (but not on the
purest clays), and from the most natural herbage, even from weedy, sterile
pastures ; but much the largest quantity is made from an equal extent of
nore moderately tenacious and drained or permeable soils spontaneously
producing close, luxuriant, fine (not rank) grasses and white clover.

15

170 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

and that I cannot learn that the process of cheese-making dif
fers any more from, that of other districts in England or the
United States, than between different dairies producing cheese
of equal value in this district itself.

It is by no means to be inferred, however, that the quality
of cheese is not affected by the process of manufacture.
There is no doubt that the skill and nicety of a superior
dairy-maid will produce cheese of a superior quality on a
farm of poor herbage, while an ignorant and careless one will
make only an inferior description, no matter what the natural
advantages may be. The best cheese made in the United
States is quite equal to the best I have tasted here, but the
average quality is by no means equal to the average quality
of Cheshire cheese.

Superiority in the manufacture seems not to depend, how
ever, upon any describable peculiarities of the process, which
differs in no essential particular from that common in our
dairies. Excellence is well understood to depend greatly
upon extreme cleanliness in all the implements employed,
and upon the purity and moderate temperature of the atmo
sphere. Means to secure the latter are used much the same
as with us. Stoves and hot-water pipes are sometimes em
ployed in the cheese-room ; and I may mention that where
this is in a detached building of one story, it is considered
essential that it should have a thatched roof. In some cases
where the roof has been slated, it has been found necessary
in the warmest weather to remove the cheese to the cellar of
the farm-house. Plank shelves are more generally used, and
are esteemed better than stone.

Not only is there no uniformity in the methods of the
different dairies to distinguish them from those of the United
States, but rarely in any single dairy are there any exact
rules with regard to the time to be employed in any parts of

THE CHEESE-MAKING- PROCESS. 171

the process, or as to the temperature or the measure of any
ingredients. Thus the degree of heat at setting the milk,
although the skill to feel when it is right is deemed highly
important, is almost never measured, even in the best dairies.
The quantity of rennet is guessed at, and its strength not ex
actly known. The quantity of salt used is undefined, and the
time for sweating or curing of the cheese, when made, is left
to be accidental.

With regard to some of these points, however, it has been
found (as reported to the Royal Agricultural Society) that
in some of the best dairies the milk, when judged to be of
the right temperature for coagulating, was by the thermome
ter at 82° F. (variations from 76° to 88°). From four to six
teen square inches of rennet skin in a pint of water (generally
four square inches) were used to make the cheese from fifty
gallons of milk, and 1 Ib. to 1 Ib. 4 ounces salt to the same
quantity. It is thought that the best cheese is made with
less salt than this. The heat of the milk-room was found to
vary from 64° to 78° in August, and it was thought desirable
that it should be cooler than this. The reporter thought that
a temperature of 50° would be most approved throughout the
year. I never saw or heard of ice being used in any way in
a Cheshire dairy.

Some of the best dairy-maids claim to have secrets by
which they are enabled to surpass others, but it is certain that
they do not lessen the necessity for extreme cleanliness, ni
cety, and close observation and judgment, and that with this,
in addition to what is everywhere known and practised, there
is no mystery necessary to produce the best.*

" A cheese dairy is a manufactory— a workshop— and is, in truth, a
place of hard work. That studied outward neatness which is to be seen in
the show dairies of different distfccts may be in character where butter is
the only object, but would be superfluous in a cheese dairy. If the room,

172 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

The Cheshire cheese in market always has an unnaturally
deep, yellow colour, though of late less so than formerly. It
is given by the addition of " colouring" to .the milk imme
diately before the rennet steep is applied. This " colouring"
is manufactured and sold at the shops for the purpose. It is
an imitation of annatto, formed chiefly of a small quantity
of real annatto mixed with tumeric and soft soap. I think it
is never used in sufficient quantity to affect the flavour at all,
but I observe that the farmers and people in the country pre
fer cheese for their own use that is not coloured.

Whey Butter. It is commonjn Cheshire to make butter
from the whey. It will probably surprise many to learn that
there is any cream left in whey ; but there undoubtedly is, and
it may be extracted by the same means as from milk. The
only difference in the process is, that it is set in large tubs,
instead of small pans, and that the whey is drawn off by a
faucet from the bottom after the cream has risen. If allow
ed to remain too long it will give a disagreeable flavour to the
cream. One hundred gallons of milk will give ninety of whey,
which will give ten or twelve gallons of cream, which will
make three or four pounds of butter. So that besides the
cheese, twenty to twenty -five pounds of butter are made in a
year from the milk of each cow, an item of some value in a
large dairy. The butter is of second-rate quality, but not
bad — worth perhaps three cents a pound less than milk but
ter.

the utensils, the dairy-woman and her assistants be sufficiently clean to
give perfect sweetness to the produce, no matter for the colour or the ar
rangement. The scouring-wisp gives an outward fairness, but is frequently
an enemy to real cleanliness." — MARSHALL'S VALE OF GLOUCESTER. Besides
the means of securing this inner cleanliness, sweetness, and purity, which
must be of the air too, as well as of the utensils, &c., it is probable that the
dairy-maids' secrets are in a knowledge1 of the best temperature, particu
larly of that at which the milk should be curdled.

MILKING.— PASTURES.— B ONES. \ 73

The farms in the country over which we walked in Che
shire were generally small, less, I should think, than one hun
dred acres. Frequently the farmer's family supplied all the
labour upon them,— himself and his sons in the field, and his
wife and daughters in the dairy,— except that in the harvest
month one or two Irish reapers would be employed. The
cows, in the summer, are kept during the. day in distant pas
tures, and always at night in a home lot. During the cheese-
making season, which on these small farms is from the first
of May till November, they are driven home and fastened in
shippens, or sheds, between five and six o'clock, morning and
night, and then milked by the girls, sometimes assisted by
the men. On a farm of one hundred acres, fifteen to twenty
cows are kept, and three persons are about an hour in milk
ing them. From twenty to thirty gallons of milk (say six
quarts from each cow) is expected to be obtained on an av
erage, and about one pound of dried cheese from a gallon of
milk. From two to five cwt. (of 1 12 Ibs.) of cheese may be
made from the milk of each cow during the year. Three
cwt. is thought a fair return on the best farms. In a mode-
rately dry and temperate summer, more cheese is made than
in one which is very wet.

The pastures are generally looked upon as permanent ,
the night pastures are sometimes absolutely so, as it is sup
posed that they have not generally been broken up for many
hundred years. During the last ten years the pasture lands
have been very greatly, and, as they tell me, almost incredi
bly improved by the use of bone dust. It is applied in the
quantity of from twenty to forty cwt. on an acre as top-
dressing, and I was told that pastures on which it had been
, applied at the rate of a ton to an acre, eight or nine years
ago, had continued as good (or able on an average of the
years to bear as many cows) as similar land top-dressed with

15*

174 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

farm-yard dung every two years, probably at the rate of
thirty cubic yards to an acre. There seems to be no doubt at
all that land to which inch bones were applied ten years ago
are yet much the better for it. They are usually applied in
April, and the ground is lightly pastured, or perhaps not at all
until the following year. The effect, the farmers say, is not
merely to make the growth stronger, but to make it sweeter ;
the cattle will even eat the weeds which before they would
not taste of. However, in poor land especially, it is found
to encourage the growth of the more valuable grasses more
than that of the weeds, so that the latter are crowded out, and
a clean, thick, close turf is formed. If the ground has been
drained, all these improvements are much accelerated and
increased. Upon newly laid down lands, however, the effect
is not so great ; it is especially on old pastures (from which
the extraction of the phosphates in the milk has been going
on for ages sometimes, uninterruptedly) that the improve
ment is most magical. The productive value of such lands
is very frequently known to have been doubled by the first
dressing of bones.

Both boiled and raw bones are used, and though there is
a general belief that the latter are more valuable, I do not
hear of any experience that has shown it ; on the contrary,
I am told of one field which wras dressed on different sides
equally with each sort, and now, several years after, no dif
ference has been observed in their effect. A comparison
must, of course, be made by measure, as boiled bones are
generally bought wet, and overweigh equal bulks of raw about
25 per cent. Dry bone-dust weighs from 45 to 50 Ibs. to a
bushel.

I have not heard of super-phosphate of lime, or bones dis
solved in sulphuric acid, being used as a top-dressing for pas-
lures.

IMPROVED DAIRY STOCK. 175

I quote the following from the journal of the Royal Agri
cultural Society, as a mark of deep significance to American
farmers, beyond its proof of the value of bones: — "Before
bones came into use in this country, the farmers made a point
of selecting a hardy and inferior description of stock for their
clay lands, farmers finding that large, well-bred cows did not at
all answer upon them; but now they find " (in improved pas
ture) " that the best of stock find ample support, not only to
supply the cheese-tub freely, but also to do justice to their
lineage, by retaining, if not improving, their size and symme
try, so that the farmer has not only the advantage of making
considerably more cheese, but also of making more money by
his turn of stock."

I cannot now ascertain the amount of bones annually ex
ported from the United States to England, but it must be
very great, as I know one bone-miller, near New York, that
has a standing order to ship all he can furnish at a certain price,
and who last year thus disposed of 80,000 bushels.

Breeds of Dairy Stock. — I have already described most of
the dairy stock that we have observed along the road. We
have seen scarcely any pure bred stock of any kind. Ayr
shire blood seems to predominate and be most in favour on
the best farms. The points of the short-horns are also common,
and in the south we saw some Herefords. The best milkers
seemed to' be a mixed blood of Ayrshires and some other
large and long-horned cattle with a smaller red and black
breed, probably Welsh. I incline to think that experience
has taught the dairy-men to prefer half or quarter bred stock
to full bloods of any breed. For beef-making it is otherwise.
I have seen no working oxen. Horses are the only beasts of
draught on the farms ; they vary greatly in quality, but are
generally stout, heavy, hardy, and very powerful. On a farm
of one hundred acres, three will be kept, sometimes four, and

176 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

at about that rate on the larger farms, with an additional
saddle-horse or two for his own use, if the farmer can afford
it. Farmers generally raise their own cows, choosing heifer
calves from their best milker for the purpose. Cattle are not
commonly reared for sale here. Few sheep are raised, but
many are brought lean from Wales and Ireland, and fatted
here.

GENERAL AGRICULTURAL CHARACTER. 177

CHAPTER XXI.

TILLAGE. SIZE OF FARMS. CONDITION OF LABOURERS. — FENCES. HEDGES.

SURFACE DRAINAGE. UNDER DRAINAGE. VALUABLE IMPLEMENTS FOR

STIFF SOILS, NOT USED IN THE UNITED STATES.

T SHOULD think that more than three-quarters of the land
L we have seen was in grass and pasture. I suppose that it
would be more productive of human food, and support a much
larger population, if it were cultivated ; but the farmers being
generally men of small means, barely making a living, are in
disposed to take the trouble to break up and till the tough
sward and stiff soil from which, while it is in pasture, they
are always sure to realize a certain product of cheese without
any severe labour. The cultivation is not, either, very thorough,
because the strongest and most efficient implements and great
brute forces are needed to effectually act upon such a soil
Accordingly we have observed on the large farms, where the
extent of ground to be, of necessity, cultivated, warranted the
purchase of clod-crushers and other strong and expensive im
plements, and made it necessary to employ a considerable
number of labourers, the proportion of land under tillage was
more extensive, and much more thorough work was made
with it.

I wish I could say that the condition of the labourers ap
peared to be elevated with that of agriculture, by the leasing

178 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

of the land in larger tracts, and to men of larger capital. It is
true that the tendency is to increase the rate of wages and
give employment to more hands, but it is also evident that
by the engrossment of several small farms in one large one,
a number of persons must be reduced from the comparatively
independent position of small farmers to that of labourers, and
I cannot see that for this there is any compensating moral
advantage.

Another evil of the small farms (not exclusively, how
ever), is the quantity of land injured or withdrawn from cul
tivation by the fences. These are almost universally hedges,
and not only are they left untrimmed and straggling, thereby
shading and feeding upon the adjoining land, but a great
many large trees have been allowed to grow up in them, of
course to the injury of any crops under their branches. These
are sometimes kept low, the limbs being trimmed off for
firewood (in which case they are called -pollards}, or are left
to grow naturally. In the latter case, of course, they add
exceedingly to the beauty of the landscape, and eventually
become of value for timber ; but high as this is here, I can
not at all believe it will ever compensate for the loss occa
sioned to the farm-crops. Where every five or ten acres is
surrounded by a hedge and ditch, the damage done cannot be
slight. By way of improvement we have seen where lately
some hedges have been grubbed up, two old fields being thrown
together. We have also seen a few wire fences in use. These
latter were very slightly set up, and could hardly be intended
for permanence. We have also seen some fine, low, narrow
hedges, taking up but little room, and casting but little shade.
When a hedge is thus well made and kept, I am inclined to
esteem it the most economical fence. The yearly expense of
trimming it is but trifling (less than one cent a rod), and it is
a perfect barrier to every thing larger than a sparrow. I

HEDGES.— THOROUGH DRAINAGE. ]79

should add that the farmers seem to set much value upon the
shelter from cold winds which the hedges afford.

Drainage.— The need of thorough draining is nowhere so
obvious as upon clay soils with stiff sub-soils. There will
be but a few weeks in a year when such soils are not too wet
and mortary, or too dry and bricky, to be ploughed or tilled
in any way to advantage. In the spring, it is difficult to cart
over them, and in the summer, if the heat is severe and long-
continued, without copious rain, the crops upon them actually
dwindle and suffer more than upon the driest sandy loams.
To get rid of the surface water, the greater part of the culti
vated land of Cheshire (and, I may add, of all the heavy land
of England) was, ages ago, ploughed into beds or " butts"
('bouts). These are comr.iouly from five to seven yards
wide, with a rise, from the furrows (called the " reins") to the
crown, of three or four inches in a yard. The course of the
butts is with the slope of the ground ; a cross butt and rein,
or a wide, open ditch by the side of the hedge, at the foot of
the field, conducting off the water which has collected from
its whole surface. When the land is broken up for tillage,
and often even after thorough under-drainage, these butts are
still sacredly regarded and preserved.

Thorough under-draining, by which all the water is col
lected after filtering through the soil to some depth, was
introduced here as an agricultural improvement within the
last eight years. The great profit of the process upon the
stiff soil was so manifest that it was very soon generally fol
lowed. The landlords commonly furnished their tenants
with tile for the purpose, and the latter very willingly ware
at the expense of digging the drains and laying them. W ish-
ing, however, to do their share of the improvement at the
least cost, the tenants have been too often accustomed to
make the drains in a very inefficient manner, being guided as

180 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

to distance by the old reins, and laying their tile under these,
often less than eighteen inches from the surface. The action
of the drains was thus often imperfect. It is now customary
for the landlords, when they furnish tile, to stipulate the depth
at which they shall be laid. They sometimes also lay out
the courses and distances of the drains. The Marquis of
Westminster employs an engineer, who appoints foremen,
and, to a certain extent, suitably-trained labourers, to secure
the drainage of his tenant-lands in the most lastingly econom
ical and beneficial manner. Last winter he had two hun
dred men so employed, in addition to the labour furnished by
the tenants themselves, and over one million tiles were laid
by them. I heard nowhere any thing but gratification and
satisfaction expressed with the operation of the thorough-
drains.

Implements. — After breaking up the sward of these heavy
lands with a deep, narrow, furrow-slicing plough, a most ad
mirable instrument, quite commonly in use and everywhere
spoken well of, for crushing and pulverizing the soil in a
much more effectual and rapid manner than the harrow, is

" This implement," according to the inventor's advertise
ment, " consists of twenty-three roller parts, with serrated
and uneven surfaces, placed upon a round axle, six feet wide
by two and a half feet in diameter. The roller-parts act inde-

IMPLEMENTS FOR STIFF SOILS. 181

pendent of each other upon the axle, thus producing a self-
. cleaning movement. Of course the roller must only be used
when the land is so dry as not to stick.

" The following are the various uses to which this imple
ment is applied :

" 1. — For rolling corn as soon as sown upon light lands ;
also upon strong lands, that are cloddy, before harrowing.

" 2. — For rolling wheats upon light lands in the spring,
after frosts and winds have left the plants bare.

" 3- — For stopping the ravages of the wire-worm and grub.
" 4. — For crushing clods after turnip crops, to sow barley.
" 5. — For rolling barley, oats, &c., when the plants are
three inches out of the ground, before sowing clover, &c.

" 6. — For rolling turnips in the rough leaf before hoeing,
where the plants are attacked by wire-worm.

" 7. — For rolling grass lands and mossy lands after com
post.

"8.— For rolling between the rows of potatoes, when the
plants are several inches out of the ground.

" Cash prices, with travelling wheels complete, 6 feet 6
inches, £21 ; 6 feet, £19 10s. ; 5 feet 6 inches, £18."

For still more deeply stirring, and for bringing weeds to
the surface of soil recently ploughed, a great variety of in
struments entirely unknown in America are in common use
here. They all consist of sets of tines, or teeth, placed be
tween a pair of wheels, and so attached to them that, by means
of, a lever, having the axletree of the wheels for a fulcrum,
the depth to which they shall penetrate is regulated, and they
may at any time be raised entirely above the surface, drop
ping and relieving themselves from the weeds and roots which
they have collected. Thus they may be described as com
bining the action of the harrow, the cultivator, and the horse-
rake. (The wire-tooth horse-rake is used as an instrument of

16

182 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

tillage by Judge Van Bergen, at Coxsackie, N. Y.) They are
designated variously by different manufacturers, as grubbers,
scarifiers, extirpators, harrows, and cultivators. The " ULEY
CULTIVATOR," of which a cut is appended, is one of the sim
plest and most efficient. In this the tines are raised by turn
ing a crank, each complete turn of which raises or depresses
them one inch. The depth to which they are penetrating at
any time, is marked by a dial near the handle of the crank.
Something of the kind more effectual than any thing we yet
have, is much needed to be introduced with us. Clean an/3
thorough culture of stiff clay soils can hardly be performed
without it.

I should remark of English agricultural implements in
general, that they seem to me very unnecessarily cumbrous
and complicated.

I have lately had in use on my farm, a plough furnished
me by A. B. Allen & Co., of New York (" Euggle's Deep
Tiller"), which, I think, has all the advantages of the best
English ploughs, with much less weight, and which is sold at
half their cost.

ENGLAND, A LANDSCAPE GARDEN. 183

CHAPTER

THE GENERAL CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE.— ROTATION OF CROPS.— PRODUC
TIVENESS.— SEEDING DOWN TO GRASS.— COMPARISON OF ENGLISH AND
AMERICAN PRACTICE. PRACTICAL REMARKS. RYE-GRASS, CLOVER. BIEN
NIAL GRASSES.— GUANO.— LIME.— THE CONDITION OF LABOURERS, WAGES,
ETC. DAIRY-MAIDS. ALLOWANCE OF BEER.

[" MUST say that, on the whole, the agriculture of Cheshire,
L as the first sample of that of England which is presented
to me, is far below my expectations. There are sufficient
reasons to expect that we shall find other parts much superior
to it ; but what we have seen quite disposes of the common
picture which our railroad and stage-coach travellers are in
the habit of giving to our imagination, by saying that "all
England is like a garden." Meaning only a " landscape gar-
den," a beautiful and harmonious combination of hill and dale,
with the richest masses of trees, and groups and lines of shrub
bery, the greenest turf and most picturesque buildings, it might
be appropriately said of many parts, particularly in the south
of the county. But, with reference to cultivation, and the
productiveness of the land, it might be quite as truly applied
to some small districts of our own country as to this part of
England.

In commencing the cultivation of land that has been in
grass, the first crop is usually oats, and the most approved
practice upon the stiff soils seems to be, to plough deeply in
the .fall or winter, and in the spring to prepare the ground

184 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

with some strong implement of the cultivator sort. Oats are
sowed much thicker than is usual with us. I hear of six bush
els to the acre ; but with regard to this there is much differ
ence of opinion. The crop of oats is not often large (from thirty
to forty bushels from an acre is common) ; but oats seldom
make a large crop upon clay soils. The next year the ground
will be summer-fallowed, or, by the more enterprising farm
ers, cropped with turnips, beets, or with potatoes. The pota
toes are sold, the turnips and beets fed to the cows during the
winter. On the poorer farms, the cows get little but hay
from December to April ; and cheese-making is given up du
ring the winter. Others, by the help of turnips, beets, and
linseed cake, keep a constant flow of milk, and cheese-making
is never interrupted. (Of course the milking of each cow is
interrupted for a while at her calving time, which they try to
have in March.)

The crop after roots is commonly barley ; after fallow,
wheat, of which twenty-five to thirty bushels is a common
crop, and forty not uncommon. After wheat, oats again, and
perhaps after the oats another crop of wheat ; if so, the land
is manured with bones or boughten manure, and sometimes
limed at the rate, say of four tons to the acre of stone lime.

Grass. — With the last crop of oats or wheat, clover and
grass seeds are sowed. Grass was thought to come better
after wheat upon under-drained land. The best farmers sow
a very great variety and large measure of grass seeds ; the
poorer ones are often content with what they can find under
their hay bays, sowing it, weeds and all, purchasing only
clover seed.

The quantity of grass seeds sowed is always much greater
here than in America. I should think it was commonly from
a bushel to three bushels on an acre ; rarely less than one, or
more than three. I do not think more than one quarter of a

QUANTITY OF GBASS SEED TO AN AGUE. 185

bushel, or perhaps half a bushel of the lighter seeds, is often
sowed in the United States. I should attribute the more
general evenness and closeness of the English meadows in
a great degree to this, though, doubtless, much is due to the
moister climate. Land intended for permanent pasture re
ceives much more seed, and a larger variety, than that which
is intended to be mown only for a few years, and then be
brought to tillage again. Of the good policy of the English
practice for pastures (and the same applies to lawns and
public greens) I have no doubt. Among the great variety of
grasses in an English meadow, there will be one that springs
up and grows strongly, furnishing a wholesome and delicious
bite to the cattle, as early after the first warm breath of
spring as the ground will be dry enough to bear a hoof (and
on drained lands it is rarely not so). This will be succeeded
by others, and in May by others ; and in July, those natural
to the driest and warmest soils will be in perfection ; and so
through the year there is a constantly renewing perfection.
A ranker sward, and one that would for a season support
more cattle, I think would be obtained from sowing a smaller
quantity and less variety of seed.

I am not prepared to recommend the English practice for
mowing lands. To obtain the largest quantity of grass hay
from an acre, without regard to quality, plough deep, manure
deep, and sow one variety of seed in such quantity that when
it comes up it will speedily tiller, and occupy the whole
ground, yet not stand so closely as to greatly crowd and
compress the stools, thereby dwarfing the reeds from their
natural size, and obstructing the flow of sap in their vessels.
Cut it when it has attained to its greatest size, while it is
yet entirely succulent, just at the time that the blood of the
plant begins to be drawn up into the forming seed, and the
bottom dries into such tough, close, ligneous fibre that

16*

186 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

nourishment can no longer ascend from the root. The right
quantity of seed for this will vary in different soils — a very
rich, deep soil needing less than a more sterile one, because
in the latter the roots cannot extend far enough to collect
the requisite food and drink to make a large, strong, open
stool, and more herbage will grow upon the same space by
having the stools stand closer.

In some degree proportionately to the closeness of the
fibre and the fineness of the grass, will be its nourishing
quality, so that ninety pounds of fine, close-grown hay, from
a thick-seeded meadow, may be of equal value with a hun
dred pounds of a coarser, ranker quality. But the nourish
ment is by no means in the inverse ratio of size ; so that for
all ordinary purposes, with all the usual hay-grasses, the far
mer will find his profit in studying to obtain the largest bur
then of grass. For this end, I am inclined to think English
farmers often sow too much seed, Americans not enough. It
seems, however, to be the best farmers in other respects that
sow the most seed in England.

There is one consideration that I have omitted to mention
against the common practice on American farms, where hay
is an important staple crop : it is generally an object to re
tain a clean sward of grass as long as possible, without the
necessity of breaking up, from the grass having run out, that
is, given place to weeds, or to finer and less profitable grasses.
Where the seed has been thickly sown, the grass takes more
entire possession of the surface, and retains it longer. The
thicker grass seed is sown, therefore, other things being equal,
the longer it will lay.

I have known, in a district where it was the custom to
sow four to eight quarts of timothy seed, on two occasions,
twenty quarts sowed. The result wras a finer grass in both
cases ; in one it was thought the crop was much larger, and

RYJ&-&SASS AND TIMOTHY. 187

in the other that it was somewhat smaller, than where ten
quarts was sowed alongside. The probability is, that in an
average of ten years it will prove the larger crop on the
thickest sown, in both fields.

The commonest grass-seed sowed in England, what may
be called the staple grass, is rye-grass, or ray-grass (perennial).
It is a .much smaller, closer-growing grass than our timothy ;
I think it has a sweeter taste, is probably, bulk for bulk, con
siderably more nutritious, and perhaps so pound for pound ;
but I think more fat and muscle can be made from an acre if
sowed with timothy, than with rye-grass. A valuable quality
of rye-grass is its early spring growth. A field of rye-grass
will be up some inches, offering a tempting bite to cattle, be
fore a field of other grasses will begin to show a green surface.
I believe that it ripens earlier, too, than timothy, and is better
for mowing-ground on that account, to be sown with clover,
which is much injured by over-ripeness, if not cut till timothy
is in its best state to make hay. I have seen no timothy in
England, but I know it is sometimes sowed.

Rye-grass has stood at the head of the mowing grasses in
some parts of England for centuries. In districts of light and
dry soil, it is least in favour than elsewhere, but I judge be
comes of more value with the improvement of husbandry
generally. Marshall (1796), writing from Gloucestershire,
speaks of the general strong prejudice of the farmers against
ray-grass, which he calls his favourite grass, " smothering every
thing and impoverishing the soil, until it will grow nothing!"
they say ; and arguing against them, he makes an observation
of value with reference to the question of quantity of seed.
" If real ray -grass has ever been tried alone, and without suc
cess, it has probably risen from too great a quantity having
been sown. Be it ray-grass or rubbish, I understand seldom
less than a sackful " (three heaped bushels) " an acre is thrown

188 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

on, whereas one gallon an acre of clean-winnowed real ray-
grass seed is abundantly sufficient on such soil as the vale in
general is covered with." The soil is " a rich, deep loam."

Clover (red and Dutch) is more sowed here for hay than
with us, though it is much more difficult to make good hay
of it in this climate. It is sowed in the spring, as with us,
perhaps 20 Ibs. to the acre. We commonly sow 5 to 10
Ibs. Arthur Young tried about a dozen experiments to as
certain the most profitable quantity of clover seed to sow, and
concluded his record of them as follows :

" The more seed, as far as 20 Ibs. per acre, undoubtedly
the better. This is a plain fact, contradicted by no part of
the experiments ; and the great inferiority of 5 to 7 Ibs. shows
equally clear that such portion of seed is too small for an
acre. Where land is well manured, less seed is required ; 12 J
Ibs. seems the proper quantity" (on very rich, gravelly soil.)

A bushel of clover seed weighs 60 to 64 Ibs.

In ground intended for mowing but one or two years, bi
ennial varieties of the rye-grass are sown, wrhich are of strong
er growth than the perennial. They are also sowed sometimes
with permanent grasses, giving, on a deep, rich soil, a heavier
burthen of grass the first year of cutting than these would do.
For this purpose, I have thought it might be well to sow the
biennial or sub-perennial rye-grass seed with timothy, which
does not usually yield a fair crop at its first cutting, and have
twice attempted to make trial of the Italian rye-grass, but in
both cases the seeds that I had procured failed of germination.

I shall have occasion hereafter to notice several species
of herbage that are much valued in England, that have not
be^n generally introduced in the United States.*

* Fifteen or twenty varieties of grass secjcls are sowed together, and the
expense for seed in laying down for pasture is often ten or twelve dollars
an a'.1 re.

TOP-DRESSING.— a UANO.— WA G£S. 189

The grass is mowed for hay for a longer or shorter course
of years ; sometimes broken up after one or two seasons,
sometimes becoming permanent or perennial pasture, and so
running on indefinitely ; and sometimes being mowed for a
number of years. One field I saw that had been mowed
eight years, and having received a dressing of 30 cwt. of
bones, promised fair yet to bear heavy swaths. Mowing
lands are usually top-dressed at the end of the second year,
and afterwards every second or third year. All the home
stead dung is commonly reserved for this purpose, and all
other manure is purchased from the towns. Guano for tur
nips and wheat is coming into general use ; some think very
profitably, others have been disappointed. For wheat, it is
applied at the seed sowing, and sometimes again as a top
dressing in the spring ; but in a dry season it is thought that
this second application has done more harm than good.
Guano has been a good deal tried as a top dressing for pas
tures, and it has been said to improve the quality of cheese
when so used. The immediate effect upon grass, when ap
plied in the spring, is always very advantageous ; but later
in the summer, particularly if the season is dry, the good
effect disappears, and sometimes the result is unfavourable.

Of course the round of crop varies according to every
farmer's notion. What I have described is as common as
any, though not probably among the best farmers. Another
crop is beans, which is introduced between either of thpse 1
have mentioned, sometimes at the head. Not uncommonly
the first crop is wheat, the ground having been summer fal
lowed. Wheat is drilled or sowed broadcast ; most commonly
sowed in this county, and is either ploughed or harrowed in,
opinions varying as to which is best. My own experience on
a stiff soil is decidedly in favour of ploughing in.

Labourers.— Wages, as they have been reported to me,

190 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

vary much, and unaccountably. I should think the average
for able-bodied men as day-labourers, working and receiving
pay only in days that commence fair, was $2.25 a week, per
haps averaging thirty-three cents a day. The rent of a labour
er's cottage, with a bit of garden attached (less than a quarter
of an acre), is from $15 to $25. In addition they have some
times a few perquisites from the farmers who regularly em
ploy them. A great many labourers in winter are without
work, and wages are then a trifle less than I have mentioned,
as in harvest time they are also a trifle more. The reader
will understand that out of this thirty-three cents, which I
have supposed to be the average receipts of a labourer per
day, he has to pay his rent, and provide food and raiment for
his family. Of course his diet cannot be very sumptuous (the
cost of provisions being, perhaps, ten per cent, higher than
with us), but I have not learned particulars.

The wages of farm servants, hired by the month or year,
and boarded in the family, are for men, from $45 to $65 a
year; for boys, $15 to $25; maid-servants, $30 to 40;
dairy-maids, greatly varying, say from $50 to $100.

It is customary to give all labourers and servants a certain
allowance of beer besides their wages. It is served out several
times a day, and may be supposed to cost, on an average, ten
cents a day for each person. One farmer estimated it at
twice that.

EXTENSIVE CULTIVATION OF THE BEET. 191

CHAPTER XXIII.

REMARKS ON THE CULTIVATION OF BEET AND MANGEL-WURZEL.

T FOUND the best farmers in all the south of England,
L and throughout Ireland, where the soils were at all stiff,
increasing their crops of these roots. For the production of
milk they are, undoubtedly, a more valuable crop than turnips
or ruta bagas, though it is asserted that the milk is more thin
and watery. Some thought them equal, and even superior,
weight for weight, for fattening cattle. I think it is certain
that in such soils a larger amount of nutriment can be ob
tained from a crop of them on an equal measure of ground.
Donaldson says the beet yields a larger weight per acre, both
in roots and leaves, than any other root crop known. I have
heard of crops of from fifteen to thirty-five tons an acre ; and
in one instance, near New- York, at the rate of forty-four tons
an acre, from one quarter of an acre. Chemical analyses and
practical experiments in feeding, to ascertain their value as
compared with other roots, or with hay, differ so very greatly,
that nothing can be said with any certainty about it. The
climate of the United States, like that of France, is much
better adapted to the beet, and much less favourable to the
ruta baga, than that of England. The beet is much less liable
to be injured by insects or worms than the turnip or ruta
baga, though I incline to think the latter is much more
favoured with us than in England in this respect.

192 AN AMERICAN FARMER 2N ENGLAND.

The ground for beet crops is wepared the same as for
turnips ; that is, it is finely and deeply tilled (and there is no
crop which will better show the value of draining and subsoil
ploughing), and manured with well-decomposed dung, com
post, bones, or guano, in drills from twenty-seven inches to
three feet apart. The seed is usually prepared by steeping
for from twenty-four to forty- eight hours, and is then rolled
in lime. As rapidly as possible after the manure is deposited,
it is covered with soil and the seed dropped, sometimes be
ing drilled like turnip seed, but more commonly dibbled.
There are two simple machines used here for dibbling. What
ever way the seed is planted, it must be expected that a large
part will fail to germinate.

I have found dibbling by hand not very tedious, as fol
lows : One man making holes an inch deep, and six or eight
inches apart, with a round stick an inch in diameter, another
following and dropping three seeds in a hole, and a third cov
ering by a single stroke, and pressing, with a hoe. I have
obtained a large crop planting so late as the middle of July,
in the climate of New York.

A rapid early growth of the plant is important. When
the weeds come up, the horse-hoe or cultivator is run through,
and as often afterwards as there is need, while the size of the
beets will permit it, they are horse and hand hoed. It is
found that earthing-up with a plough is injurious. When two
or three inches high, the plants are thinned to twelve inches
apart. When two or three plants come up in a bunch, one
only of them must be left. It will wilt down flat upon the
ground at first, but soon recovers.

The outer leaves begin to dry and decay early in the fall,
and may then be plucked and fed to cows with profit, and
without retarding the continued growth of the root. The root
may be pulled by hand, and is harvested more readily than

A HINT TO AMATEUR FARMERS. 193

any other. It will keep (at New York) in the open air, in
stacks four feet wide and high, covered with straw and six
inches of earth, a small hole being left in the top for ventila
tion, until April, and is then of great value to new milch-
cows and ewes with lamb.

I particularly recommend the cultivation of the sugar and
mangel-wurzel beets to cottage-farming gentlemen, who wish
to keep a small dairy with a limited extent of land.

17

194 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DELIGHTFUL WALK BY THE DEE BANKS, AND THROUGH EATON PARK. WREX-

HAM. A FAIR. MAIDS BY A FOUNTAIN. THE CHURCH. JACKDAWS. —

THE TAP-ROOM AND TAP-ROOM TALK. POLITICAL DEADNESS OF THE LABOUR
ING CLASS. A METHODIST BAGMAN.

T710LLOWING Nutting's directions, we had a most delight-
-L ful walk along the river bank and under some noble trees,
then through thick woods and over a bit of low, rushy land,
where some Irishmen were opening drains, and out at length
into the private park-road ; a pleasant avenue, which we fol
lowed some miles. The park here was well stocked with
game ; rabbits were constantly leaping out before us, and we
frequently started partridges and pheasants from a cover of
laurels, holly, and hawthorn with which the road was lined.

We came out at Pulford, when we lunched at the Post
Office Inn, and thence walked by an interesting road, through
a village of model cottages not very pretty ; over a long hill,
from the top of which a grand view back ; and by a park that
formerly belonged to Judge Jeffreys, of infamous memory, to
Wrexham.

Wrexham is a queer, dirty, higglety-piggelty kind of
town, said to be the largest in Wales (it is about as large
as Northampton). It was the latter part of a fair-day, and
there had been a mustering of the yeomanry of the shire, so
that the streets were crowded as we entered. In the balcony of
an hotel in the market-place a military band was pjaying to a

WREXHAH JACKDAWS. 195

mass of up-turned, gaping faces, through which we worked
our way. The inns were generally full of guzzling troopers,
dressed in a very ugly fashion, but we finally found one ;
some colour of the bear family, blue, I believe, which seemed
tolerably quiet, where we stopped for the night.

After dining and resting awhile, we took a walk about the
town. Most of the houses out of the market-place are very
mean and low, the walls plastered with mud, and white
washed, and the roofs thatched. Noticing a kind of grotto
in a back street about which a pretty group of girls, in short
blue dresses, engaged in lively talk, were standing with pitch
ers, we approached it. We came close upon them before
they noticed us, but, instead of showing any timidity, they
glanced at our hats and laughed clear and heartily, looking
us boldly in the face. Catching one alone, however, as we
descended to the fountain, and asking her to let us take her
mug to drink from, she handed it to us, blushing deeply, and
said nothing, so we were glad to leave quickly to relieve her.
There was a spring and pool of remarkably clear, cool water,
within the grotto, from which all the neighbourhood seem to
be supplied. Our California hats attracted more attention at
Wrexham than anywhere else in Europe, but we met with
no incivility or impertinence beyond a smile or laugh.

The church at Wrexham is curious, from the multitude
of grotesque faces and figures carved upon it. It is a large
and fine structure, and the tower is particularly beautiful, as
seen from the village. There were jackdaws' nests in it, and
a flock of these birds, the first we have seen, were hovering
and screeching around them. They are of the crow tribe,
black, and somewhat larger than a blue-jay.

Returning to our inn we found in the parlour a couple of
lisping clerks, who were sipping wine in a genteel way, and
trying to say smart things while they ogled the landlady's

196 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

daughter. Retreating from their twaddle, I called for a pipe
and mug of ale, and joined the circle in the tap-room. There
was a tall, scarlet-coated fellow who told me he was a ser
geant in the Queen's guards recruiting here ; an older man
who had been a soldier, and had served in Canada and China ;
a half-tipsy miller with a pleasant-speaking, good-natured
wife trying to coax him to come home, and half a dozen
more countrymen, all muddling themselves with beer and
tobacco.

The conversation was running on politics, and was not at
all interrupted by my entrance ; on the contrary, I thought
the old soldier was glad of a stranger to show himself off be
fore. He was the orator of the night, and the others did lit
tle but express assent to his sentiments, except the miller,
who every few moments interrupted him with a plain and
emphatic contradiction. The sergeant said very little either
way except he was appealed to, to substantiate some asser
tion, " as a military man" but leaned on the bar, drinking hot
gin-and-water, and whispering with the bar-maid.

There was news that the French minister had taken dip
lomatic offence and demanded his passports, and war was
threatened. War there certainly would be, according to the
ex-soldier, and a terrible time was coming with it. England
was going to be whipped-out most certainly — it was inevita
ble. Every body assented — it was " inevitable" — except the
miller, who said it was fol-de-rol. "Why," continued the ex-
soldier, " isn't every country in Europe against England ? —
don't they all hate her? and isn't every Frenchman a sol
dier 1" Then he described the inefficient state of the national
defences, and showed how easy it would be for a fleet of
steamers, some dark night the next week, to land an army
jomewhere on the coast of Wales, and before they heard of
.t, it might be right there amongst them ! He would like to

TAP-ROOM POLITICS. 197

know what there was to oppose them. The miller said there
was — " gammon." The sergeant, on being asked, admitted that
he was not aware of any respectable force stationed in that
vicinity, and the miller told him he was a " traitor then." Ex-
soldier said miller knew nothing about war, any way, and the
company unanimously acquiesced. Ex-soldier then resumed
his speech — asked if government would dare to give arms to
the people, and pictured an immense army of Chartists arising
in the night, and with firebrands and Frenchmen, sweep
ing the government, queen and all, out of the land, and estab
lishing a republican kingdom, where the poor man was as good
as the rich. The company all thought it very probable, and
each added something to make the picture more vivid. A
coarse joke about the queen's bundling off with her children
produced much laughter ; and the hope that the parsons and
lawyers would have to go to work for a living, was much ap
plauded.

It was strange what a complete indifference they all seemed
to have about it, as if they would be mere spectators, outsiders,
and not, in any way, personally interested. They spoke of
the Government and the Chartists, and the landlords and the
farmers, but not a word of themselves.

Late in the evening there was some most doleful singing,
and a woman came in and performed some sleight-of-hand
tricks, every one giving her a penny when she had concluded.
We were obliged to sleep two in a bed, one of us with a
Methodist young man, who travelled to make sales of tea
among country grocers and innkeepers, for a Liverpool house.
He said that what we had seen in the tap-room would give us
a very good notion of the character of a large part of the
labouring class about here. He thought their moral condition
most deplorable, and laid it much to the small quantity
and bad quality of the spiritual food that was provided for

17*

198 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

them. He seemed well informed about America, and, except
ing for slavery and steamboat explosions, greatly to admire
our country. He had some idea of going to it, and said his
present business was exceedingly disagreeable, as it com
pelled him to be so much at inns, where he rarely found any
one with whom he could pleasantly associate.

GOAL DISTRICT.— AN OPTIMIST. 199

CHAPTER XXV.

MORNING WALK THROUGH A COAL DISTRICT. — RUABON. AN OPTIMIST WITH A

WELSH WIFE. GRAVEYARD NOTES. A STAGE-WAGON. TAXES. WYNSTAY

PARK. — THOROUGH DRAINING. A GLIMPSE OF COTTAGE LIFE. " SIR WAT-
KINS WILLIAMS WYN."

June 4th.

THE most agreeable chimes, from the church tower, we had
ever heard, awoke us this morning at three o'clock. It is
light enough here at that time to read or write, and the twi
light at evening does not seem to be over at half-past ten. I
felt very stiff and sore, but arose and wrote till half-past six,
when we got the bar-maid up, paid our bill (we were charged
only sixpence a piece for our lodging), and were let out into
the street ; no signs that any one else in the town was yet
stirring.

Our road ran through a coal district, tall chimneys throw
ing out long black clouds of smoke, and pump-levers working
along the hill-tops ; the road darkened with cinders ; sooty
men coming home from the night- work to low, dirty, thatched
cottages — the least interesting and poorest farmed country we
had yet travelled over. After walking six miles, we stopped
at the Talbot Inn, Ruabon, to breakfast.

In the tap-room, over his beer, was a middle-aged man, a
currier by trade, who told us he had come hither nine years
ago from Staffordshire, had married a nice Welsh girl, and set
tled himself very comfortably. He said wages were good here,

200 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

and it did not cost so much to live as it used to. He had a
cottage in the village; the landlord, Sir Watkins Wyn, was
an excellent man, and his agent was very kind to poor people.
He did not see any need of grumbling, and, for his part,
thought the world a pretty fair world.

After a good breakfast in a room adorned with sporting
pictures and a likeness of Sir Watkins Wyn, I returned to
talk with him. When he had work, his wages were six dollars
a week, but just now he was out of work. The rent of his
cottage and four roods of land was one hundred and twenty
dollars, and Sir Watkins paid the poor-rates. Sir Watkins
was not very generally liked by his tenants, because he was
not so liberal with them as his father ; but his father had been
extravagant, and run the estate deeply in debt, and he had
need to be more particular : and he was sure he was always very
easy with poor folks. He had had a deduction made on his
rent more than once when the times were hard with him, and
this year the farmers all were allowed ten per cent, of their
rents because corn is so low.

I had told him I was from America, and he was asking me
some questions about it, when he suddenly stopped, fidgeted
about a moment, and then, looking at a woman coming across
the street, said, with a laughing, swaggering air, " There's my
wife coming ; now you'll see a specimen of a Welsh girl !"
His wife, a stout, hard-looking \voman, walked briskly in,
stood up straight before him, folded her arms, and, in a deep,
quiet, determined way, gave him a regular Caudliny. He
tried for a while to make a joke of it, and to appease her.
" Come now, missus, don't be hard upon un' ; sit ye down now,
and take a pint ; these gentlemen be from Ameriky, and I
talks with 'um about going there. Come now, how'd thee
like to go to Ameriky '?" As we were thus introduced, she
glanced fiercely at us, and we retreated at once without the

FREIGHT WAGONS. 201

door. He tried for a moment longer to brave her, and called
loudly for another mug of ale. She turned her head to the
bar-maid, and said, " You'll get no more ale !" and the bar
maid minded her.

She said he had been there before, this morning, and when
he began drinking in the morning it was always the last of
him for the day. He whimpered out that he had come home
and breakfast wasn't ready, and he hadn't any thing else to
do but to come back here. It was ready, she said, and he
might have been looking for some work, and so on. In a
few minutes they went off arm in arm.

Opposite the inn was an old church and a graveyard.
There were more monkey-faces on the church, and two effi
gies in stone, of knights — the forms of their bodies with
shields, barely distinguishable, and their faces entirely effaced.
Many of the gravestones had inscriptions in Welsh, and
both here and at Wrexham I noticed the business of the de
ceased person was given, as John Johnes, Wheelright; Wil
liam Lloyd, Tanner, d'c. On a flat stone near the church,
the following was inscribed (letter for letter), probably by a
Welsh stone-cutter following an English order, given verbal
ly — " This his the end of the vault''1

Returning from the church, we found the currier again
drinking beer in the tap-room, with a number of other men,
a drunken set, that probably had come passengers by a stage
wagon that stood in the road. This was an immense vehicle,
of pre-railroad origin, like our Pennsylvania wagons, but hea
vier and higher. It had a heavy freight of barrels, cases, and
small parcels, on the top of which, under the canvass hooped
cover, a few passengers were cheaply accommodated, there be
ing a ladder in the rear for them to ascend by. Behind one of
the hind- wheels was a roller, attached by chains on either side
the wheel to the axle-tree, so that if the wagon fell back any, it

202 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

scotched it — a good idea for heavy loads in a hilly coun
try. There were six stout cart-horses to draw it, and all
in a line, the wheeler being in shafts. The driver said he had
a load of eight or ten tons, and drove three miles an hour
with it. He paid about sixteen dollars a year taxes for his

horses, and two dollars for a very ugly bull-dog that stood
guard over the establishment for more than an hour while he
was refreshing himself in the inn. At length we saw the
whole company come out, and the wagon started again, all
very jolly ; the currier and another man, with their hands on
each other's shoulders, staggered across the street, singing
" Oh, Susannah !" At the churchyard gate both fell, rolled over
and embraced each other, once or twice tried ineffectually to
get up, and then both went to sleep there on the ground. No
wonder the specimen Welsh girl had a hard look.

After finishing our letters to send by the steamer, we vis
ited Wynstay Park. It is much more picturesque than
Eaton, the ground being diversified and the trees larger.
The deer also were larger ; a servant told us there were fif
teen hundred of them. The hall, which is a plain building,
;vas undergoing repairs.

We separated here for a few days, my friends wishing to

THOROUGH DRAINING. 203

see more of Welsh scenery, and going to the vale of Llan-
gollen (pronounced Langothlan), while I had a letter I wished
to deliver in another direction.

The park was covered with lines of recently-made under-
drains, and I hunted over it in hopes to find men at work, that
I might see the manner in which they were constructed.
Going to a pretty checkered timber-house to make inquiries, I
was so fortunate as to meet the foreman of the draining op
erations, Mr. Green, an intelligent Warwickshire man, who
obligingly took me to a field a mile or two distant, where he
had thirty men at work. The soil was a gravelly loam, with
a little heavier subsoil. The drums were laid twenty-seven
feet apart, and dug three feet deep (ordinarily), and one foot
wide from top to bottom ; in the middle of the bottom a
groove was cut for the pipe, so the top of it would be three
feet from the surface. No narrow tools were used, except to
cut the grooves for the pipe. The foreman said that though
a man could work to much better advantage in a wider-
mouthed drain, the extra dirt to be moved compensated for
it, and made this plan the cheapest.

I thought then, and since, until I came to try it in gravelly
and stony land, that the work might be done much more
rapidly with the long, narrow tools described by Mr. Dela-
field,* making the bottom of the drain only of the width of
the pipe intended to be laid ; but I find these can only be
used to advantage in free ground. The method here described
is probably the best for draining soils, where many stones
larger than a hen's egg are to be met with.

Cylindrical pipes, of either one or one and a half inch
bore, were laid in the grooves at the bottom of the drain ;
mllars, connecting them, were only used in the loosest soils.

* Transactions N. T. State Agricultural S&c., 1848, p. 232. • ;

204 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

The mains were laid one foot deeper than the collecting drains,
and the pipes in them were from two to six inches bore. No
series of drains were run more than seventy yards in length
without a main, and all the mains emptied into an open ditch
at the lowest side of the field, which was made deep enough
to allow of a drop of one foot from the mouths of the pipes.
Where such a ditch was likely to gully, the sides were sloped
and turfed.

I will hereafter give a chapter on the process of thorough
draining in its most approved British methods, with estimates
of cost, and a discussion of ho\v far it may be profitably em
ployed in the United States. For Great Britain, it is the
most important agricultural improvement ever made, and it
is hardly absurd to assert that its general introduction during
the last ten years has saved England from a revolution ; cer
tainly it is of the greatest political and social consequence to
her ; I trust, therefore, even my non-agricultural readers will
have some interest in the subject.

The wages of the men employed at this wrork averaged
$2.25 a week ; boys, 16 cents a day.

Mr. Green sent a lad to guide me across the park to the
road I wished to take — a remarkably bright, amiable boy,
with whom I had a pleasant talk as he led me on by the most
charming way, among the old oaks, and through herds of
deer. He could read and write, and knew something of ge
ography and arithmetic, having been instructed by the curate
of Ruabon, whom he seemed to have much loved. (I think he
had died lately.) He also spoke kindly of Sir Watkins and
his lady, to whom his father was shepherd, and said that all
their servants and poor people were much attached to them.
Passing near the hall, I asked for some water, and he took
me into one of the servants' cottages to get it. There was an
old woman rocking a cradle, and a young woman ironing

THE GOOD LANDLORD. 205

linen, both very neatly dressed, the furniture plain and mea
gre, but every thing clean, and an appearance of a good deal
of comfort about the room.

While the repairs were being made upon the hall, the
family lived in a cottage completely embowered among trees
and shrubs, which we afterwards passed, and I had the honour
of catching a glimpse, through the foliage, of a form in a grey
coat, which, I was assured, was the good Sir Watkins himself.

Soon after leaving the park, I crossed the Esk by a very
high stone arch, built "by Sir Watkins," as some ragged
boys and girls, who were employed in collecting for manure
the horsedung that dropped upon the road, informed me, and
this was the last I heard of Sir Watkins.

18

206 ^V AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXVI.

STONE HOUSES. IVY. VIRGINIA CREEPER. A VISIT TO A AYKLSH HORSE-FAIR.

ENGLISH VEHICLES. AGRICULTURAL NOTES. HORSES. BREEDS OF CAT
TLE. HEREFORDS, WELSH, AND SMUTHY PATES. CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE.

DRESS. POWIS PARK.

Shrewsbury, June 1th.

F HAVE been visiting a gentleman to whom I was intro-
L duced by Prof. Norton. His residence is on the east
border of Wales, amidst very beautiful scenery of round-
topped hills, and deep, verdant, genial dells. He has the
superintendence of a large number of mines of coal and metals,
and of several agricultural estates, the extent of which may
be imagined from the fact, that he is preparing to thorough-
drain 5000 acres next winter. He is building a tileery, and
will employ seven engineers, each with two foremen to oversee
the workmen. The cost, it is estimated, will be from $23 to
$25 an acre ; drains, seventeen feet apart and three feet deep.
The house is of stone, and is covered with ivy, which I
mention that I may contradict a common report that ivy
upon the wall of a house makes it damp. The contrary, I have
no doubt, is the fact. The ivy-leaves fall one over another,
shedding off the rain like shingles ; and it is well ascertained
that in a long storm the inside walls of a house, or of those
rooms in it which are protected by the ivy, are much less damp
than those not so shielded. It is also generally supposed in
America that stone houses are much damper than wood. This

STONE B UILDING-S. —I VY.

207

may be so with some kinds of porous stone, but I can testify
from my own experience that it is not so with others. A
slight furring out on the inside, and lath and plaster, will
in all cases remove this objection to any stone. A good
stone house is warmer in winter, cooler in summer,* equally
dry and healthful, and, if built in convenient and appro
priate style, every way much more satisfactory and comfort
able than our common, slight-framed buildings. As for the
ivy, I think it is one of the most beautiful things God has

given us, and the man who can and does not let it beautify
his habitation, is sinfully ungrateful. It is perfectly hardy, and
grows luxuriously on the north side of a house or wall in
the climate of New York. (My experience is with the Irish
iv7-)

The cut represents the schoolmaster's house at Eccleston,

* In a late rapid change of weather, the thermometer on the outside of
my house rose in 18 hours from 19° to 35°, while that within the walls re
mained stationary at 20°, not rising even one degree !

208 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

and is inserted here to show the great beauty given by the
creeper to that part of the house which it has grown upon,
contrasted, as it is, with the bare wall of the modern addition.
The vine, in this case, is our Virginian creeper (ampclopsis
quinquefolia, the common five-leaved vine of our fences — not
the poison ity)- a very beautiful plant certainly, and growing
more rapidly than the European ivy, but having this im
measurable disadvantage, that it is not evergreen.

The day after I reached here, my host had occasion to go
to a horse-fair at Welsh Pool, a place some twenty miles dis
tant, and invited me to accompany him. We went in a dog
cart, a kind of heavy gig, which here takes the place of our
light boat-wagon. It is a box (large enough to hold a dog
or two in driving to sporting ground), hung low, between two
small, heavy wheels, with a seat on the top of it for two, look
ing forward, and sometimes another in which two more can
sit looking backward. On the back, to exempt it from the
tax upon more luxurious vehicles, is painted the owner's name,
business, and place of residence, thus: "John Brown, Farmer,
Owestry, Shrops." All the humbler class of carriages are
thus marked here, including farm carts.

The landscapes were agreeable in the country we passed
through, but the farming in much of it no better than in some
parts of the Connecticut valley. Coarse, rushy grass, indi
cating the need of draining, grew in much of the meadow
land, as I think it does to the exclusion of more valuable
grasses in land that is ordinarily dryer than such as would
spontaneously produce it in America. The buildings along
the road were such as I have previously described ; but I saw
one old shackling board barn which, but for its thatched roof,
would have looked very home-like.

Welsh Pool is a small compact town (population 5,000)
with a market-house, and a single small church, on the towei

WELSH CHARACTER.— RUSTIC DRESS. 209

of which a union-jack was hoisted, and within which there is
a peal of three bells, that continually, all day long, did ring
most unmusically; there were booths in the main street,
in which women sold dry goods, hosiery, pottery, &c. In
another street horses were paraded, and in other places cows
and swine.

There was present a considerable crowd of the country
people, which I observed carefully. I verily believe if five
hundred of the common class of farmers and farm-labouring
men, such as would have come together on similar business
— say from all parts of Litchfield county in Connecticut — had
been introduced among them, I should not have known it,
except from some peculiarities of dress. I think our farmers,
and particularly our labourers, would have been dressed up
a little nearer the town fashions, and would have seemed a
little more wide awake, perhaps, and that's all. I not only
saw no drunkenness, except a very few solitary cases late in
the day, no rioting, though there were some policemen
present, but no gayety ; every body wore a sober business
face, very New England like.

The small farmers and labouring men all wore leggins,
buttoning from the knee to the ankle ; heavy hob-nailed
shoes ; little, low, narrow-brimmed, round-topped felt hats,
and frocks of linen, blue or wrhite in colour, the skirts reach
ing below the knee, very short waists, a kind of broad ep
aulette, or cape, gathered in, boddice fashion, before and be
hind, loose shirt-like sleeves, and the whole profusely covered
with needle-work. I suppose this is the original smock-frock.
An uglier garment could not well be contrived, for it makes
every man who wears it appear to have a spare, pinched-up.
narrow-chested, hump-backed figure. The women generally
wore printed calico jackets, gathered at the waist, with a few
inches only of skirt, and blue or grey worsted stuff petti-

18*

210 £N AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

coats, fairing to within a few inches of the ankle — a pictu
resque, comfortable, and serviceable habit, making them
appear more as n" they were accustomed to walk and to work,
and were not ashamed of it, than women generally do. Most
incongruously, as a topping off to this sensible costume, a
number of women had crowded their heads into that ultima
thule of absurd invention, a stiff, narrow-brimmed, high-
crowned, cylindrical fur hat. What they did with their hair,
and how they managed to keep the thing on their heads, I
cannot explain. I assert that they did do it, notwithstanding
something of a breeze, as well as the most practised man,
and without showing evidence of any particular suffering.

There were, perhaps, a hundred horses offered for sale ;
among them one pair only of fine carriage-horses, one large
and fine thorough bred cart-horse, and a few pretty ponies.
All the rest were very ordinary stout working-horses, much
like our Pennsylvania horses. The average price of them
was but a trifle over $100, about what they would bring at
New York.

There were still fewer cattle, and they were all comprised
in three breeds and their intermixtures : first, Hereford, which
predominated ; second, Welsh, small, low, black beasts, with
large heads and white faces, black muzzles and long spread
ing horns ; third, Smutty pates, an old Welsh breed hardly to
be found in purity now. They are longer and somewhat
larger than Devons, a little lighter red in colour, with invari
ably black or brindle faces. They were generally in fair
condition, tolerable feelers, and would cut up particularly
heavy in their hind quarters. A Smithfield man told me that
he thought a cross of this breed with the Hereford made the
best beef in the world.

After dining with a number of gentlemen, most of whom
had come from a distance to attend the fair, I took a walk

A REPULSE.— THE MASTIFF. 211

out into the country about the town. The only object of
interest that I remember was "Powis Castle," the seat of a
nobleman, finely situated in a picturesque, mountain-side park.
The castle itself is upon a spur of the mountain and is entirely
hidden among fine evergreen trees. I had toiled up to within
about ten feet of the edge of the plateau upon which it stands,
when I heard a low deep growl, and looking up saw above me
a great dog asking me, with bristling back, curling fangs, and
fierce grinning teeth, what business I had to be there. Con
sidering that I had no right to be visiting the residence of a
gentleman who was a stranger to me unless I had some busi
ness with him, and concluding upon short reflection that in
deed I had none, I determined upon a retrograde movement,
and taking care not to attempt even to apologize to his dog-
ship for the intrusion until I had brought a few trees between
us, I found that he backed down just about as fast as I did, so
that at a distance of half a dozen rods he appeared a hand
some, smooth, generous-natured mastiff, and I began to con
sider whether the earl would not probably be pleased to have
an intelligent stranger see the beauty of his castle ; but the
moment I stopped, the dog's lips began to part and his back to
rise again, and I concluded that whatever the earl's wishes
might be, I could not make it convenient just then to accom
modate him in that way, and returned forthwith to the village.
The true mastiff is a somewhat rare dog in England, and I
dos \ think that I ever saw one in America. He is very large
an-* powerful, and smooth haired.

212 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ENGLISH VEHICLES. A FEUDAL CASTLE AND MODERN ARISTOCRATIC MANSION

ARISTOCRACY IN 1850. PRIMOGENITURE. DEMOCRATIC TENDENCY OF

POLITICAL SENTIMENTS. DISPOSITION TOWARDS THE UNITED STATES.

COMBATIVENESS. SLAVERY.

JAND C., after a tramp among the mountains of Wales,
• which they have much enjoyed, reached the village nearest
to where I was visiting last night. This morning a party was

made with us to visit Castle. We were driven in n

" Welsh car," which is much the same kind of vehicle as the
two-wheeled hackney cabs that a few years ago filled the
streets of New York, and then suddenly and mysteriously
disappeared. Two-wheeled vehicles are " all the go" in En
gland. They are excessively heavy and cumbrous compared
with ours, the wheels much less in diameter, and they must
run much harder, and yet, over these magnificent roads, they
can load them much more heavily.

The castle is on high ground, in the midst of the finest
park and largest trees we have seen. The moat is filled up,
and there are a few large modern windows in the upper part,
otherwise it differs but little probably from what it appeared
in the time of the crusaders. The whole structure is in the
form of a square on the ground, with four low round towers
at the corners, and a spacious court-yard in the centre. The
entrance is by a great arched gateway, over which the old
portcullis still hangs.

ARISTOCRATIC LUXURY. 213

We were kindly shown through all its parts, including
much not ordinarily exhibited to strangers, and I confess that
I was not more interested in those parts which were its pecu
liar features as a feudal stronghold, than in those that dis
played the sumptuous taste, luxury, and splendour of a
modern aristocratic mansion. The state apartments were
truly palatial, and their garniture of paintings, sculpture,
bijoutry, furniture, and upholstery, magnificent and delightful
to the eye, beyond any conception I had previously had of
such things. Let no one say it will be soon reproduced, if it
is not already excelled, in the mansions of our merchant-
princes in America. Excelled it may be, but no such effect
can be reproduced or furnished at once to the order of taste
and wealth, for it is the result of generations of taste and
wealth. There was in all, never a marvellous thing, or one
that demanded especial attention, or that proclaimed in itself
great costliness ; and while nothing seemed new, though much
was modern, most of the old things were of such materials,
and so fashioned, that age was of no account, and not a word
was said by them of fleeting time. The tone of all— yes, the
tone— musical to all who entered, was, Be quiet and comfort
able, move slowly and enjoy what is nearest to you without
straining your eyes or your admiration ;— nothing to excite
curiosity or astonishment, only quiet esthetic contemplation
and calm satisfaction.

I liked it, liked to be in it, and thought that if I had come
honestly to the inheritance of it, I could abandon myself to a
few months living in the way of it with a good deal of heart.
But in the first breath of this day-dreaming I was interrupted
by the question, Is it right and best that this should be for
the few, the very few of us, when for many of the rest of us
there must be but bare walls, tile floors and every thing
besides harshly screaming, scrabble for life 1 This question""

214 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

again, was immediately shoved aside unanswered "by another,
whether in this nineteenth century of the carpenter's son,
and first of vulgar, whistling, snorting, roaring locomotives,
new-world steamers, and submarine electric telegraphs ;
penny newspapers, state free-schools, and mechanic's lyce-
urns, this still soft atmosphere of elegant longevity was ex
actly the most favourable for the production of thorough,
sound, influential manhood, and especially for the growth
of the right sort of legislators and lawgivers for the peo-
pie.

It seems certainly that it would be hard for a man whose
mind has been mainly formed and habited in the midst of
this abundance of quiet, and beauty, and pleasantness, tc
rightly understand and judiciously work for the wants of
those whose "native air" is as different from this as is that
of another planet. Especially hard must it be to look witl
perfect honesty and appreciating candour upon principles
ideas, measures that are utterly discordant with, and threater
to interrupt, this costly nursery song to which his philosophy
religion, and habits have been studiously harmonized.

Hard, by the way, very hard sometimes, must be the
trial of a younger son in one of these families. One son only
is the real son, to sympathize with and make his own, his
father's interests, arrangements, and hopes ; the others are
but hangers-on for a time, and while so must grow accus
tomed to all this beauty and splendour — must be enhomea
to it, and then they are thrust out and return only as inferior?
or as guests.

Strange ! I find this monstrous primogeniture seems nat
ural and Heaven-inspired law to Englishmen. I can conceive
how, in its origin, it might have been so — in the patriarchal
state, where it was the general direction of the common in
heritance, rather than the inheritance itself, that was taken b\

DEMOCRATIC TENDENCY. 215

the eldest of each succeeding generation ; but in modern civ
ilized society, with its constant re-familization, and in En
gland especially, where immediate isolated domiciliation of
every newly-wedded pair is deemed essential to harmony
and happiness, it seems to me more naturally abhorrent and
wrong than polygamy or chattel-slavery.

Doubtless, if you take it up as a matter to be reasoned
upon, there is much to be said for it, as there is for slavery,
or, among the Turks, for extra wiveing, I suppose ;— and first, I
fully appreciate that without it, could in no way be sustained
such noble buildings and grounds — national banner-bearers
of dignity — schools of art and systematic encouragement of
art, and perhaps I should add, systematic, enterprising ag
ricultural improvements, such as this of five thousand acres
thorough-drained in the best manner, by the conviction of its
profit in one man's brain instead of fifty men's, as it must be
with us. And finally, it may be that for some few, there is
sustained by it a local home, a family nucleus, more perma
nently than it can be with us.

But there is every thing to be said against it, too, that
there is against an aristocratical government and society, for
the customs of primogeniture and entail are in fact the basis
of aristocracy. And between an aristocratical government
and society, with all its dignities, and amenities, and refine
ments, and a democracy with all its dangers, and annoy
ances, and humiliations, I do not believe that any man that
has had fair observation of our two countries, and who is not
utterly faithless in God and man, a thorough coward, or
whose judgment ys not shamefully warped by prejudice, habit,
or selfishness, can hesitate a moment. I think that few En-
glishmen, few even of the English nobility, and no English
statesman, would advise us to return to their system. I think
that most of them would be sorry to believe that England

216 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

herself would fail of being a democratic nation a hundred
years hence.

This opinion has been strengthened by the further ac
quaintance I have had with Englishmen. I have little doubt
that the majority of those who ultimately control the British
government, do wish and purpose, as fast as it may be expe
dient, to extend the elective franchise until it shall become
universal male adult suffrage. That they do not do this as
fast as we should think expedient, is probably to be explained
by the fact that they have not yet experienced, and cannot
see with sufficient faith, how very rapidly, in God's provi
dence, the self-governing strength and discernment of a man
is stimulated and increased by the freedom to exercise it.
And yet one would think that it was on this that they de
pended alone, so entirely indifferent are they in general to
the educational preparation of their subject class to enter the
sovereign class.

It may be proper for me here to record my observation
of the general disposition of the English people towards our
nation, which I confess I did not find to be exactly what I had
anticipated, and which I think must be generally much mis
conceived in the United States.

There is a certain class of the English, conservative whigs
more than tories, as I met them, that look upon the United
States people as a nation of vulgar, blustering, impertinent,
rowdy radicals ; very much as a certain set with us look up
on the young mechanics and butcher-boys of the town —
troublesome, dangerous, and very " low," but who are neces
sary to put out fires, and whose votes are of value at elec
tions, and whom it therefore pays to make some occasional
show of respect to, and it is best to keep on civil terms with.
A considerable number of snobbish, pretending, awkwardly

FEELING- TOWARDS THE UNITED STATES. 217

positioned, sub-aristocratic, super-sensible people, that swear
by the Times, and have taken their cue from Trollope, follow
in their wake. But the great mass of the educated classes
regard us very differently ; not with unqualified respect and
unalloyed admiration, but much as we of the Atlantic States
regard our own California — a wild, dare-devil, younger
brother, with some most dangerpus and reprehensible habits,
and some most noble qualities, a capital fellow, in fact, if he
would but have done sowing his wild oats.

This may be well enough understood in the United States,
but further, there is not in the English people, so far as I
have seen them, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, high or
low, the slighest soreness or rancorous feeling on account of
our separation from them, or our war of separation. Of our
success as a republic many of their aristocratic politicians
are no doubt jealous ; and many having naval and military
tastes, do not feel quite satisfied to hear our everlasting boast
ing about the last war, and would like to have another round or
two with us to satisfy themselves that they know how to fight
'a ship, if they don't know how to build her, as well as we.
There is also a party of " aged women of both sexes," that
worship the ghost of that old fool, " the good king George,"
who, I suppose, look upon us with unaffected horror, as they
do equally upon their own dissenters and liberals. Yet it
never happened to me, though I met and conversed freely
with all classes, except the noble, while I was in England, to
encounter the first man who did not think that we did exactly
right, or who was sorry that we succeeded as we did in de
claring and maintaining our independence.

The truth is that, at that time, the great mass of thinking
men in England were much of that opinion. Our war was
with king George and his cabinet, not with the people of En
gland, and if they did reluctantly sustain the foolish measures

19

218 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

of the king, it was precisely as our Whigs, who were opposed
to the measures that led to the war with Mexico, sustained,
with money and with blood, that war when it did come. Jt
is a remarkable thing, that I have noticed that there are many
men in England who were born at the time of, or shortly
subsequent to our revolutionary war, who are named after
the American heroes of that war, Washington, Jefferson, and
Franklin.

This and other circumstances, early in my visit to En
gland, made me reflect that the hostile feeling of the people
had never been deeply engaged against us, while it soon be
came also evident that very much less of so much hostility as
they once had towards us, had descended to the present, than
we are in the habit of calculating for.

The reason of the great difference in this respect of the
popular feeling in the two countries is evident, though it often
extremely puzzles and offends a liberal Englishman who has
been in the habit of looking with the greatest feeling of fra
ternity towards the people of the United States, to find him
self when he comes among them expected in all his opinions
and feelings to be either a traitor to his own country or an
enemy of ours. It is easily explained however.

There is a love of hostility in our nature that wants some
object to direct itself towards. Seventy years ago, and forty
years ago, that object to us as a nation was the kingdom of
Great Britain. No other object until within a few years has
been offered to us to weaken that traditional hostility. All
our military and naval glory, the most blazing, though by no
means the most valuable, jewels of our national pride, have
been our victories in war with Great Britain. Almost our
only national holidays have been in a great part exultations
over our successful hostilities with Great Britain. " The ene
my" and " the British," came to me from my fighting grand-

THE AMERICAN RE VOL UTION. 219

father as synonymous terms. When I was a child I never
saw an Englishman but I was on my guard against him as a
spy, and would look behind the fences to see that there was
no ambuscade of red-coats. I made secret coverts about the
house, so that when they came to sack and burn it, and take
our women and children and household gods into captivity, I
could lay in wait to rescue them. In our school-boy games
the beaten party was always called "British" (the term
" Britisher" I never saw except in a British book or heard ex
cept in England). If a law was odious it was termed a
British law ; if a man was odious he was called an " old Tory ;"
and it has been with us a common piece of blackguardism till
within a short time, if not now, to speak of those of an oppo
sing party as under British influence.

The war had been with us a war of the people ; not a
woman as she sipped her tea but imbibed hatred to the
taxing British, and suckled her offspring with its nourish
ment ; not a man of spunk in the country but was hand to
hand fighting with the British, and teaching his sons never to
yield to them.

In England, on the other hand, comparatively few of
the people knew or cared at all about the war ; even the
soldiers engaged in it were in considerable numbers mere
hirelings from another people, whom the true English would
have rather seen whipped than not, so far as they had any
national feeling about it. Their hostile feeling was even then
more directed towards France than towards America ; and
now, I do not believe there is one in a thousand of the people
of England that has the slightest feeling of hostility towards
us, descending or inherited, from that time. It was much so
again in the later war. England was at war with half the
world in those days, and if a general disposition of enmity
towards us had been at all aroused in the course of it, all

220 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

recollection of it was lost in the fiercer wars with other na
tions that immediately followed. I doubt if one-half the
voters of England could tell the name of a single ship en
gaged in the war of 1812 ; whether it was General Hull or
Commodore Hull that was heroized in it ; whether, in the
assault upon New Orleans or Washington, it was that their
forces were successful ; or whether, finally, they carried or
lost the diplomatic point for which their soldiers and sailors
had been set to fighting.

Even if the people of England could remember us equally
among other important nations as their enemy, it would be
a very different feeling towards us that it would lead to, from
the remembrance of us as their old and only enemy ; so that
not only was our original share of the hostile feeling of the
people of England a very small one, being principally con
fined to the king and his sycophants, and the idolaters of the
divine right, but the pugnacious element in the nature of an
Englishman, of our day, is directed by much more vivid
remembrances towards France, or Spain, or Germany, than
towards us.

Nothing can be more friendly than the general disposition
•of the English people at present towards us. The liberals, espe
cially, have great respect for us, and look upon us as their allies
against the world of injustice, oppression, and bigotry. (Just
now the free-traders, however, seem to be a little miffed with us
because we have not gone over stock and fluke all at once to per
fect reciprocity with them, and the Tories are consequently our
greatest flatterers.) The uneducated, common people in gen
eral know no difference between America and Russia, but the
more intelligent of the working classes are often very fairly
informed with regard to our country, and are our most sin
cere admirers and friends. All the more sober and religious
people have a great horror of our slavery and of the occasional

THE RADICALS AND SLAVERY. 221

Lynch-law performances on our western border, of which they
always get the first and darkest reports, and none of the cor
rections and extenuating circumstances that come in later
and cooler despatches. On slavery they are usually greatly
misinformed, and view it only as an unmitigated and wholly
inexcusable wrong, injustice, and barbarous tyranny for which
all Americans are equally responsible, and all equally con-
demnable, and with regard to which all are to be held respon
sible, and everlastingly to be scolded at (except a few mar
tyrs, called abolitionists, that obtain a precarious livelihood
through their contributions). The Chartists and Radicals,
too, are generally down very hard upon an American about
slavery, and are commonly grossly misinformed about it. I
wish our Southern brethren would send a few lecturers upon
the subject to England; the abolitionists have it all their own
way there now, and take advantage of it to give the ignorant
people ideas about our country which it is very desirable
should be contradicted. I wish especially that they could
make them comprehend how it is that we at the north have
nothing to do with their peculiar institution, and are not to
be expected to carry pistols and bowie-knives and fight every
body that chooses to attack it all over the world. This is
no more nor less than a great many people in some parts of
England seem to expect, when they are told that one is an
American, and it comes sometimes to be a regular bore to a
traveller to have to disappoint them. There is, in truth, a
hundred times more hard feeling in England towards Amer
ica from this cause, than from all others, and it is unfortu
nately strongest with the most earnestly republican and radi
cally democratic of her citizens.

Within this year or two there has been much more interest
with regard to America among all classes in England than
previously, more hope and more fear of us than ever before.

19*

222 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

The works of our best authors — Irving, Emerson, Bancroft, '
Bryant, Channing, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Whittier — are,
many of them, as well known and as generally read in En
gland as in America. The introduction of American provi
sions, cutting under the native products, has brought even the
farmers to scowlingly glance at us, and as, just at this time,
most of them are forced to be thinking of emigration for
themselves or their children, they are generally disposed to
honestly inquire about us. Among all making inquiries of
me, I never found one to whom our form of government
was an objection. Finally, the present of food which, in the
famine, we sent to Ireland — a most mean portion out of our
plenty and superabundance to dole out to an actual STARVING
neighbour, a most unworthy expression of our Christian chari
ty and brotherly regard for her, it has always seemed to me,
but such as it was — obtained for us not only in Ireland, but
all through Great Britain, a strange degree of a sort of affec
tionate respect, not altogether unmingled with jealousy and
soreness because they cannot pay it back.

Altogether, considering the exceedingly queer company
English travellers seem usually to keep when in the United
States, and the atrocious caricatures in which, with few excep
tions, they have represented our manners and customs to their
countrymen, I was surprised at the general respect and the
degree of correct appreciation of us that I commonly found.
There is no country not covered by a British flag in the world,
that the British of 1850 have any thing like the degree of
sympathy with, and affection for, that they have for the United
States.

On the other hand, it is happily evident, that since our
war with Mexico has given us a new military glory, it has
also diverted our national combativeness, in a degree, from
our old enemy, and that since the English liberals in so many

OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE. 223

ways, if not very valuable, at least as much so as ours, have
shown their sympathy and desire to assist our common breth
ren struggling for freedom on the Continent ; since the lynch
ing of the Butcher of Austria by the beer-men of Bankside,
and the general exultation of the British people over it ; since
the general intercommunication between the countries has been
made so much more frequent and speedy, and cheaper than it
used to be, the disposition of our people towards the British
has been much less suspicious, guarded, and quarrelsome than
it very naturally, if not very reasonably, was, until within a
few years.

God grant that every tie grow constantly tighter that binds
us together to peace, and to mutual assistance and co-labour —
for justice, for freedom, for the salvation of the world. If there
is any body who does not heartily say Amen to this, I com
mend him to Elihu Burritt ; and all who do, I call upon, from
him, to go to work for OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE — so shall our
prayer not fail. (See Appendix, B.)

224 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PAINTINGS. — CROMWELL. — PASTORAL SHIPS. FAMILY PORTRAITS AND DIS
TANT RELATIONS. FAMILY APARTMENTS. PERSONAL CLEANLINESS. THB

WREKIN.

THE pictures which most interested me were portraits of
Cromwell and Charles, one of Rubens, two of very beau
tiful women of the family, by Sir Peter Lely, a female face by
Carlo Dolci, and two or three little things by Rubens. The
portrait of Cromwell appears as if he might have sat for it, as,
if I remember rightly, is asserted. It looks like one's idea
of him, but not in the best light of his character — a melan
choly, sour, deep, stern face.

There is a large landscape representing a brook tumbling
over a rock into the sea, on which is a fleet of shipping. The
story is, that it was painted by a French artist on a visit here,
and when first exhibited had, in place of the sea, a broad

meadow through which the brook meandered. Lady

suggested that a few sheep on the broad green ground of the
meadow would be a pleasing addition. " Sheeps ! mi lady V
said the chagrined artist, "suppose you better like it with
sheeps, I shall make de sheeps :" and so he painted a blue
sea over the green meadow, and abruptly embouched his

brook into it, that he might appropriately gratify Lady *'s

maritime penchant.

Among the family portraits one was shown having a title

INTERIOR DECORATIONS. 225

that sounded familiarly to us, and after a moment's thought
we both remembered it to be that of the single nobleman
whom an antiquarian friend had informed us that our family
had been, long before its emigration with the Plymouth Pil
grims, by marriage connected with. If it had been a Scotch
castle, we might perhaps have felt ourselves a good deal more
at home in consequence. It was an odd coincidence, and
made us realize the relationship of our democracy even to
aristocratic England quite vividly.*

In consideration of this I think I may say a few words of
the private apartments of the family, through nearly all which,
apparently, we were shown. They were comparatively small,
not larger, or more numerous, or probably as expensively fur
nished as those of many of our wealthy New York mercantile
families ; but some of them were very delightful, and would
be most tempting of covetousness to a man of domestic tastes
or to a lover of art or- of literary ease. Generally there was
most exquisite taste evident in colours and arrangements and
forms of furniture, and there were proofs of high artistic skill
in some members of the family, as well as a general love and
appreciation of the beautiful and the excellent. Some of the
rooms were painted in very high colours, deep blue and
scarlet and gold, and in bizarre figures and lines. I hardly
could tell how it would please me if I were accustomed to it,
but I did not much admire it at first sight ; it did not seem
English or home-like. It is just the thing for New York
though, and I have no doubt you'll soon see the fashion in
troduced there, and dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, counting-
rooms, and steamboat state-rooms all equally flaring.

* In speaking of our relationship as a nation to England, I do not mean
to ignore our relationship also to other nations. I think Mr. Eobinson
has very conclusively proved that, taking the people of the United States
altogether, the majority are by no means of Anglo-Saxon origin.

226 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms were furnished to
look exceedingly cosy and comfortable, but there was nothing
very remarkable about them, except, perhaps, the immense
preparation made for washing the person. I confess if I had
been quartered in one of them, I should have needed all my
Yankee capabilities to guess in what way I could make a good
use of it all.

There is a story told of two members of our legislature
that came together from " the rural districts," and were fellow-
lodgers. One of them was rather mortified by the rough ap
pearance of his companion who was of the " bone-and-sinew"
sort, and by way of opening a conversation in which he could
give him a few hints, complained of the necessity which a
Representative was under to pay so much for " washing."
" How often do you shift 1" said the Hon. Simon Pure.
" Why, of course I have to change my linen every day," he
answered. " You do ?" responded his unabashed friend.
" Why, what an awful dirty man you must be ! I can always
make mine last a week."

Among the other bedrooms there were two with their beds
which had been occupied by kings. I do not recollect any
thing peculiar in their appearance.

The ball-room, or ancient banqueting-room, was a grand
hall (120 feet long, I should think), with a good deal of inter
esting old furniture, armour, relics, &c. It also contained bil
liard-tables, and other conveniences for in-door exercise. A
secret door, cut through the old oak wainscot which lined its
wall, admitted us to the private apartments.

We peeped into a kind of broad well into which prisoners
used to be lowered like butter for safe keeping, and ascended
to the battlements of one of the towers, from which there is a
very extensive and beautiful view, extending it is said into
sixteen counties. A gauzy blue swelling on the horizon was

A BORDER FORTRESS. 227

pointed to as the Wrekin, a high mountain — the highest
in midland England ; hence the generous old toast, " To all
around the Wrekin." We were let out through a narrow
postern, which gave us an opportunity to see the thickness of
the wall : it was ten feet, and in some parts it was said to be
sixteen, — of solid stone and mortar. The castle was a border
fortress of Wales, on the dyke or ancient military wall between
that country and England, remains of which can be seen run
ning each way from it. It has withstood many sieges, the
last by Cromwell, the effect of whose artillery upon it is
largely manifest within the court. A decree of the long par
liament is on record ordering it to be razed to the ground.

228 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXIX.

VISIT TO A FARM. FARM-HOUSE AND FARMERY. FATTING CATTLE. SHEEP,

VETCHES. — STOCK YARD. — STEAM THRESHING. TURNIP SOWING. EX
CELLENT WORK. TRAM ROAD. WAGES.

IN the afternoon we were taken to visit a farmer who was
considered about the best in the district (Shropshire). The
house was in the middle of a farm of three hundred acres, and
was approached by a narrow lane ; there were no grounds but
a little court yard, with a few trees in it, in front of the house,
which was a snug, two-story, plain brick building.

On entering, we found the farmer, a stout elderly man,
sitting alone at a dinner-table, on which were dishes of fruit
and decanters. He insisted on our joining him, and we were
obliged to sit some time with him over his wine while he
talked of free-trade and questioned us how low we could afford
to send wheat from America, and how large the supply was
likely to be.

He then led us into the farmery, which was close by the
house, the rear door almost opening into a cattle yard. I men
tion this as it would be considered extraordinary for an Ameri
can gentleman who could afford wines at his dinner, to be con
tent with such an arrangement. There was not the least
attempt at ornament anywhere to be seen, beyond the few
trees and rose-bushes in the enclosure of a rod or two., in front
of the house : not the least regard had been had to beauty ex-

>

A SHROPSHIRE FARMERY. 229

cept the beauty of fitness, but every thing was neat, useful,
well ordered, and thoroughly made of the best material — the
barns, stables, and out-buildings of hewn stone, with slated
roofs, grout floors, and iron fixtures. The cattle stables were
roomy, well ventilated and drained, their mangers of stone
and iron ; fastenings, sliding chains ; food, fresh-cut vetches,
and the cattle standing knee deep in straw.

The fatting cattle were the finest lot I ever saw, notwith
standing the forty finest cows that had been wintered had been
sold within a fortnight. These forty had been fattened on ruta
baga and oil-cake, and their average weight was over 10 cwt.,
some of them weighing over 12 cwt. They were mostly short
horns. Those remaining were mostly Hereford bullocks.

Sheep were fatting on a field of heavy vetches : Cheviots
and Leicesters, and crosses of these breeds.

The VETCH is a plant in appearance something like a dwarf
pea ; it is sown in the autumn upon wheat stubble, grows very
rapidly, and at this season gives a fine supply of green food,
when it is very valuable. It requires a rich, clean soil, but
grows well on clay lands. I think it has not been found to
succeed well in the United States.

In the rear of the barns was a yard half filled with very
large and beautifully made-up stacks of hay, wheat, oats, and
peas. The hay was of rye-grass, a much finer (smaller) sort
than our timothy. The peas were thatched with wheat-straw.
The grain stacks were very beautiful, several of them
stood three years, and could not be distinguished from tho
made last year. The butts of the straw had been all turn/a
over at regular distances, those of one tier to the top of t/at
below it, and driven in, so the stack appeared precisely f> if
it had been served with straw-rope, and I supposed that ^had
been, until I was told. The threshing of the farm is d/ne by
Bteam, the engine being in the stack-yard, the furnac/under-

20

230 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

ground, and the smoke and sparks being carried off by a
subterranean flue to a tall chimney a hundred yards distant.
(I have seen a hundred steam-engines in stackyards since,
without this precaution, and never heard of a fire occasioned
by the practice.)

The grain on the farm had all been sowed in drills. The
proprietor said that if he could be sure of having the seed
perfectly distributed, he should prefer broad-cast sowing (i. e.,
as well as a first-rate sower could distribute it in a perfectly
calm day). The wheat was the strongest we have ' yet seen,
and of remarkably equal height, and uniform dark colour. The
ground was almost wholly free from weeds, and the wheat
was not expected to be hoed.

We found fourteen men engaged in preparing a field for tur
nips : opening drills with plough, carting dung, which had been
heaped up, turned, and made fine, distributing it along the drills,
ploughs covering it immediately, and forming ridges 27 inches
apart over it ; after all, a peculiar iron-roller, formed so as to
fit the ridges and furrows, followed, leaving the field precisely
like a fluted collar. The ridges were as straight as the lines
of a printed page ; and any inequality, to the height of half an
inch, was removed by the equal pressing of the roller. A
more perfect piece of work could not be conceived of. Seed
(3 Ibs. to the acre) will be sown immediately on the ridges,
by a machine opening, dropping, closing, and rolling six drills
at once. The field is thorough-drained (as is all the farm,
ftree feet deep) and sub-soil ploughed.

I saw no farming that pleased me better than this in all
England. It was no gentleman or school fanning, but was
directed by an old man, all his life a fanner, on a leased farm,
without the least thought of taste or fancy to be gratified, but
with an eye single to quick profit ; with a prejudice against
" high farming," indeed, because it is advised by the free-tra-

1

FARM-ROAD.— WAGES. 231

ders as a remedy for low prices. He declared no money was
to be made by farming : do his best, he could not pay his
rent and leave himself a profit under the present prices. He
had been holding on to his wheat for three years in hopes of
a rise, but now despaired of it, except the protective policy
was returned to.

There was a coal mine and lime-kiln on the farm, and a
tram-road from it to the railroad about two miles distant. A
tram-road is a narrow track of wooden rails, on which cars
are moved by stationary power or horses. On extensive
farms they might be advantageously made use of. A road
running through the barns and out-buildings of a farmstead,
on which straw, feed, dung, &c., could be easily moved by
hand, would cost but little, and often afford a great saving of
labour.

The fences were all of hawthorn, low, and close-trimmed.

The farm servants had from $65 to $75 a year and their
board. (The very next day a man told me he paid just half
these sums.) Day-labourers from $2 to $2.50 a week (fair
weather) and board themselves. A boy just over fourteen
years old (under which age it is by law forbidden) told me
he worked in the coal mines for sixteen cents a dar.

°32 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXX.

VISIT TO TWO ENGLISH COMMON SCHOOLS.

TN compliance with our desire to visit an English common
•*• school, we were driven from the castle to a village in the
vicinity, in which was a school for boys under the guidance
of the British Foreign Society, and one for girls under the
control of the National, or State Church, Society. The school-
house of the former was a simple but tasteful stone building,
standing a little one side, but not fenced off, from the prin
cipal street, with a few large trees and a playground about it.
The interior was all in one room, except a small vestibule.
It was well lighted, the walls were plastered and whitewashed,
and had mottoes, texts of Scripture, tables, charts, &c., hung
upon them ; there was no ceiling, but the rafters of the roof,
which was high-peaked, were exposed ; the floor was of stone.
There were long desks and benches all around against the
wall, and others, the form of which I do not remember, filling
up the most of the body. The house and furniture was much
too small and scanty for the number of scholars present, and
the labour of the teacher must have been very arduous.

The boys all rose as we entered, and remained standing
during our visit, a request from us that they might be seated
not being regarded. Classes in arithmetic, geography, and
spelling were examined before us. The absence of all em
barrassment, and the promptness and confidence of the schol-

COMMON SCHOOLS. 233

ars in replying to our questions was remarkable. In mental
arithmetic great proficiency was shown in complicate reduc
tions of sterling money. In geography their knowledge of
America was limited to the more important points of infor
mation, but so far as it went was very accurate and ready.
With regard to Great Britain, their information was very mi
nute. The boys were particularly bright, ready-witted, and
well-behaved, and surprisingly free from all excitement or
embarrassment before strangers.

O

The schoolmaster was also parish-clerk, and his pay from
the two offices was about $500 a year.* I judged that he
had intended to make teaching his business for life, and had
thoroughly prepared and accomplished himself for it. His
manner to us, and two or three incidents which it would be
impossible to relate, gave me the impression that his position
in society was far from being a pleasant, or what we should
deem a proper one for a teacher.

The " National School" for girls was a building of more
highly finished architectural character, and had a dwelling for
the schoolmistress attached to it. The whole school was
engaged in sewing when we entered, the mistress, assisted by
some of the older scholars, going from one to another, giving
instructions and examining the work. It was not interrupted
by our entrance, though the girls all rose, curtseyed, and con
tinued standing. There were one hundred and thirty present
in a room about twelve yards by six in area. The girls were
neatly, though exceedingly plainly, dressed, and were gener
ally very pleasing in their appearance. They seemed well
instructed, and without the least want of desirable modesty,

* Advertisements for common-school teachers, " capable to instruct in
reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Christian religion,"
appear in the Times, offering salaries of from $150 to $300, with lodging
and board.

20*

234

AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.

showed much more presence of mind, and answered our ques
tions with more promptness and distinctness than any school
of girls I ever visited before.

Both schools are conducted on the Lancasterian plan.*

* I propose, in some future letter, to give a general account of the En
glish common schools.

APPENDIX A.

¥E were leaning over the gunwale, where I had been watching the
curious, nebulous-like life that was revealed in the sea-fire splashing
from the ship's sides, and our conversation turning upon this, we talked
of a number of marine mysteries. He believed that there was a large
class of animated nature fitted to exist only in dense waters at the
depths of the ocean, and which only appeared on the surface when in a
diseased state. He had great confidence that such must be the case, and
he cited several cases, known to naturalists, where nature has very pecu
liarly fitted animals and vegetables to enjoy life under circumstances in
which nothing could exist of the more ordinary organisms. I remarked
that there was a wonderful connection and fitting together of one thing
to another, through the whole of nature, as if it were all designed
together, and every part contrived with reference to all the rest ; to
which he assented.

" And does not that irresistibly impress you with the idea of a rea
soning mind having constructed it for certain purposes of his own, to
which purposes all this working together must have reference ?"

" Humph ! Suppose it does. Say every thing must have a cause,
and call the cause of the world, God, if you like. What do they stop
there for ? I want to know what's the cause of God ; what is God's
God. You see, you must back up farther for that cause."

" But we can take one step. Suppose we do take that, and see what
we can make of it first. There must be, or there seems likely to have
been, a constructing mind — a will — above us — "

" An imaginary something that put the world together. Well, sup
pose there is."

I

236 APPENDIX.

" That put our minds and bodies together, that made us with our
own peculiar characters and wills, distinct apparently from each other's
and from His."

" Well, well ! — that created us. Suppose he did ; what's the good
of saying that, if you don't know any thing more. What did he create
us for ? — what is he going to make of us ? — what's the will he put into
my body going to do for him ? — what did he want to make me so for,
and you a different way, and a hog in another way for ? My will is
independent of his ; I know nothing about his will, and I have nothing
to do with him. I can talk to you, and you talk back, and I can see
you, and I know you ; but him, supposing there is such a being, I know
nothing about, and what's the use, like a fool, of talking of him by
name as if I did ?"

" My dear fellow, how do I know there's such a'place as Liverpool ?
I never have seen it any more than I have God. From the evidence of
my senses I know nothing of it ; and yet I am fool enough (if you
please to call me so) to come aboard this ship with provisions for sixty
days, calculating that in that time I shall be carried to an imaginary
something which I talk about by the name of Liverpool."

" I reckon you will in twenty if this wind holds."

" I think it likely, but what do I know about it ? — actually nothing,
except that you and others tell me you have been there, and that the
ship will go there, and I have faith enough in your word, and the
promises of the captain, to put out here where I have never been before,
and don't know from any thing I can see, any more than a fool, where
or what it is I am being taken to. Now, though I never saw this being
with the creating will, which we will call God, I can tell you something
more about him, not that I actually know, only I have heard — "

"Heard! heard! how?"

" Why, people tell me and I've read, just as I have read travellers'
accounts of Liverpool, that there was a man once that professed to know
all about it, — in fact, that he made it all himself — "

" Made it himself, a man ! I thought we agreed to call the maker of
it, God."

" Very well ; out of this form of a man, for so it is described, there
expressed itself — a mind, declaring itself to be the same mind that made
the world ; and that it had entered that form that it might tell us in the
language, not only of the lips and tongue and breath, but in all the
language of all the members in all the actions of a man, what he

APPENDIX. 237

thought it desirable for us to know about him,— the God ; about his
purposes in creating the world and us, and what now he wanted of us.
Something of this he said in words, Hebrew words, which some of the
people translated into Greek, and they have been again turned into
English, and in this way I have read considerable of it ; but more he
told in the actions of the life of that man. If a stranger comes to me,
and says that he loves me, I don't well know what he means, for there's
all sorts of love, and some of it not worth many thanks. I should be
still more uncertain if he spake in the Chinese tongue, and it had to be
carried through Portuguese into English ; but if I had been detected in
some disgraceful crime, and every body scorned and hissed at me, and a
man should come, alone of all a crowd, and lift me out of the dust
where I lay in expectation of death, and cheer me with hopeful and
encouraging words, I should not need to be told that he loved me, to be
grateful to him; and if you were an Indian, and it was told to you in
Choctaw, you'd understand it exactly as I would, and have no mistake
and no doubt about what he meant. Now supposing the great power
and wisdom that contrived and executed this world, and all we know
of material things, was showing itself in that man that so pretended,
and we have a reliable account of the way he lived, we can infer what
at least is the general character and tendency of his motives and pur
poses, and judge pretty well what he wants of us."

" But is it not altogether more likely a man making such pretensions,
was an impostor ?"

" We must judge of that too by his character as displayed otherwise
than in professions. Now what do we find ? An earnest, serious man,
seemingly living only to do and be good; subduing extraordinary temp
tations of passion and ambition; helping and healing the sick, and the
crippled, and the outcast, in season and out of season ; speaking his
mind truly and freely, no matter who he hits ; persevering in what he
thinks is right, and just, and merciful, though it is disreputable and
directly in the teeth of the prevailing standard of morals ; sticking to
it, though he is misunderstood, reproached, and forsaken for it, as a
wilful, stubborn fanatic, by his friends, and it destroys his influence
over all the respectable part of the community."

" Good for him, by jingo ! They didn't excommunicate him, did they ?
If it had been in the United States or in England, they would have said
he was damned, body and soul, past recovery, and utterly unworthy of
the means of grace !"

238 APPENDIX.

"They said the devil was in him and turned him out of the syna
gogue, which is much the same, I take it."

" Right — I never thought of that ; he must have been a true honest
man."

" Just such a man as you would like to be yourself Mr. C., only a
great deal more so — a thorough-going brave man of the people, an out-
and-out democrat, fraternizing with the very lowest classes, and seeing
and trying all sorts of life. More than that, sir, he could endure mis
representation and the ingratitude and unfaithfulnesss of friends with
out impatience ; and finally, to realize his purpose more effectually, he
could suffer without wavering the severest mental and bodily agony,
and at length could die, without the least stain of inconsistency on his
noble, manly character, not as you might be willing to on the barri
cades, but alone, and by slow process of law."

" All right, sir, and a true man, call him what you will."

" A true man, sir, and no time-server, and now, what taught he ?
That goodness, truth, and love, and happiness are one and inseparable.
Further, that all the good in the universe is a commonwealth (kingdom
of God), and that one's enjoyment of it cannot be separate from an
other's. He always seemed to think every body else's good just as much
his business as his own, and taught his followers to find their happiness
in that of others ; always to do that for others which they would have
done for themselves."

" And that's just what they don't do."

" They don't pretend they do, but they believe it's the right plan, and
they wish to and try to, and they say he never did any other way.
His whole life, as it is described to us, does seem to be in accordance
with the idea, and if no other man's ever was, so much the better for
him. Perfect love always guiding him, entire annihilation of self, sel
fish purpose all merged in desire for the general good of mankind."

" A very nice model of a man, no doubt, if one must believe

the story ; but you see I don't." Here he went off into a long and
laboured attack upon the Bible as being called an infallible guide, and
upon the theory of plenary inspiration. If it teaches one thousand men
one doctrine, and one thousand other men, of an average equal capacity,
directly the opposite doctrine, he would like to know what it infallibly
guided to — and so on : some few of his points being fair and reasonable,
some of them utterly absurd, and the greater part of his argument mere
narrow-minded cavilling and play upon words. I attempted very little

APPENDIX. 239

reply, as it was evident he was perfectly at home on the subject, and
would sail tack for tack with me all night, if he lost confidence in his
opinions on one gaining more on another. At length he fell into a
fierce tirade upon the character of the Apostles. He thought them
cunning, selfish plotters, " the same as their descendants, our reverend
aristocrats, that cannot find any better way of living than by pulling
wool over the poor workies' eyes, while they draw fat salaries from
their pockets."

" A nice, lazy, comfortable sort of life they seem to have had of it,
don't they ?" I answered. " A jolly life, to be sure, loafing about with
their fat salaries. You remember what Dr. Paul's was : ' Of the Jews
five times forty stripes save one, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned,
shipwrecked, <fcc., weariness, painfulness, &c., <fcc.' — So runs his receipt !
very fat, all that, isn't it? Now, are you not ashamed of yourself?
Talk about ' aristocratic parsons !' Every one of them started a work
ing man — not one even of the bourgeoisie among them, unless it was
that same Paul, and he had his trade, and worked honestly at it to pay
his travelling expenses. You call them aristocratic. What do you
mean ? Why, sir, they were democratic socialists, and the worst sort,
' having all things in common,' the record of their acts says. And they
seem to have had a sufficiently generous spirit to make the idea work,
while all your modern communists only make themselves ridiculous
whenever they attempt it."

He laughed aloud, and said that he wouldn't say another word
against the Apostles, if I would admit that they were socialists. They
certainly were not aristocrats. " But," he complained, " that does
not make them infallible guides, by a long shot. I want you to answer
my arguments against the infallibility of the Bible, if you can."

" I don't wish to," I said ; " it is not at all necessary. Suppose you
can detect a few inconsistencies, misquotations, and puzzling expres
sions in the New Testament. The books have come a long journey be
tween them and us, and have passed through various hands. Wouldn't
it be strange if there were not some things knocked out of them and a
few tacked on ? You know there are three biographies of Christ,
written by different persons, among whom you cannot find any evi
dence of conspiracy or collusion, while there is much to the contrary.
Yet are they not consistent in every essential particular ? I think they
are ; and I am convinced the writers meant to give an honest, fair, and
correct account of what He said and did within their personal knowl-

240 APPENDIX.

edge. Now, when they report, as each of them frequently do, that he
took upon himself the authority and omniscience proper only to God, in
instructing and governing them ; when they make him declare that in
that life of his flesh was the Spirit of God manifest, they must have so
understood him. He probably meant them to, and as he was a wise,
good, and true man, we can have reasonable faith that, in some fair and
honest understanding of the words, it was so. What if there is room
for some difference of opinion, as to the precise meaning of language,
so written in a narrative, two or three times translated, and that
through heathen tongues, and God only knows how many times copied
by humanly imperfect hands. I am willing you should understand
it as seems, on the whole and in sincerity, most natural to you. I say
that I do not believe it will make any very essential difference in
your idea of God, but that you will still see him, through Christ, a God
of eternal Truth, Justice, Love — a Father worthy of your deepest rever
ence and affection."

" Suppose I did ; and when you've done and said all, what good is it ?
But I tell you, you don't convince me of the inspiration of the Bible."

" I don't now undertake to convince you of it. If it does not appear
evident to you on the face of it that it is an inspired production, I don't
think I can bring you to it by argument. All I ask of you now is to look
upon those three men, Matthew, Luke, and John, simply as honest
biographers. Suppose Hume, Gibbon, or Jared Sparks had described
such a character, made such a character to appear in the life of some
historical personage with regard to whom they had had facilities to be
particularly well informed, would you not respect, honor, love — yes,
and worship — "

" No, no ! I'd worship nothing human."

" But you would worship divine qualities, and, so far as these go to
make up the character of a man, you would worship them in him — "

" Yes, the divine qualities, not the human."

" Not the human — purely human ; nobody asks you to. But here is a
man who, in all his actions for thirty years, you cannot suppose to have
been governed by any motives inconsistent with justice, magnanimity,
and benevolence. His life is described with a good deal of minute de
tail, but you cannot find that he ever said, or thought, or did a single
mean, unmanly, ungentlemanly thing. A man who avoided kingly
honors ; who did not labor for riches ; who neither sought nor avoided
the luxuries of life ; who endured to ba forsaken of his friends ; who

241

put up with contempt, reproach, and ridicule ; who was always going
about doing good, without either ostentation or secrecy — a man so great
and true, as he appears among the pettifogging saints of the day, in the
case of the adulterous -woman, or at the picking of corn on the Sabbath,
or in his ideas of morality as brought out in his sermon on the mount,

so simple, so grand, so truly divine — do you think, can you think

that such a man would be mean enough and wicked enough to declare
a most monstrous falsehood, and stick to it all his life, suffer all sorts of
shame, and finally die ignominiously rather than give it up ? No, sir ;
that man was no impostor ! . . . . Nor is there any thing that looks
like the fanatic or crazy man about him either. Yet he plainly thought,
and had some good reason for thinking, that in all his peculiar character
he was "exhibiting the peculiar qualities of God. And were not those
qualities such as are consistent with the Li-liest wisdom that we can
conceive of? And what good, you were asking, does it do us to believe
in them ? If you had never seen your father, but your elder brother
should say : ' Father is like me in all that you like in me, in all that you
love me for'— you would not need to see your father face to face, but
would love him, and would lovingly respond to his will, and when he
sent for you to come home, you would look forward to meeting him, not
with dread, but with a joyful trust. If you can have as much faith in
the word of that noble man as I have in yours and the captain's about
this ship's going towards Liverpool, you will love and worship him,
and strive to be like him." -.

" Christ said he was God, which is nonsense, and I don't swallow it,"
" Look here ! When I tell you that I am a man, what do I mean ?
A man has two legs, two arms, and two eyes ; suppose I had but one leg,
one arm, and one eye, would it be nonsense to call me a man ? Or sup
pose that I had twelve fingers instead of ten, or my body all covered
with hair, would it be nonsense to call me a man because I had more
than the ordinary qualities of a man ? I might call myself a hirsute,
but I should still be a man."
" I don't understand you."

" Why, I mean that because Jesus Christ asserted himself to be God
it does not follow that he asserted himself nothing but God, or even that
he exhibited the whole of God, but that he spoke in the name of God,
with the authority of God, that the word of God was spoken in him.
It is absurd for us, and evidently was never intended that we should,
take the exact weight and measure of the words of his familiar conver-

21

242 APPENDIX.

sation, and reduce it to the English standard, from the simple narratives
of Hebrews writing in the Greek tongue. You can understand it so as
to make it nonsense if you are determined to, but that's your nonsense
and not Christ's. There is plenty of room to fight over it if you like,
but was that what it was intended for ? You may understand it some
what differently from me. but practically, if you believe it at all. will
the difference in our understanding of it make an essential difference in
our lives ? I believe that Channing and Calvin, standing at two opposite
theoretical extremes with regard to this, both showed in their characters
the influence of a common faith in the divinity of Christ."

" You do ? You don't suppose Channing believed in the divinity of
Christ ? You ought to know better than that."

" He might not express his belief in that way, because that mind had
got to be employed technically to denote a different view from his, but
plainly it was the God revealed in Christ to whose service he gave his
life. You must remember that language is a human and exceedingly
imperfect and inefficient means of conveying thought. Neither Calvin nor
Channing believed that in Chri-st was the whole of God concentrated and
made manifest to us, or that God was and could be revealed to us in
no other way ; but both believed that in Christ God was speaking, that
in Christ's life, far more truly and distinctly than in any other, was
uttered the true and eternal and soul-saving word of God. ' In truth,
in love, in all that deserves your love, your gratitude, your adoration,
and whole-hearted devotion, I AM.' "

We were both silent for a few moments, and then he laughed.

" What's the matter ?" said I.

" I am afraid you are getting into the bond of iniquity ; don't you
know that's very dangerous the way you talk. Tisn't orthodox by a
long shot."

" I've no particular passion for being called orthodox," I replied.

" You haven't, eh ? What is your religion then ?"

'( That of Christ, I wish it to be."

"No, but what do you believe in ?"

" The God revealed in Christ."

" Pshaw ! What sect — what church do you run with ?"

" None of your business — that is, the question's not in order."

" But, good heavens, man ! I want to know what you pretend to
believe. What do you want to have me believe ? Was he very God of
verv God, all God and all man, or only half God and half man, or a

APPENDIX. 243

whole man and no God, only an extra-inspired prophet, or what?
There's no use talking with you till I know where you stand."

" What do you want to bother with such nonsense for ? Christians
themselves don't agree about those matters. I won't answer you. You
admitted that you had seen enough in the ordinary works of God to
impress you with the belief of a designing wisdom above us, and you
asked me how any one could know any more than that. Now I tell you :
Look to Christ, his most perfect work. Believe, if you like, that in
him — his life — God is manifest only in the same way that he is in all
the works of his hand, as you would be in yours, as Powers is in the
Greek Slave, and Bell and Brown are in this ship, only he must be
peculiarly manifest in. man (created in his image), and most distinctly
and obviously manifest in the man most perfect and altogether lovely,
the express image of his person. Mustn't he ? Take him as a sheer
man, if you will, not even a prophet, simply a wise man — the wisest
and best man. Must not his pure heart, his self-forgetful spirit, his
wisdom who spake as never man else spake, have attained to the best
and truest idea of God ? Must not that be, in the first place, the most
reasonable relation for us to assume towards God — that in which
he placed himself — a son to a loving, personally-interested father —
a Father whose almighty power moves only in love ? If that's the
utmost you can make out of the life of Christ, why, take that ; don't
lose so much good of it because others can take more. But if you can
take more than that, and it's better for you to call him — what is it you
say ? ' very God of very God ?' — not merely seen as manifested in the
man Christ, but peculiarly, indescribably, incomprehensibly, and con-
tradictorilv both God and man and neither man or God — have it so,
and welcome. Describe him in Latin, or Hebrew-Greek, if you like it
better than plain English. It may seem one thing in the dim, religious
light of worship, and another in the flickering lamplight of study, but
you will find both the same in the clear daylight of life. After all, it
is the WORD that is wanted, and not the image through which it is
spoken. Look at Christ in whatever way you can read that Word with
the most faith. I care not in what language you receive it, so you can
translate it into love, joy, faith, long-suffering, goodness, peace, meek
ness, and temperance (the fruits of the Spirit)." He was laughing again
and I asked, " What is there ridiculous about this, Mr. C. ?"

" Why, I don't know as there's any thing — don't know as I can ob
ject to it, only— eh, ha! ha !"

244 APPENDIX.

" Only what I"

" Don't you think if your minister heard you talking so, he'd be~
rather — hauling you over the coals, eh ?"

" My minister ! What under the sun has my minister got to do with
it ? I am not a Roman Catholic."

" What the devil are you, any how ?"

" I've told you."

" Well, you arn't what I call a Christian. What do you call me an
infidel for ?"

" I never called you an infidel ; infidel means unfaithful. God only
knows whether you are unfaithful to your light or not. That's none of
my business."

" Well, but now do you believe in fore -ordination and total deprav
ity ? Do you hold to salvation by grace ?"

" I believe, certainly, that if a man is not saved it is because, as
Christ said, he ' would not! I believe that every man shall be judged
according to his works, and so did Christ — "

" Ah, then you don't go those doctrines. Now — "

" I don't want to discuss them with you."

" Why, you can't believe them — it's inconsistent."

" I don't much think it is, but if it was — "

" What's that striking— eight bells ? I declare it's twelve o'clock."

" Wait a bit, let me tell you a story, and then we will turn in. I
once fell in with an old Quaker. He was the first one I ever met to
converse with : a simple-hearted, honest man, and I was glad of a
chance to talk with him about his society. He finally spoke of some
of their doctrines, and defended them in a sensible, manly way that I
liked. He took up a Bible and showed me how some idea of his that I
doubted about was sustained in it. I turned over a leaf or two further,
and showed him another passage that I thought pretty flatly opposed
his understanding of the verse he had brought as proof, and said, ' What
do you make of that ?' He looked at it a moment, read each side of it,
didn't say any thing, shook his head, and sighed, and I begun to feel
ashamed of myself for troubling him with it. At length his face lighted
up, and he turned to me with a beautiful smile and said softly, ' I can
see the truth the Lord testified to in the verse I showed thee, but for
this I have not yet sight enough. If thee cannot yet see the truth that
cometh to me from the verse I showed thee, wilt thee not be content to
also wait for thy light ?' No\v> Mr. C., I a4vise you to take what truth

APPENDIX. 245

you can find ; and if other people profess to believe what seems to you
absurdities, don't be so sorry for them as not to let them enjoy the ben
efit of what light they have got ; don't yourself be so foolish as to shut
your eyes to what of God's word is plainly enough set before you in
Christ, because you have not turned over the next page and can't see
through the whole book at once. I don't want you to try to force upon
yourself any belief that is unnatural, and which honestly appears illogi
cal to you. No kind of heresy is so bad as hypocrisy. I think those
Christians were exceedingly wrong that felt that the sacredness and
chief power of their religion consisted so much in the doctrines which
they had agreed together to stand by, that they must summarily ex
clude you from their fellowship when you began to question the sound
ness of them. On the other hand, I must tell you that I think you are
equally wrong to hold them and their opinions in contempt, and to have
such entire confidence, as you seem to, that you are yourself right. The
fact that so many men differ with you, whom you cannot help respect
ing as having equal powers of mind and equally good spirit with your
self, should at least make you hold your opinions with humility."

" Well ! Now let's go and see them heave the log. She's going a
bit faster ; the fog isn't so thick as 'twas either. Hallo ! there's that
old Irishwoman again. She always gets in behind the harness cask to
say her prayers. You will hear her muttering there for two or three
hours every night."

" She must have strong faith."

" Faith in the devil ! Fear and ignorance, I call it. She's a good
old thing though, I must say. She takes care of that sick woman's
child as if it were^her own ; and last night she asked the doctor to let
her darn his stockings, and he did, the conceited old dandy."

" She has a good deal of true religion, then, for all her ignorance
and fear."

" Then it's true religion to believe in the Pope and the Virgin Mary !"
" Oh no ! oh no ! ' True religion before God is this : to visit the
widows and fatherless in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted
in the world.' Yet it may be worth your while, Mr. C., to consider
whether she would have been as likely to pity that sick mother, and
take care of her child, if she hadn't been in the habit of praying in this
way every night, although in her ignorance she addresses the mother
of Christ instead of the Father. Good-night."

21*

246 APPENDIX.

APPENDIX B.

ter on the disposition of the people of England towards the
•*• United States was written before, and not in anticipation of the
coming of Kossuth to this country. The general discussion of the sub
ject which that event has occasioned makes it proper for me to men
tion this. Opinions opposing the views I have presented having been
expressed by several persons in honorable positions, for one at least of
whom I entertain the highest respect, I wish to repeat that, during five
months that I travelled in Great Britain, in almost every day of which
time I heard the United States talked about with every appearance of
candor and honesty, I do not recollect ever to have heard any expres
sion of hostile feeling (except from a few physical- force Chartists, with
regard to slavery) towards our government or our people, and only
from a few stanch church-and-state men against our principles of gov
ernment. Perhaps the highest eulogy on Washington ever put in
words was written by Lord Brougham. The Duke of "Wellington
lately took part in a banquet in honour of American independence. I
myself attended a Fourth-of-July dinner in an old palace of George III.,
and saw there a member of Parliament, and other distinguished English
men, drink to the memory of "Washington, and in honour of the day.
Having observed that Mr. Howard was threatened with a mob, for
keeping an English ensign flying from a corner of the Irving House, I
will add that I more than once saw the American ensign so displayed
in England, without exciting remark ; and I know one gentleman living
in the country who regularly sets it over his house on the Fourth of
July, and salutes it with gun-firing and festivities, so that the day is
well known, and kindly regarded by all his neighbours, as " the Ameri-
•an holiday."

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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