strong arms will be attracted towards it.
The immense resources of the soil under cultivation have not yet been developed; the settlers are prodigal of land, and a great portion of the occupied territory, destined to bear the most luxuriant crops, is still in bush. The magnificent districts adjoining Lake Huron, the Georgian Bay, and Lake Simcoe, are only just being brought into notice; and of the fertile valley of the Ottawa, which it is estimated would support a population of nine millions, very little is known. Every circumstance that can be brought forward combines to show that Upper Canada is destined to become a great, a wealthy, and a prosperous country.
The census gives some interesting tables relating to the origins of the inhabitants of Canada. I wish that I had space to present my readers with the whole, instead of with this brief extract:–
_Canadians_, French origin 695,000 _Canadians_, English origin 651,000
England and Wales 93,000
Scotland 90,000
Ireland 227,000
United States 56,000
Germany 10,000
Besides these there are 8000 coloured persons and 14,000 Indians in Canada, and emigrants from every civilised country in the world.
As far as regards the Church of England, Canada is divided into three dioceses–Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec–with a prospect of the creation of a fourth, that of Kingston. The clergy, whose duties are very arduous and ill-requited, have been paid by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and out of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The Society has, in great measure, withdrawn its support, and recent legislative enactments have a tendency to place the Church of England in Canada, to some extent, on the voluntary system. The inhabitants of Canada are fully able to support any form of worship to which they may choose to attach themselves. Trinity College, at Toronto, is in close connexion with the Church of England.
The Roman Catholics have enormous endowments, including a great part of the island of Montreal, and several valuable seigneuries. Very large sums are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for baptisms, burials, and masses for the dead. The enslaving, enervating, and retarding effects of Roman Catholicism are nowhere better seen than in Lower Canada, where the priests exercise despotic authority. They have numerous and wealthy conventual establishments, both at Quebec and Montreal, and several Jesuit and other seminaries. The Irish emigrants constitute the great body of Romanists in Upper Canada; in the Lower Province there are more than 746,000 adherents to this faith.
The Presbyterians are a very respectable, influential, and important body in Canada, bound firmly together by their uniformity of worship and doctrine. Though an Episcopalian form of church government and a form of worship are as obnoxious to them as at home, their opposition seldom amounts to hostility. Generally speaking, they are very friendly in their intercourse with the zealous and hard-working clergy of the Church of England; and, indeed, the comparative absence of sectarian feeling, and the way in which the ministers of all denominations act in harmonious combination for the general good, is one of the most pleasing features connected with religion in Canada.
In Upper Canada there are 1559 churches, for 952,000 adherents, being one place of worship for every 612 inhabitants. Of these houses of worship, 226 belong to the Church of England, 135 to the Roman Catholics, 148 to the Presbyterians, and 471 to the Methodists. In Lower Canada there are 610 churches, for 890,261 adherents, 746,000 of whom are Roman Catholics. There is therefore in the Lower Province one place of worship for every 1459 inhabitants. These religious statistics furnish additional proof of the progress of Upper Canada. The numbers adhering to the five most important denominations are as follows, in round numbers:–
Roman Catholics 914,000
Episcopalians 268,000
Presbyterians 237,000
Methodists 183,000
Baptists 49,000
Beside these there are more than 20 sects, some of them holding the most extravagant and fanatical tenets. In the Lower Province there are 45,000 persons belonging to the Church of England, 33,000 are Presbyterians, and 746,000 are Roman Catholics. With this vast number of Romanists in Canada, it is not surprising that under the present system of representation, which gives an equal number of representatives to each province, irrespective of population, the Roman Catholics should exercise a very powerful influence on the colonial Parliament. This influence is greatly to be deplored, not less socially and politically than religiously. Popery paralyses those countries under its dominion; and the stationary condition of Lower Canada is mainly to be attributed to the successful efforts of the priests to keep up that system of ignorance and terrorism, without which their power could not continue to exist.
More importance is attached generally to education in Upper Canada than might have been supposed from the extreme deficiencies of the first settlers. A national system of education, on a most liberal scale, has been organised by the Legislature, which presents in unfavourable contrast the feeble and isolated efforts made for this object by private benevolence in England. Acting on the principle that the first duty of government is to provide for the education of its subjects, a uniform and universal educational system has been put into force in Canada.
This system of public instruction is founded on the co-operation of the Executive Government with the local municipalities. The members of these corporations are elected by the freeholders and householders. The system, therefore, is strictly popular and national, as the people voluntarily tax themselves for its support, and, through their elected trustees, manage the schools themselves. It is probable that the working of this plan may exercise a beneficial influence on the minds of the people, in training them to thought for their offspring, as regards their best interests. No compulsion whatever is exercised by the Legislature over the proceedings of the local municipalities; it merely offers a pecuniary grant, on the condition of local exertion. The children of every class of the population have equal access to these schools, and there is no compulsion upon the religious faith of any. Religious minorities in school municipalities have the alternative of separate schools, and attach considerable importance to this provision. Although what we should term religious instruction is not a part of the common school system, it is gratifying to know that both the Bible and Testament are read in a very large majority of these schools, and that the number where they are used is annually on the increase. They are in Upper Canada 3127 common schools, about 1800 of which are free, or partially free. The total amount available for school purposes in 1853 amounted to 199,674_l._, and magnificent sum, considering the youth and comparatively thin population of the country. The total number of pupils in the same year was 194,136. But though this number appears large, the painful fact must also be stated, that there were 79,000 children destitute of the blessings of education of any kind. The whole number of teachers at the same period was 3539, of whom 885 were Methodists, 850 were Presbyterians, 629 were Episcopalians, 351 were Roman Catholics, and 194 belonged to the Baptist persuasion. The inspection of schools, which is severe and systematic, is conducted by local superintendents appointed by the different municipalities. There is a Board of Public Instruction in each county for the examination and licensing of teachers; the standard of their qualifications is fixed by provincial authority. At the head of the whole are a Council of Public Instruction and a Chief Commissioner of Schools, both appointed by the Crown. There are several colleges, very much on the system of the Scotch Universities, including Trinity College at Toronto, in connection with the Church of England, and Knox’s College, a Presbyterian theological seminary. There are also medical colleges, both in Upper and Lower Canada, and a chair of agriculture has been established in University College, Toronto. From these statements it will be seen that, from the ample provision made, a good education can be obtained at a very small cost. There are in Lower Canada upwards of 1100 schools.
Every town, and I believe I may with truth write every village, has its daily and weekly papers, advocating all shades of political opinion. The press in Canada is the medium through which the people receive, first by telegraphic despatch, and later in full, every item of English intelligence brought by the bi-weekly mails. Taking the newspapers as a whole, they are far more gentlemanly in their tone than those of the neighbouring republic, and perhaps are not more abusive and personal than _some_ of our English provincial papers. There is, however, very great room for improvement, and no doubt, as the national palate becomes improved by education, the morsels presented to it will be more choice. Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto have each of them several daily papers, but, as far as I am aware, no paper openly professes republican or annexationist views, and some of the journals advocate in the strongest manner an attachment to British institutions. The prices of these papers vary from a penny to threepence each, and a workman would as soon think of depriving himself of his breakfast as of his morning journal. It is stated that thousands of the subscribers to the newspapers are so illiterate as to depend upon their children for a knowledge of their contents. At present few people, comparatively speaking, are more than half educated. The knowledge of this fact lowers the tone of the press, and circumscribes both authors and speakers, as any allusions to history or general literature would be very imperfectly, if at all, understood.
The merchants and lawyers of Canada have, if of British extraction, generally received a sound and useful education, which, together with the admirable way in which they keep pace with the politics and literature of Europe, enables them to pass very creditably in any society. There are very good book-stores in Canada, particularly at Toronto, where the best English works are to be purchased for little more than half the price which is paid for them at home, and these are largely read by the educated Canadians, who frequently possess excellent libraries. Cheap American novels, often of a very objectionable tendency, are largely circulated among the lower classes; but to provide them with literature of a better character, large libraries have been formed by local efforts, assisted by government grants. Canada as yet possesses no literature of her own, and the literary man is surrounded by difficulties. Independently of the heavy task of addressing himself to uneducated minds, unable to appreciate depth of thought and beauty of language, it is not likely that, where the absorbing passion is the acquisition of wealth, much encouragement would be given to the struggles of native talent.
Canada, young as she is, has made great progress in the mechanical arts, and some of her machinery and productions make a very creditable show at the Paris Exhibition; but it must be borne in mind that this is due to the government, rather than to the enterprise of private exhibitors.
Taken altogether, there is perhaps no country in the world so prosperous or so favoured as Canada, after giving full weight to the disadvantages which she possesses, in a large Roman Catholic population, an unsettled state of society, and a mixed and imperfectly educated people. It is the freest land under the sun, acknowledging neither a despotic sovereign nor a tyrant populace; life and property are alike secure–liberty has not yet degenerated into lawlessness–the constitution combines the advantages of the monarchical and republican forms of government–the Legislative Assembly, to a great extent, represents the people–religious toleration is enjoyed in the fullest degree–taxation and debt, which cripple the energies and excite the disaffection of older communities, are unfelt–the slave flying from bondage in the south knows no sense of liberty or security till he finds both on the banks of the St. Lawrence, under the shadow of the British flag. Free from the curse of slavery, Canada has started untrammelled in the race of nations, and her progress already bids fair to outstrip in rapidity that of her older and gigantic neighbour.
Labour is what she requires, and as if to meet that requirement, circumstances have directed the attention of emigrants towards her–the young, the enterprising, and the vigorous, are daily leaving the wasted shores of Scotland and Ireland for her fertile soil, where the laws of England shall still protect them, and her flag shall still wave over them. Large numbers of persons are now leaving the north-east of Scotland for Canada, and these are among the most valuable of the emigrants who seek her shores. They carry with them the high moral sense, the integrity, and the loyalty which characterise them at home; and in many cases more than this–the religious principle, and the “godliness which has promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.”
Taken as a _whole_, the inhabitants of both provinces are attached to England and England’s rule; they receive the news of our reverses with sorrow, and our victories create a burst of enthusiasm from the shores of the St. Lawrence to those of Lake Superior. As might be expected, the Anglo-French alliance is extremely popular: to show the sympathy of Canada, the Legislature made the munificent grant of 20,000_l._ to be divided between the Patriotic Funds of both nations, and every township and village has contributed to swell a further sum of 30,000_l._ to be applied to the same object. The imperial garrisons in Canada have recently been considerably diminished, and with perfect safety; the efforts of agitators to produce disaffection have signally failed; and it is stated by those best acquainted with the temper of the people, that Canada will not become a separate country, except by England’s voluntary act.
At present every obstacle to her further development seems to be removed– her constitution has been remodelled within the last few years on an enlarged and liberal basis–her religious endowments have just been placed on a permanent footing–all the points likely to cause a rupture with the United States have been amicably settled–and important commercial advantages have been obtained: the sun of prosperity shines upon her from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the distant shores of the Ottawa and the Western Lakes. She requires only for the future the blessing of God, so freely accorded to the nations which honour Him, to make her great and powerful. The future of nations, as of individuals, is mercifully veiled in mystery; we can trace the rise and progress of empires, but we know not the time when they shall droop and decay–when the wealthy and populous cities of the Present shall be numbered with the Nineveh and Babylon of the Past. It may be that in future years our mighty nation shall go the way of all that have been before it; but whether the wise decrees of Providence doom it to flourish or decline, we can still look with confident hope to this noble colony in the New World, believing that on her enlightened and happy shores, under the influence of beneficent institutions and of a scriptural faith, the Anglo-Saxon race may renew the vigour of its youth, and realise in time to come the brightest hopes which have ever been formed of England in the New World.
CHAPTER XV.
Preliminary remarks on re-entering the States–Americanisms–A little slang–Liquoring up–Eccentricities in dress–A ‘cute chap down east– Conversation on eating–A Kentucky gal–Lake Champlain–Delaval’s–A noisy serenade–Albany–Beauties of the Hudson–The Empire City.
It has been truly observed that a reliable book on the United States yet remains to be written. The writer of such a volume must neither be a tourist nor a temporary resident. He must spend years, in the different States, nicely estimating the different characteristics of each, as well as the broadly-marked shades of difference between East, West, and South. He must trace the effect of Republican principles upon the various races which form this vast community; and, while analysing the prosperity of the country, he must carefully distinguish between the real, the fictitious, and the speculative. In England we speak of America as “_Brother Jonathan_” in the singular number, without any fraternal feeling however, and consider it as one nation, possessing uniform distinguishing characteristics. I saw _less_ difference between Edinburgh and Boston, than between Boston and Chicago; the dark-haired Celts of the west of Scotland, and the stirring artisans of our manufacturing cities, have more in common than the descendants of the Puritans in New England, and the reckless, lawless inhabitants of the newly-settled territories west of the Mississippi. It must not be forgotten that the thirty-two States of which the Union is composed, may be considered in some degree as separate countries, each possessing its governor and assembly, and framing, to a considerable extent, its own laws. Beyond the voice which each State possesses in the Congress and Senate at Washington, there is apparently little to bind this vast community together; there is no national form of religion, or state endowed church; Unitarianism may be the prevailing faith in one State. Presbyterianism in another, and Universalism in a third; while between the Northern and Southern States there is as wide a difference as between England and Russia–a difference stamped on the very soil itself, and which, in the opinion of some, threatens a disseverance of the Union.
Other causes also produce highly distinctive features in the inhabitants. In the long-settled districts bordering upon the Atlantic, all the accompaniments and appliances of civilisation may be met with, and a comparatively stationary, refined, and intellectual condition of society. Travel for forty hours to the westward, and everything is in a transition state: there are rough roads and unfinished railroads; foundations of cities laid in soil scarcely cleared from the forest; splendid hotels within sound of the hunter’s rifle and the lumberer’s axe; while the elements of society are more chaotic than the features of the country. Every year a tide of emigration rolls westward, not from Europe only, but from the crowded eastern cities, forming a tangled web of races, manners, and religions which the hasty observer cannot attempt to disentangle. Yet there are many external features of uniformity which the traveller cannot fail to lay hold of, and which go under the general name of Americanisms. These are peculiarities of dress, manners, and phraseology, and, to some extent, of opinion, and may be partly produced by the locomotive life which the American leads, and the way in which all classes are brought into contact in travelling. These peculiarities are not to be found among the highest or the highly-educated classes, but they force themselves upon the tourist to a remarkable, and frequently to a repulsive, extent; and it is safer for him to narrate facts and comment upon externals, though in doing so he presents a very partial and superficial view of the people, than to present his readers with general inferences drawn from partial premises, or with conclusions based upon imperfect, and often erroneous, data.
An entire revolution had been effected in my way of looking at things since I landed on the shores of the New World. I had ceased to look for vestiges of the past, or for relics of ancient magnificence, and, in place of these, I now contemplated vast resources in a state of progressive and almost feverish development, and, having become accustomed to a general absence of the picturesque, had learned to look at the practical and the utilitarian with a high degree of interest and pleasure. The change from the lethargy and feudalism of Lower Canada and the gaiety of Quebec, to the activity of the New England population, was very startling. It was not less so from the _reposeful_ manners and gentlemanly appearance of the English Canadians, and the vivacity and politeness of the French, to Yankee dress, twang, and peculiarities.
These appeared, as the Americans say, in “full blast,” during the few hours which I spent on Lake Champlain. There were about a hundred passengers, including a sprinkling of the fair sex. The amusements were story-telling, whittling, and smoking. Fully half the stories told began with, “There was a ‘cute ‘coon down east,” and the burden of nearly all was some clever act of cheating, “sucking a greenhorn,” as the phrase is. There were occasional anecdotes of “bustings-up” on the southern rivers, “making tracks” from importunate creditors, of practical jokes, and glaring impositions. There was a great deal of “liquoring-up” going on the whole time. The best story-teller was repeatedly called upon to “liquor some,” which was accordingly done by copious draughts of “gin-sling,” but at last he declared he was a “gone ‘coon, fairly stumped,” by which he meant to express that he was tired and could do no more. This assertion was met by encouragements to “pile on,” upon which the individual declared that he “couldn’t get his steam up, he was tired some.” This word _some_ is synonymous in its use with our word _rather_, or its Yankee equivalent “_kinder_.” On this occasion some one applied it to the boat, which he declared was “almighty dirty, and shaky some”–a great libel, by the way. The dress of these individuals somewhat amused me. The prevailing costumes of the gentlemen were straw hats, black dress coats remarkably shiny, tight pantaloons, and pumps. These were worn by the sallow narrators of the tales of successful roguery. There were a very few hardy western men, habited in scarlet flannel shirts, and trowsers tucked into high boots, their garments supported by stout leathern belts, with dependent bowie- knives; these told “yarns” of adventures, and dangers from Indians, something in the style of Colonel Crockett.
The ladies wore their satin or kid shoes of various colours, of which the mud had made woeful havoc. The stories, which called forth the applause of the company in exact proportion to the barefaced roguery and utter want of principle displayed in each, would not have been worth listening to, had it not been from the extraordinary vernacular in which they were clothed, and the racy and emphatic manner of the narrators. Some of these voted three legs of their chairs superfluous, and balanced themselves on the fourth; while others hooked their feet on the top of the windows, and balanced themselves on the back legs of their chairs, in a position strongly suggestive of hanging by the heels. One of the stories which excited the most amusement reads very tamely divested of the slang and manner of the story-teller.
A “‘cute chap down east” had a “2-50” black mare (one which could perform a mile in two minutes fifty seconds), and, being about to “make tracks,” he sold her to a gentleman for 350 dollars. In the night he stole her, cut her tail, painted her legs white, gave her a “blaze” on her face, sold her for 100 dollars, and decamped, sending a note to the first purchaser acquainting him with the particulars of the transaction. “‘Cute chap that;” “A wide-awake feller;” “That coon had cut his eye-teeth;” “A smart sell that;” were the comments made on this roguish transaction, all the sympathy of the listeners being on the side of the rogue.
The stories related by Barnum of the tricks and impositions practised by himself and others are a fair sample, so far as roguery goes, of those which are to be heard in hotels, steamboats, and cars. I have heard men openly boast, before a miscellaneous company, of acts of dishonesty which in England would have procured transportation for them. Mammon is the idol which the people worship; the one desire is the acquisition of money; the most nefarious trickery and bold dishonesty are invested with a spurious dignity if they act as aids to the attainment of this object. Children from their earliest years imbibe the idea that sin is sin–_only when found out_.
The breakfast bell rang, and a general rush took place, and I was left alone with two young ladies who had just become acquainted, and were resolutely bent upon finding out each other’s likes and dislikes, with the intention of vowing an eternal friendship. A gentleman who looked as if he had come out of a ball-room came up, and with a profusion of bows addressed them, or the prettiest of them, thus:–“Miss, it’s feeding time, I guess; what will you eat?” “You’re very polite; what’s the ticket?” “Chicken and corn-fixings, and pork with onion-fixings.” “Well, I’m hungry some; I’ll have some pig and fixings.” The swain retired, and brought a profusion of viands, which elicited the remark, “Well, I guess that’s substantial, anyhow.” The young ladies’ appetites seemed to be very good, for I heard the observation, “Well, you eat considerable; you’re in full blast, I guess.” “Guess I am: its all-fired cold, and I have been an everlastin long time off my feed.” A long undertoned conversation followed this interchange of civilities, when I heard the lady say in rather elevated tones, “You’re trying to rile me some; you’re piling it on a trifle too high.” “Well, I did want to put up your dander. Do tell now, where was you raised?” “In Kentucky.” “I could have guessed that; whenever I sees a splenderiferous gal, a kinder gentle goer, and high stepper, I says to myself, That gal’s from old Kentuck, and no mistake.”
This couple carried on a long conversation in the same style of graceful badinage; but I have given enough of it.
Lake Champlain is extremely pretty, though it is on rather too large a scale to please an English eye, being about 150 miles long. The shores are gentle slopes, wooded and cultivated, with the Green Mountains of Vermont in the background. There was not a ripple on the water, and the morning was so warm and showery, that I could have believed it to be an April day had not the leafless trees told another tale. Whatever the boasted beauties of Lake Champlain were, they veiled themselves from English eyes in a thick fog, through which we steamed at half-speed, with a dismal fog- bell incessantly tolling.
I landed at Burlington, a thriving modern town, prettily situated below some wooded hills, on a bay, the margin of which is pure white sand, Here, as at nearly every town, great and small, in the United States, there was an excellent hotel. No people have such confidence in the future as the Americans. You frequently find a splendid hotel surrounded by a few clapboard houses, and may feel inclined to smile at the incongruity. The builder looks into futurity, and sees that in two years a thriving city will need hotel accommodation; and seldom is he wrong. The American is a gregarious animal, and it is not impossible that an hotel, with a _table- d’hote_, may act as a magnet. Here I joined Mr. and Mrs. Alderson, and travelled with them to Albany, through Vermont and New York. The country was hilly, and more suited for sheep-farming than for corn. Water- privileges were abundant in the shape of picturesque torrents, and numerous mills turned their capabilities to profitable account. Our companions were rather of a low description, many of them Germans, and desperate tobacco-chewers. The whole floor of the car was covered with streams of tobacco-juice, apple-cores, grape-skins, and chestnut-husks.
We crossed the Hudson River, and spent the night at Delaval’s, at Albany. The great peculiarity of this most comfortable hotel is, that the fifty waiters are Irish girls, neatly and simply dressed. They are under a coloured manager, and their civility and alacrity made me wonder that the highly-paid services of male waiters were not more frequently dispensed with. The railway ran along the street in which the hotel is situated. From my bedroom window I looked down into the funnel of a locomotive, and all night long was serenaded with screams, ringing of bells, and cries of “All aboard” and “Go ahead.”
Albany, the capital of the State of New York, is one of the prettiest towns in the Union. The slope on which it is built faces the Hudson, and is crowned by a large state-house, the place of meeting for the legislature of the Empire State. The Americans repudiate the “centralization” principle, and for wise reasons, of which the Irish form a considerable number, they almost invariably locate the government of each state, not at the most important or populous town, but at some inconsiderable place, where the learned legislators are not in danger of having their embarrassments increased by deliberating under the coercion of a turbulent urban population. Albany has several public buildings, and a number of conspicuous churches, and is a very thriving place. The traffic on the river between it and New York is enormous. There is a perpetual stream of small vessels up and down. The Empire City receives its daily supplies of vegetables, meat, butter, and eggs from its neighbourhood. The Erie and Champlain canals here meet the Hudson, and through the former the produce of the teeming West pours to the Atlantic. The traffic is carried on in small sailing sloops and steamers. Sometimes a little screw-vessel of fifteen or twenty tons may be seen to hurry, puffing and panting, up to a large vessel and drag it down to the sea; but generally one paddle-tug takes six vessels down, four being towed behind and one or two lashed on either side. As both steamers and sloops are painted white, and the sails are perfectly dazzling in their purity, and twenty, thirty, and forty of these flotillas may be seen in the course of a morning, the Hudson river presents a very animated and unique appearance. It is said that everybody loses a portmanteau at Albany: I was more fortunate, and left it without having experienced the slightest annoyance.
On the other side of the ferry a very undignified scramble takes place for the seats on the right side of the cars, as the scenery for 130 miles is perfectly magnificent. “Go ahead” rapidly succeeded “All aboard,” and we whizzed along this most extraordinary line of railway, so prolific in accidents that, when people leave New York by it, their friends frequently request them to notify their safe arrival at their destination. It runs along the very verge of the river, below a steep cliff, but often is supported just above the surface of the water upon a wooden platform. Guide-books inform us that the trains which run on this line, and the steamers which ply on the Hudson, are equally unsafe, the former from collisions and “upsets,” the latter from “bustings-up;” but most people prefer the boats, from the advantage of seeing both sides of the river.
The sun of a November morning had just risen as I left Albany, and in a short time beamed upon swelling hills, green savannahs, and waving woods fringing the margin of the Hudson. At Coxsackie the river expands into a small lake, and the majestic Catsgill Mountains rise abruptly from the western side. The scenery among these mountains is very grand and varied. Its silence and rugged sublimity recall the Old World: it has rocky pinnacles and desert passes, inaccessible eminences and yawning chasms. The world might grow populous at the feet of the Catsgills, but it would leave them untouched and unprofaned in their stern majesty. From this point for a hundred miles the eyes of the traveller are perfectly steeped in beauty, which, gathering and increasing, culminates at West Point, a lofty eminence jutting upon a lake apparently without any outlet. The spurs of mountain ranges which meet here project in precipices from five to fifteen hundred feet in height; trees find a place for their roots in every rift among the rocks; festoons of clematis and wild-vine hang in graceful drapery from base to summit, and the dark mountain shadows loom over the lake-like expanse below. The hand wearies of writing of the loveliness of this river. I saw it on a perfect day. The Indian summer lingered, as though unwilling that the chilly blasts of winter should blight the loveliness of this beauteous scene. The gloom of autumn was not there, but its glories were on every leaf and twig. The bright scarlet of the maple vied with the brilliant berries of the rowan, and from among the tendrils of the creepers, which were waving in the sighs of the west wind, peeped forth the deep crimson of the sumach. There were very few signs of cultivation; the banks of the Hudson are barren in all but beauty. The river is a succession of small wild lakes, connected by narrow reaches, bound for ever between abrupt precipices. There are lakes more beauteous than Loch Katrine, softer in their features than Loch Achray, though like both, or like the waters which glitter beneath the blue sky of Italy. Along their margins the woods hung in scarlet and gold–high above towered the purple peaks–the blue waters flashed back the rays of a sun shining from an unclouded sky–the air was warm like June–and I think the sunbeams of that day scarcely shone upon a fairer scene. At mid-day the Highlands of Hudson were left behind–the mountains melted into hills–the river expanded into a noble stream about a mile in width–the scarlet woods, the silvery lakes, and the majestic Catsgills faded away in the distance; and with a whoop, and a roar, and a clatter, the cars entered into, and proceeded at slackened speed down, a long street called Tenth Avenue, among carts, children, and pigs.
True enough, we were in New York, the western receptacle not only of the traveller and the energetic merchant, but of the destitute, the friendless, the vagabond, and in short of all the outpourings of Europe, who here form a conglomerate mass of evil, making America responsible for their vices and their crimes. Yet the usual signs of approach to an enormous city were awanting–dwarfed trees, market-gardens, cockney arbours, in which citizens smoke their pipes in the evening, and imagine themselves in Arcadia, rows of small houses, and a murky canopy of smoke. We had steamed down Tenth Avenue for two or three miles, when we came to a standstill where several streets met. The train was taken to pieces, and to each car four horses or mules were attached, which took us for some distance into the very heart of the town, racing apparently with omnibuses and carriages, till at last we were deposited in Chambers Street, not in a station, or even under cover, be it observed. My baggage, or “plunder” as it is termed, had been previously disposed of, but, while waiting with my head disagreeably near to a horse’s nose, I saw people making distracted attempts, and futile ones as it appeared, to preserve their effects from the clutches of numerous porters, many of them probably thieves. To judge from appearances, many people would mourn the loss of their portmanteaus that night.
New York deserves the name applied to Washington, “the city of magnificent distances.” I drove in a hack for three miles to my destination, along crowded, handsome streets, but I believe that I only traversed a third part of the city.
It possesses the features of many different lands, but it has characteristics peculiarly its own; and as with its suburbs it may almost bear the name of the “million-peopled city,” and as its growing influence and importance have earned it the name of the Empire City, I need not apologise for dwelling at some length upon it in the succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER XVI.
Position of New York–Externals of the city–Conveyances– Maladministration–The stores–The hotels–Curiosities of the hospital– Ragged schools–The bad book–Monster schools–Amusements and oyster saloons–Monstrosities–A restaurant–Dwelling-houses–Equipages–Palaces –Dress–Figures–Manners–Education–Domestic habits–The ladies–The gentlemen–Society–Receptions–Anti-English feeling–Autographs–The “Buckram Englishman.”
New York, from its position, population, influence, and commerce, is worthy to be considered the metropolis of the New World. The situation of it is very advantageous. It is built upon Manhattan Island, which is about thirteen miles in length by two in breadth. It has the narrowest portion of Long Island Sound, called East River, on its east side; the Hudson, called the North River, environs it in another direction; while these two are connected by a narrow strait, principally artificial, denominated the Harlem River. This insular position of the city is by no means intelligible to the stranger, but it is obvious from the top of any elevated building. The dense part of New York already covers a large portion of the island; and as it _daily_ extends northward, the whole extent of insulated ground is divided into lots, and mapped out into streets.
But, not content with covering the island, which, when Hendrick Hudson first discovered it, abounded with red men, who fished along its banks and guided their bark canoes over the surrounding waters, New York, under the names of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, and four or five others, has spread itself on Long Island, Staten Island, and the banks of the Hudson. Brooklyn, on Long Island, which occupies the same position with regard to New York that Lambeth and Southwark do to London, contains a population of 100,000 souls. Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Hoboken, and Jersey City are the residences of a very large portion of the merchants of New York, who have deserted the old or Dutch part of the town, which is consequently merely an aggregate of offices. Floating platforms, moved by steam, with space in the middle part for twelve or fourteen carriages and horses, and luxurious covered apartments, heated with steam-pipes on either side, ply to and fro every five minutes at the small charge of one halfpenny a passenger, and the time occupied in crossing the ferries is often less than that of the detention on Westminster Bridge. Besides these large places, Staten Island and Long Island are covered with villa residences. Including these towns, which are in reality part of this vast city, New York contains a population of very nearly a million! Broadway, which is one of the most remarkable streets in the world, being at once the Corso, Toledo, Regent Street, and Princes Street of New York, runs along the centre of the city, and is crossed at right angles by innumerable streets, which run down to the water at each side. It would appear as if the inventive genius of the people had been exhausted, for, after borrowing designations for their streets from every part of the world, among which some of the old Dutch names figure most refreshingly, they have adopted the novel plan of numbering them. Thus there are ten “Avenues,” which run from north to south, and these are crossed by streets numbered First Street, Second Street, and so on. I believe that the skeletons of one hundred and fifty numbered streets are in existence. The southern part of the town still contains a few of the old Dutch houses, and there are some substantial red-brick villas in the vicinity, inhabited by the descendants of the old Dutch families, who are remarkably exclusive in their habits.
New York is decidedly a very handsome city. The wooden houses have nearly all disappeared, together with those of an antiquated or incongruous appearance; and the new streets are very regularly and substantially built of brown stone or dark brick. The brick building in New York is remarkably beautiful. The windows are large, and of plate-glass, and the whole external finish of the houses is in a splendid but chaste style, never to be met with in street-architecture in England. As the houses in the city are almost universally heated by air warmed by a subterranean stove, very few chimneys are required, and these are seldom visible above the stone parapets which conceal the roofs. Anthracite coal is almost universally used, so there is an absence of that murky, yellow canopy which disfigures English towns. The atmosphere is remarkably dry, so that even white marble edifices, of which there are several in the town, suffer but little from the effects of climate.
Broadway is well paved, and many of the numbered streets are not to be complained of in this respect, but a great part of the city is indescribably dirty, though it is stated that the expense of cleaning it exceeds 250,000 dollars per annum. Its immense length necessitates an enormous number of conveyances; and in order to obviate the obstruction to traffic which would have been caused by providing omnibus accommodation equal to the demand, the authorities have consented to a most alarming inroad upon several of the principal streets. The stranger sees with surprise that double lines of rails are laid along the roadways; and while driving quietly in a carriage, he hears the sound of a warning bell, and presently a railway-car, holding thirty persons, and drawn by two or four horses, comes thundering down the street. These rail-cars run every few minutes, and the fares are very low. For very sufficient reasons, Broadway is not thus encroached upon; and a journey from one end to the other of this marvellous street is a work of time and difficulty. Pack the traffic of the Strand and Cheapside into Oxford Street, and still you will not have an idea of the crush in Broadway. There are streams of scarlet and yellow omnibuses racing in the more open parts, and locking each other’s wheels in the narrower–there are helpless females deposited in the middle of a sea of slippery mud, condemned to run a gauntlet between cart-wheels and horses’ hoofs–there are loaded stages hastening to and from the huge hotels–carts and waggons laden with merchandise–and “Young Americans” driving fast-trotting horses, edging in and out among the crowd–wheels are locked, horses tumble down, and persons pressed for time are distracted. Occasionally, the whole traffic of the street comes to a dead- lock, in consequence of some obstruction or crowd, there being no policeman at hand with his incessant command, “_Move on_!”
The hackney-carriages of New York are very handsome, and, being drawn by two horses, have the appearance of private equipages; but woe to the stranger who trusts to the inviting announcement that the fare is a dollar within a certain circle. Bad as London cabmen are, one would welcome the sight of one of them. The New York hackmen are licensed plunderers, against whose extortions there is neither remedy nor appeal. They are generally Irish, and cheat people with unblushing audacity. The omnibus or stage accommodation is plentiful and excellent. A person soon becomes accustomed to, and enjoys, the occasional excitement of locked wheels or a race, and these vehicles are roomy and clean. They are sixteen inches wider than our own omnibuses, and carry a number of passengers certainly within their capabilities, and the fares are fixed and very low, 6-1/2 cents for any distance. They have windows to the sides and front, and the spaces between are painted with very tolerably-executed landscapes. There is no conductor; the driver opens and closes the door with a strap, and the money is handed to him through a little hole in the roof. The lady passengers invariably give the money to a gentleman for this purpose, and no rule of etiquette is more rigidly enforced than for him to obey the request to do so, generally consisting in a haughty wave of the hand. The thousand acts of attention which gentlemen, by rigid usage, are compelled to tender to ladies, are received by them without the slightest acknowledgment, either by word or gesture. To so great an extent is this _nonchalance_ carried on the part of the females, that two or three newspapers have seriously taken up the subject, and advise the gentlemen to withdraw from the performance of such unrequited attentions.
Strangers frequently doubt whether New York possesses a police; the doubt is very justifiable, for these guardians of the public peace are seldom forthcoming when they are wanted. They are accessible to bribes, and will investigate into crime when liberally rewarded; but probably in no city in the civilised world is life so fearfully insecure. The practice of carrying concealed arms, in the shape of stilettoes for attack, and swordsticks for defence, if illegal, is perfectly common; desperate reprobates, called “Rowdies,” infest the lower part of the town; and terrible outrages and murderous assaults are matters of such nightly occurrence as to be thought hardly worthy of notice, even in those prints which minister to man’s depraved taste for the horrible. [Footnote: The state of New York has improved. Mr. Fernando Wood, who was elected Mayor in November, 1854, has issued stringent regulations for the maintenance of order. A better police-force has been organised, and many of the notorious “Rowdies” and other bad characters have been shut up on Blackwell’s Island. His tenure of office has just expired, and it is much to be feared that the mob, which exercises an undue influence upon the municipal elections, has not chosen a successor who will interfere with its privileges.]
No language can be too strongly expressive of censure upon the disgraceful condition of New York. The evil may be distinctly traced to the wretched system of politics which prevails at the election of the municipal officers, who are often literally chosen from the lowest of the people, and are venal and corrupt in the highest degree.
During my visit to New York a candidate for one of these offices stabbed a policeman, who died of the wound. If I might judge from the tone of the public prints, and from conversations on the subject, public feeling was not much outraged by the act itself, but it was a convenient stalking- horse for the other side, and the policeman’s funeral procession, which went down Broadway, was nearly a mile in length.
The principal stores are situated in Broadway; and although they attempt very little in the way of window display, the interiors are spacious, and arranged with the greatest taste. An American store is generally a very extensive apartment, handsomely decorated, the roof frequently supported on marble pillars. The owner or clerk is seen seated by his goods, absorbed in the morning paper–probably balancing himself on one leg of his chair, with a spittoon by his side. He deigns to answer your inquiries, but, in place of the pertinacious perseverance with which an English shop man displays his wares, it seems a matter of perfect indifference to the American whether you purchase or no. The drapers’ and mercers’ shops, which go by the name of “dry goods” stores, are filled with the costliest productions of the world. The silks from the looms of France are to be seen side by side with the productions of Persia and India, and all at an advance of fully two-thirds on English prices. The “fancy goods” stores are among the most attractive lounges of the city. Here Paris figures to such an extent, that it was said at the time when difficulties with France were apprehended, in consequence of the Soule affair, that “Louis Napoleon might as well fire cannon-balls into the Palais Royal as declare war with America.” Some of the bronzes in these stores are of exquisite workmanship, and costly china from Sevres and Dresden feasts the eyes of the lovers of beauty in this branch of art.
The American ladies wear very costly jewellery, but I was perfectly amazed at the prices of some of the articles displayed. I saw a diamond bracelet containing one brilliant of prodigious size and lustre. The price was 25,000 dollars, or 5000_l._ On inquiring who would purchase such a thing, the clerk replied, “I guess some southerner will buy it for his wife.”
One of the sights with which the New York people astonish English visitors is Stewart’s dry-goods store in Broadway, an immense square building of white marble, six stories high, with a frontage of 300 feet. The business done in it is stated to be above 1,500,000_l._ per annum. There are 400 people employed at this establishment, which has even a telegraph office on the premises, where a clerk is for ever flashing dollars and cents along the trembling wires. There were lace collars 40 guineas each, and flounces of Valenciennes lace, half a yard deep, at 120 guineas a flounce. The damasks and brocades for curtains and chairs were at almost fabulous prices. Few gentlemen, the clerk observed, give less than 3_l._ per yard for these articles. The most costly are purchased by the hotels. I saw some brocade embroidered in gold to the thickness of half an inch, some of which had been supplied to the St. Nicholas Hotel at 9_l._ per yard! There were stockings from a penny to a guinea a pair, and carpetings from 1_s._ 8_d._ to 22_s._ a yard. Besides six stories above ground, there were large light rooms under the building, and under Broadway itself, echoing with the roll of its 10,000 vehicles.
The hotels are among the sights of New York. The principal are the Astor House (which has a world-wide reputation), the Metropolitan, and the St. Nicholas, all in Broadway. Prescott House and Irving House also afford accommodation on a very large scale. The entrances to these hotels invariably attract the eye of the stranger. Groups of extraordinary- looking human beings are always lounging on the door-steps, smoking, whittling, and reading newspapers. There are southerners sighing for their sunny homes, smoking Havana cigars; western men, with that dashing free- and-easy air which renders them unmistakeable; Englishmen, shrouded in exclusiveness, who look on all their neighbours as so many barbarian intruders on their privacy; and people of all nations, whom business has drawn to the American metropolis.
The Metropolitan Hotel is the most imposing in appearance. It is a block of building with a frontage of 300 feet, and is six stories high. I believe that it can accommodate 1300 people. The St. Nicholas is the most superb in its decorations; it is a magnificent building of white marble, and can accommodate 1000 visitors. Everything in this edifice is on a style of princely magnificence. The grand entrance opens into a very fine hall with a marble floor, and this is surrounded with settees covered with the skins of wild animals. The parlours are gorgeous in the extreme, and there are two superb dining-rooms to contain 600 people each. The curtains and sofa-covers in some of the parlours cost 5_l._ per yard, and, as has been previously named, one room is furnished with gold brocade purchased at 9_l._ per yard. About 100 married couples reside permanently at the St. Nicholas; it does not, however, bear the very best reputation, as it is said to be the resort of a large number of professed gamblers. Large as these hotels are, they are nothing to a monster establishment at Cape May, a fashionable summer resort in New Jersey. The capacities of this building, the Mount Vernon Hotel, though stated on the best authority, can scarcely be credited–it is said to make up 3000 beds!
Owing to the high rates of house-rent and the difficulty of procuring servants, together with the exorbitant wages which they require, many married couples, and even families, reside permanently at the hotels. Living constantly in public, without opportunity for holding family intercourse, and being without either home cares or home pleasures, nomade, restless, pleasure-seeking habits are induced, which have led strangers to charge the Americans with being destitute of home life. That such is the case to some extent is not to be denied; but this want is by no means generally observed. I have met with family circles in the New World as united and affectionate as those in the Old, not only in country districts, but in the metropolis itself; and in New England there is probably as much of what may be termed patriarchal life as anywhere in Europe.
The public charities of New York are on a gigantic scale. The New York Hospital, a fine stone building with some large trees in front, situated in Broadway, was one which pleased me as much as any. Two of the physicians kindly took me over the whole building, and explained all the arrangements. I believe that the hospital contains 650 beds, and it is generally full, being not only the receptacle for the numerous accident cases which are of daily occurrence in New York, but for those of a large district besides, which are conveniently brought in by railroad. We first went into the recent-accident room, where the unhappy beings who were recently hurt or operated upon were lying. Some of them were the most piteous objects I ever witnessed, and the medical men, under the impression that I was deeply interested in surgery, took pains to exhibit all the horrors. There were a good many of the usual classes of accidents,–broken limbs and mangled frames. There was one poor little boy of twelve years old, whose arms had been torn to pieces by machinery; one of them had been amputated on the previous day, and, while the medical men displayed the stump, they remarked that the other must be taken off on the next day. The poor boy groaned with a more than childish expression of agony on his pale features, probably at the thought of the life of helplessness before him. A young Irishman had been crushed by a railway car, and one of his legs had been amputated a few hours previously. As the surgeon altered the bandages he was laughing and joking, and had been singing ever since the operation–a remarkable instance of Paddy’s unfailing lightheartedness.
But, besides these ordinary accidents, there were some very characteristic of New York and of a New York election. In one ward there were several men who had been stabbed the night before, two of whom were mortally wounded. There were two men, scarcely retaining the appearance of human beings, who had been fearfully burned and injured by the explosion of an infernal machine. All trace of human features had departed; it seemed hardly credible that such blackened, distorted, and mangled frames could contain human souls. There were others who had received musket-shot wounds during the election, and numbers of broken heads, and wounds from knives. It was sad to know that so much of the suffering to be seen in that hospital was the result of furious religious animosities, and of the unrestrained lawlessness of human violence.
There was one man who had been so nearly crushed to pieces, that it seemed marvellous that the mangled frame could still retain its vitality. One leg was broken in three places, and the flesh torn off from the knee to the foot; both arms and several ribs were also broken. We went into one of the female wards, where sixteen broken legs were being successfully treated, and I could not but admire a very simple contrivance which remedies the contraction which often succeeds broken limbs, and produces permanent lameness. Two long straps of plaister were glued from above the knee to the ankle, and were then fixed to a wooden bar, with a screw and handle, so that the tension could be regulated at pleasure. The medical men, in remarking upon this, observed that in England we were very slow to adopt any American improvements in surgery or medicine.
There were many things in this hospital which might be imitated in England with great advantage to the patients. Each ward was clean, sweet, and airy; and the system of heating and ventilation is very superior. The heating and ventilating apparatus, instead of sending forth alternate blasts of hot and cold air, keeps up a uniform and easily regulated temperature. A draught of cold air is continually forced through a large apparatus of steam-pipes, and, as it becomes vitiated in the rooms above, passes out through ventilators placed just below the ceiling. Our next visit was to the laundry, where two men, three women, and, last but not least, a steam-engine of 45-horse power, were perpetually engaged in washing the soiled linen of the hospital. The large and rapidly-moving cylinder which churns the linen is a common part of a steam laundry, but the wringing machine is one of the most beautiful practical applications of a principle in natural philosophy that I ever saw. It consists of a large perforated cylinder, open at the top, with a case in the centre. This cylinder performs from 400 to 700 revolutions in a minute, and, by the power of the centrifugal force thus produced, the linen is impelled so violently against the sides, that the moisture is forced through the perforations, when the linen is left nearly dry.
Strange as it may appear to those who associate America with plenty and comfort, there is a very large class of persons at New York living in a state of squalid and abject poverty; and in order that the children belonging to it may receive some education, it has been found necessary by the benevolent to supplement the common school system with ragged or industrial schools. In order not to wound the pride of parents who are not too proud to receive a gratuitous education for their offspring, these establishments are not called Ragged Schools, but “Boys’ Meetings,” and “Girls’ Meetings.” I visited two of these, the first in Tompkin Square. There were about 100 children in the school, and nearly all of them were Irish Roman Catholics. They receive a good elementary education, and answered the questions addressed to them with correctness and alacrity. The Bible, of course, is not read, but the pupils learn a Scripture catechism, and paraphrased versions of Scripture incidents. One day, during the absence of the teacher, one of the pupils was looking into an English Bible, and another addressed her with the words, “You wicked girl, you know the priest says that you are never to open that bad book; I will never walk with you again.” The child, on going home, told her mother, and she said that she did not think it could be such a bad book, as the ladies who were so kind to them read it. The child said that it was a beautiful book, and persuaded her mother to borrow a Bible from a neighbour; she read it, and became a Protestant. These children earn their clothing by a certain number of good marks, but most of them were shoeless. Each child is obliged to take a bath on the establishment once a-week. Their answers in geography and history were extremely good. In the afternoon the elder girls are employed in tailoring and dressmaking, and receive so much work that this branch of the school is self-supporting.
I visited another industrial school, in a very bad part of the town, adjoining the Bowery, where the parents are of the very worst description, and their offspring are vicious and unmanageable. I think that I never saw vice and crime so legibly stamped upon the countenances of children as upon those in this school. The teachers find it extremely difficult to preserve discipline at all; and the pilfering habits of the pupils are almost incorrigible. They each receive a pint of excellent soup and an unlimited quantity of bread for dinner; but they are discontented and unthankful.
The common school system will be enlarged upon in a succeeding chapter; but I cannot forbear noticing one school which I visited, It was a lofty, four-storied building of red brick, with considerable architectural pretensions. It was faced with brown stone, and had a very handsome entrance-hall and staircase. The people of New York vie with each other in their hospitality to strangers, and in showing them the objects of interest within their city in the very best manner; and it was under the auspices of Dr. Wells, one of the commissioners of education, that I saw this admirable school, or rather educational institution. On inquiring the reason of the extraordinary height of the balustrades, I was told that some weeks previously, as the boys were hurriedly leaving school, forty of them had been pushed over the staircase, out of which number nearly the whole were killed!
In the girls’ room about 900 girls between the ages of eight and eighteen were assembled. They were the children of persons in every class in the city except the very wealthiest and the poorest. All these girls were well dressed, some of them tasteful, others fantastic, in their appearance. There was a great deal of beauty among the elder pupils; I only regretted that the bright bloom which many possessed should be so evanescent. The rich luxuriant hair, often of a beautiful auburn hue, was a peculiarity which could not be overlooked. There were about ten female teachers, the principal of whom played some lively airs upon the piano, during which time the pupils marched steadily in from various class-rooms, and took their seats at handsome mahogany desks, which accommodated two each. No expense had been spared in the fittings of the apartment; the commissioners of education are evidently of opinion that the young do not acquire knowledge the more speedily from being placed on comfortless benches, without any means of resting their weak and tired frames.
Each desk contained a drawer or cupboard; and to encourage those habits of order and self-reliance to which so much weight is attached in the States, each pupil is made responsible for the preservation and security of her books and all implements of education. The business of the day commenced by the whole number of girls reverently repeating the Lord’s Prayer, which, in addressing God as “Our Father,” proclaims the common bond of brotherhood which unites the whole human race. The sound of 900 youthful voices solemnly addressing their Creator was very beautiful and impressive. A chapter from the Bible, read aloud by the teacher, followed, and a hymn beautifully sung, when the pupils filed off as before to the sound of music. We next went to the elementary room, appropriated to infants, who are not sent to the higher school till their proficiency reaches the standard required.
The infant system does not appear to differ materially from ours, except that it is of a more intellectual nature. In this room 1300 children joined in singing a hymn. In the boys’ rooms about 1000 boys were receiving instruction under about 12 specimens of “Young America.” The restless, the almost fearful energy of the teachers surprised me, and the alacrity of the boys in answering questions. In the algebra-room questions involving the most difficult calculation on the part of the pupils were answered sometimes even before the teacher had worked them out himself.
Altogether, I was delighted with this school and with the earnestness displayed by both teachers and pupils. I was not so well pleased with the manners of the instructors, particularly in the boys’ school. There was a boastfulness, an exaggeration, and a pedantry, which are by no means necessary accompaniments of superior attainments. The pupils have a disrespectful, familiar, and independent air, though I understood that the punishments are more severe than are generally approved of in English schools. The course of instruction is very complete. History is especially attended to, with its bearing upon modern politics. The teachers receive from 80_l._ to 300_l._ a year, and very high attainments are required. Besides the common and industrial schools, there are means of education provided for the juvenile portion of the very large foreign population of New York, principally German. There are several schools held under the basements of the churches, without any paid teachers. The ladies of New York, to their honour be it said, undertake, unassisted, the education of these children, a certain number being attached to every school. Each of these ladies takes some hours of a day, and youth and beauty may be seen perseveringly engaged in this arduous but useful task.
The spirit of practical benevolence which appears to permeate New York society is one of its most pleasing features. It is not only that the wealthy contribute large sums of money to charitable objects, but they personally superintend their right distribution. No class is left untouched by their benevolent efforts; wherever suffering and poverty are found, the hand of Christianity or philanthropy is stretched out to relieve them. The gulf which in most cities separates the rich from the poor has been to some extent lessened in New York; for numbers of ladies and gentlemen of education and affluence visit among the poor and vicious, seeking to raise them to a better position.
If there are schools, emigrant hospitals, orphan asylums, and nursing institutions, to mark the good sense and philanthropy of the people of New York, so their love of amusement and recreation is strongly evidenced by the numerous places where both may be procured. There is perhaps as much pleasure-seeking as in Paris; the search after amusement is characterised by the same restless energy which marks the pursuit after wealth; and if the Americans have little time for enjoying themselves, they are resolved that the opportunities for doing so shall be neither distant nor few. Thus, Broadway and its neighbourhood contain more places of amusement than perhaps any district of equal size in the world. These present variety sufficient to embrace the tastes of the very heterogeneous population of New York.
There are three large theatres; an opera-house of gigantic proportions, which is annually graced by the highest vocal talent of Europe; Wood’s minstrels, and Christy’s minstrels, where blacks perform in unexceptionable style to unwearied audiences; and comic operas. There are _al fresco_ entertainments, masquerades, concerts, restaurants, and oyster saloons. Besides all these, and many more, New York contained in 1853 the amazing number of 5980 taverns. The number of places where amusement is combined with intellectual improvement is small, when compared with other cities of the same population. There are however some very magnificent reading-rooms and libraries.
The amount of oysters eaten in New York surprised me, although there was an idea at the time of my visit that they produced the cholera, which rather checked any extraordinary excesses in this curious fish. In the business streets of New York the eyes are greeted continually with the words “Oyster Saloon,” painted in large letters on the basement story. If the stranger’s curiosity is sufficient to induce him to dive down a flight of steps into a subterranean abode, at the first glance rather suggestive of robbery, one favourite amusement of the people may be seen in perfection. There is a counter at one side, where two or three persons, frequently blacks, are busily engaged in opening oysters for their customers, who swallow them with astonishing relish and rapidity. In a room beyond, brightly lighted by gas, family groups are to be seen, seated at round tables, and larger parties of friends, enjoying basins of stewed oysters; while from some mysterious recess the process of cookery makes itself distinctly audible. Some of these saloons are highly respectable, while many are just the reverse. But the consumption of oysters is by no means confined to the saloons; in private families an oyster supper is frequently a nightly occurrence; the oysters are dressed in the parlour by an ingenious and not inelegant apparatus. So great is the passion for this luxury, that the consumption of it during the season is estimated at 3500_l._ a-day.
There are several restaurants in the city, on the model of those in the Palais Royal. The most superb of these, _but not by any means the most respectable_, is Taylor’s, in Broadway. It combines Eastern magnificence with Parisian taste, and strangers are always expected to visit it. It is a room about 100 ft. in length, by 22 in height; the roof and cornices richly carved and gilded, the walls ornamented by superb mirrors, separated by white marble. The floor is of marble, and a row of fluted and polished marble pillars runs down each side. It is a perfect blaze of decoration. There is an alcove at one end of the apartment, filled with orange-trees, and the air is kept refreshingly cool by a crystal fountain. Any meal can be obtained here at any hour. On the day on which I visited it, the one hundred marble tables which it contains were nearly all occupied; a double row of equipages lined the street at the door; and two or three hundred people, many of them without bonnets and fantastically dressed, were regaling themselves upon ices and other elegancies in an atmosphere redolent with the perfume of orange-flowers, and musical with the sound of trickling water, and the melody of musical snuff-boxes. There was a complete maze of fresco, mirrors, carving, gilding, and marble. A dinner can be procured here at any hour of day or night, from one shilling and sixpence up to half-a-guinea, and other meals in like proportion. As we merely went to see the restaurant, we ordered ices, which were served from large reservoirs, shining like polished silver. These were paid for at the time, and we received tickets in return, which were taken by the doorkeeper on coming out. It might be supposed that Republican simplicity would scorn so much external display; but the places of public entertainment vie in their splendour with the palaces of kings.
It was almost impossible for a stranger to leave New York without visiting the American museum, the property of _Phineas Taylor Barnum_. The history of this very remarkable man is now well known, even in England, where the publication of his ‘Autobiography’ has been a nine days’ wonder. It is said that 60,000 copies were sold at New York in one day, so successful has he been in keeping himself for ever before the public eye. It is painful to see how far a man whose life has been spent in total disregard of the principles of truth and integrity should have earned for himself popularity and fame. His museum is situated in Broadway, near to the City Hall, and is a gaudy building, denoted by huge paintings, multitudes of flags, and a very noisy band. The museum contains many objects of real interest, particularly to the naturalist and geologist, intermingled with a great deal that is spurious and contemptible. But this museum is by no means the attraction to this “Palace of Humbug.”
There is a collection of horrors or monstrosities attached, which appears to fascinate the vulgar gaze. The principal objects of attraction at this time were, a dog with two legs, a cow with four horns, and a calf with six legs–disgusting specimens of deformity, which ought to have been destroyed, rather than preserved to gratify a morbid taste for the horrible and erratic in nature. But while persons of the highest station and education in England patronised an artful and miserable dwarf, cleverly exhibited by a showman totally destitute of principle, it is not surprising that the American people should delight in yet more hideous exhibitions, under the same auspices.
The magnificence of the private dwellings of New York must not escape mention, though I am compelled to withhold many details that would be interesting, from a fear of “violating the rights of hospitality.” The squares, and many of the numbered streets, contain very superb houses of a most pleasing uniformity of style. They are built either of brown stone, or of dark red brick, durably pointed, and faced with stone. This style of brick masonry is extremely tasteful and beautiful. Every house has an entrance-porch with windows of stained glass, and double doors; the outer one being only closed at night. The upper part of the inner door is made of stained glass; the door-handles and bell-pulls are made of highly- polished electro-plate; and a handsome flight of stone steps, with elegant bronze balustrades, leads up to the porch. The entrance-halls are seldom large, but the staircases, which are of stone, are invariably very handsome. These houses are six stories high, and usually contain three reception-rooms; a dining-room, small, and not striking in appearance in any way, as dinner-parties are seldom given in New York; a small, elegantly-furnished drawing-room, used as a family sitting-room, and for the reception of morning visitors; and a magnificent reception-room, furnished in the height of taste and elegance, for dancing, music, and evening parties.
In London the bedrooms are generally inconvenient and uncomfortable, being sacrificed to the reception-rooms; in New York this is not the case. The bedrooms are large, lofty, and airy; and are furnished with all the appurtenances which modern luxury has been able to devise. The profusion of marble gives a very handsome and chaste appearance to these apartments. There are bath-rooms generally on three floors, and hot and cold water are laid on in every story. The houses are warmed by air heated from a furnace at the basement; and though in addition open fires are sometimes adopted, they are made of anthracite coal, which emits no smoke, and has rather the appearance of heated metal than of fuel. Ornamental articles of Parisian taste and Italian workmanship abound in these houses; and the mouldings, cornices, and woodwork, are all beautifully executed. The doorways and windows are very frequently of an arched form, which contributes to the tasteful appearance of the houses. Every species of gaudy decoration is strictly avoided; the paint is generally white, with gilt mouldings; and the lofty rooms are either painted in panels, or hung with paper of a very simple pattern.
The curtains and chair-covers are always of very rich damask, frequently worth from two to three guineas a yard; but the richness of this, and of the gold embroidery, is toned down by the dark hue of the walnut-wood furniture. The carpets of the reception-rooms are generally of rich Kidderminster, or velvet pile; an air of elegance and cleanliness pervades these superb dwellings; they look the height of comfort. It must be remembered that the foregoing is not a description of a dwelling here and there, but of fifty or sixty streets, or of 4000 or 5000 houses, those inhabited by merchants of average incomes, storekeepers not of the wealthiest class, and lawyers. The number of servants kept in such mansions as these would sound disproportionately small to an English ear. Two or three female servants only are required. Breakfast is very early, frequently at seven, seldom later than eight. The families of merchants in business in the lower part of the city often dine at one, and the gentlemen return to a combination of dinner with tea at six. It does not appear that at home luxury in eating is much studied. It is not customary, even among some of the wealthier inhabitants of New York, to indulge in sumptuous equipages. “Hacks,” with respectable-looking drivers and pairs of horses, fill the place of private carriages, and look equally well. Coachmen require high wages, and carriages are frequently injured by collision with omnibuses; these are among the reasons given for the very general use of hired vehicles.
The private equipages to be seen in New York, though roomy and comfortable, are not elegant. They are almost invariably closed, with glass sides and front, and are constructed with a view to keep out the intense heat of the summer sun. The coachmen are generally blacks, and the horses are stout animals, with cropped tails. The majority have broken knees, owing to the great slipperiness of the pavements.
Altogether, the occupants of stages are the most secure of the numerous travellers down Broadway. The driver, on his lofty box, has more control over his horses, and, in case of collision, the weight of his vehicle gives him an advantage; and there is a general inclination, on the part of the conductors of carriages, to give these swiftly-moving vehicles “ample room and verge enough.” While threading the way through the intricate labyrinth of waggons, stages, falling horses, and locked wheels, it is highly unpleasant for the denizens of private carriages to find the end of a pole through the back of the equipage, or to be addressed by the coachman, “Massa, dat big waggon is pulling off my wheel.”
Having given a brief description of the style of the ordinary dwellings of the affluent, I will just glance at those of the very wealthy, of which there are several in Fifth Avenue, and some of the squares, surpassing anything I had hitherto witnessed in royal or ducal palaces at home. The externals of some of these mansions in Fifth Avenue are like Apsley House, and Stafford House, St. James’s; being substantially built of brown stone. At one house which I visited in—-street, about the largest private residence in the city, and one which is considered to combine the greatest splendour with the greatest taste, we entered a spacious marble hall, leading to a circular stone staircase of great width, the balustrades being figures elaborately cast in bronze. Above this staircase was a lofty dome, decorated with paintings in fresco of eastern scenes. There were niches in the walls, some containing Italian statuary, and others small jets of water pouring over artificial moss,
There were six or eight magnificent reception-rooms, furnished in various styles–the Mediaeval, the Elizabethan, the Italian, the Persian, the modern English, &c. There were fountains of fairy workmanship, pictures from the old masters, statues from Italy, “_chefs-d’oeuvre_” of art; porcelain from China and Sevres; damasks, cloth of gold, and bijoux from the East; Gobelin tapestry, tables of malachite and agate, and “knick- knacks” of every description. In the Mediaeval and Elizabethan apartments, it did not appear to me that any anachronisms had been committed with respect to the furniture and decorations. The light was subdued by passing through windows of rich stained glass. I saw one table the value of which might be about 2000 guineas. The ground was black marble, with a wreath of flowers inlaid with very costly gems upon it. There were flowers or bunches of fruit, of turquoise, carbuncles, rubies, topazes, and emeralds, while the leaves were of malachite, cornelian, or agate. The effect produced by this lavish employment of wealth was not very good. The bedrooms were scarcely less magnificently furnished than the reception- rooms; with chairs formed of stag-horns, tables inlaid with agates, and hangings of Damascus cashmere, richly embossed with gold. There was nothing gaudy, profuse, or prominent in the decorations or furniture; everything had evidently been selected and arranged by a person of very refined taste. Among the very beautiful works of art was a collection of cameos, including some of Cellini’s from the antique, which were really entrancing to look upon.
Another mansion, which N. P. Willis justly describes as “a fairy palace of taste and art,” though not so extensive, was equally beautiful, and possessed a large winter-garden. This was approached by passing through a succession of very beautiful rooms, the walls of which were hung with paintings which would have delighted a _connoisseur_. It was a glass building with a high dome: a fine fountain was playing in the centre, and round its marble basin were orange, palm, and myrtle trees, with others from the tropics, some of them of considerable growth. Every part of the floor that was not of polished white marble was thickly carpeted with small green ferns. The _gleam_ of white marble statues, from among the clumps of orange-trees and other shrubs, was particularly pretty; indeed, the whole had a fairy-like appearance about it. Such mansions as these were rather at variance with my ideas of republican simplicity; they contained apartments which would have thrown into the shade the finest rooms in Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace. It is not the custom for Americans to leave large fortunes to their children; their wealth is spent in great measure in surrounding themselves with the beautiful and the elegant in their splendid mansions; and it is probable that the adornments which have been collected with so much expense and trouble will be dispersed at the death of their present possessors.
I have often been asked, “How do the American ladies dress? Have they nice figures? Do they wear much ornament? What are their manners like? Are they highly educated? Are they domestic?” I will answer these questions as far as I am capable of doing so.
In bygone times, the “good old times” of America perhaps, large patterns, brilliant colours, exaggerated fashions, and redundant ornament, were all adopted by the American ladies; and without just regard to the severity of their climate, they patronised thin dresses, and yet thinner shoes; both being, as has been since discovered, very prolific sources of ill health. Frequent intercourse with Europe, and the gradual progress of good taste, have altered this absurd style, and America, like England, is now content to submit to the dictation of Paris in all matters of fashion. But though Paris might dictate, it was found that American milliners had stubborn wills of their own, so Parisian _modistes_ were imported along with Parisian silks, ribands, and gloves. No dressmaker is now considered orthodox who cannot show a prefix of _Madame_, and the rage for foreign materials and workmanship of every kind is as ludicrous as in England.
Although the deception practised is very blameable, there is some comfort in knowing that large numbers of the caps, bonnets, mantles, and other articles of dress, which are marked ostentatiously with the name of some _Rue_ in Paris, have never incurred the risks of an Atlantic voyage. But however unworthy a devotion to fashion may be, it is very certain that the ladies of New York dress beautifully, and in very good taste. Although it is rather repugnant to one’s feelings to behold costly silks and rich brocades sweeping the pavements of Broadway, with more effect than is produced by the dustmen, it is very certain that more beautiful _toilettes_ are to be seen in this celebrated thoroughfare, in one afternoon, than in Hyde Park in a week. As it is impossible to display the productions of the millinery art in a close carriage in a crowd, Broadway is the fashionable promenade; and the lightest French bonnets, the handsomest mantles, and the richest flounced silk dresses, with _jupons_, ribands, and laces to correspond, are there to be seen in the afternoon. Evening attire is very much the same as in England, only that richer materials are worn by the young. The harmony of colours appears to be a subject studied to some purpose, and the style of dress is generally adapted to the height, complexion, and figure of the wearer.
The figures of the American ladies in youth are very sylph-like and elegant; and this appearance is obtained without the use of those artificial constraints so justly to be condemned. They are almost too slight for beauty, though this does not signify while they retain the luxuriant wavy hair, brilliant complexion, elastic step, and gracefulness of very early youth. But unfortunately a girl of twenty is too apt to look faded and haggard; and a woman who with us would be in her bloom at thirty, looks _passee_, wrinkled, and old. It is then that the sylph-like form assumes an unpleasant angularity, suggestive of weariness and care. It is remarkable, however, that ladies of recent English extraction, under exactly the same circumstances, retain their good looks into middle life, and advancing years produce _embonpoint_, instead of angularity. I was very agreeably surprised with the beauty of the young ladies of New York; there is something peculiarly graceful and fascinating in their personal appearance.
To judge from the costly articles of jewellery displayed in the stores, I should have supposed that there was a great rage for ornament; but from the reply I once received from a jeweller, on asking him who would purchase a five-thousand-guinea diamond bracelet, “I guess some Southerner will buy it for his wife,” I believe that most of these articles find their way to the South and West, where a less-cultivated taste may be supposed to prevail. I saw very little jewellery worn, and that was generally of a valuable but plain description. The young ladies appear to have adopted the maxim, “Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.” They study variety in ornament rather than profusion. “What are their manners like?” is a difficult question to answer. That there is a great difference between the manners of English and American ladies may be inferred from some remarks made to me by the most superior woman whom I met in America, and one who had been in English society in London. In naming a lady with whom she was acquainted, and one who could scarcely be expected to be deficient in affection towards herself, she said, “Her manners were perfectly ladylike, but she seemed to talk merely because conversation was a conventional requirement of society, and I cannot believe that she had any heart.” She added, “I did not blame her for this; it was merely the result of an English education, which studiously banishes every appearance of interest or emotion. Emotion is condemned as romantic and vulgar sensibility, interest as enthusiasm.”
The system which she reprehended is not followed at New York, and the result is, not that the ladies “wear their hearts on their sleeves for daws to peck at,” but that they are unaffected, lively, and agreeable. The _repose_ so studiously cultivated in England, and which is considered perfect when it has become listlessness, apathy, and indifference, finds no favour with our lively Transatlantic neighbours; consequently the ladies are very _naive_ and lively, and their manners have the vivacity without the frivolity of the French. They say themselves that they are not so highly educated as the ladies of England. Admirable as the common schools are, the seminaries for ladies, with one or two exceptions, are very inferior to ours, and the early age at which the young ladies go into society precludes them from completing a superior education; for it is scarcely to be expected that, when their minds are filled with the desire for conquest and the love of admiration, they will apply systematically to remedy their deficiencies. And again, some of their own sex in the States have so far stepped out of woman’s proper sphere, that high attainments are rather avoided by many from the ridicule which has been attached to the unsuitable display of them in public. The young ladies are too apt to consider their education completed when they are emancipated from school restraints, while in fact only the basis of it has been laid. Music and drawing are not much cultivated in the higher branches; and though many speak the modern languages with fluency, natural philosophy and arithmetic, which strengthen the mental powers, are rather neglected. Yet who has ever missed the higher education which English ladies receive, while in the society of the lively, attractive ladies of New York? Of course there are exceptions, where active and superior minds become highly cultivated by their own persevering exertions; but the aids offered by ladies’ schools are comparatively insignificant.
The ladies in the United States appeared to me to be extremely domestic. However fond they may be of admiration as girls, after their early marriages they become dutiful wives, and affectionate, devoted mothers. And in a country where there are few faithful attached servants, far more devolves upon the mother than English ladies have any idea of. Those amusements which would withdraw her from home must be abandoned; however fond she may be of travelling, she must abide in the nursery; and all those little attentions which in England are turned over to the nurse must be performed by herself, or under her superintending eye. She must be the nurse of her children alike by day and by night, in sickness and in health; and with the attention which American ladies pay to their husbands, their married life is by no means an idle one. Under these circumstances, the early fading of their bloom is not to be wondered at, and I cannot but admire the manner in which many of them cheerfully conform to years of anxiety and comparative seclusion, after the homage and gaiety which seemed their natural atmosphere in their early youth.
Of the gentlemen it is less easy to speak. They are immersed in a whirl of business, often of that speculative kind which demands a constant exercise of intense thought. The short period which they can spend in the bosom of their families must be an enjoyment and relaxation to them; therefore, in the absence of any statements to the contrary, it is but right to suppose that they are affectionate husbands and fathers. However actively the gentlemen of New York are engaged in business pursuits, they travel, read the papers, and often devote some time to general literature. They look rather more pale and careworn than the English, as the uncertainties of business are greater in a country where speculative transactions are carried to such an exaggerated extent. They also indulge in eccentricities of appearance in the shape of beards and imperials, not to speak of the “goatee” and moustaches of various forms. With these exceptions, there is nothing in appearance, manner, or phraseology to distinguish them from gentlemen in the best English society, except perhaps that they evince more interest and animation in their conversation.
The peculiar expressions which go under the name of Americanisms are never heard in good society, and those disagreeable habits connected with tobacco are equally unknown. I thought that the gentlemen were remarkably free from mannerisms of any kind. I have frequently heard Americans speak of the descriptions given by Dickens and Mrs. Trollope of the slang and disagreeable practices to be met with in the States; and they never, on a single occasion, denied their truthfulness, but said that these writers mistook the perpetrators of these vulgarities for _gentlemen_. The gentlemen are extremely deferential and attentive in their manners to ladies, and are hardly, I think, treated with sufficient graciousness in return. At New York a great many are actively engaged in philanthropic pursuits. The quiescence of manner attained by English gentlemen, which frequently approaches inanity, is seldom to be met with in America. The exhilarating influences of the climate and the excitement of business have a tendency to produce animation of manner, and force and earnestness of expression. A great difference in these respects is apparent in gentlemen from the southern States, who live in an enervating climate, and whose pursuits are of a more tranquil nature. The dry, elastic atmosphere of the northern States produces a restlessness which must either expend itself in bodily or mental exertion or force of expression; from this probably arise the frequent use of superlatives, and the exaggeration of language, which the more phlegmatic English attribute to the Americans.
Since my return to England I have frequently been asked the question, “What is society like in America?” This word _society_ is one of very ambiguous meaning. It is used in England by the titled aristocracy to distinguish themselves, their connexions, and those whose wealth or genius has gained them admission into their circles. But every circle, every city, and even every country neighbourhood, has what it pleases to term “society;” and when the members of it say of an individual, “I never met him in society,” it ostracises him, no matter how estimable or agreeable he may be. In England, to “society,” in each of its grades, wealth is a sure passport, as has been evidenced of late years by several very notorious instances. Thus it is extremely difficult to answer the question, “What is New York society like?” It certainly is not like that which is associated in our minds with the localities May Fair and Belgravia; neither can it be compared to the circles which form parasitically round the millionaire; still less is it like the dulness of country neighbourhoods. New York has its charmed circles also; a republic admits of the greatest exclusiveness; and, in the highest circles of the city, to say that a man is not in society, is to ostracise him as in England. It must be stated that some of the most agreeable _salons_ of New York are almost closed against foreigners. French, Germans, and Italians, with imposing titles, have proved how unworthily they bear them; and this feeling against strangers–I will not call it prejudice, for there are sufficient grounds for it–is extended to the English, some of whom, I regret to say, have violated the rights of hospitality in many different ways. I have heard of such conduct on the part of my countrymen as left me no room for surprise that many families, whose acquaintance would be most agreeable, strictly guard their drawing-room from English intrusion. And, besides this, there are those who have entered houses merely to caricature their inmates, and have received hospitality only to ridicule the manner in which it was exercised, while they have indulged in unamiable personalities, and have not respected the sanctity of private life.
It was through an introduction given me by a valued English friend that I, as an English stranger, was received with the kindest hospitality by some of those who have been rendered thus exclusive by the bad taste and worse conduct of foreigners. I feel, as I write, that any remarks I make on New York society cannot be perfectly free from bias, owing to the overwhelming kindness and glowing hospitality which I met with in that city. I found so much to enjoy in society, and so much to interest and please everywhere, that when I left New York it was with the wish that the few weeks which I was able to spend there could have been prolonged into as many months.
But, to answer the question. The best society in New York would not suffer by comparison in any way with the best society in England. It is not in the upper classes of any nation that we must look for national characteristics or peculiarities. Society throughout the civilized world is, to a certain extent, cast in the same mould; the same laws of etiquette prevail, and the same conventionalisms restrict in great measure the display of any individual characteristics. Balls are doubtless the same in “society” all over the world; a certain amount of black cloth, kid gloves, white muslin, epaulettes if they can be procured, dancing, music, and ices. Every one acknowledges that dinner-parties are equally dull in London and Paris, in Calcutta and in New York, unless the next neighbour happens to be peculiarly agreeable. Therefore, it is most probable that balls and dinner-parties are in New York exactly the same as in other places, except that the latter are less numerous, and are principally confined to gentlemen. It is not, in fact, convenient to give dinner parties in New York; there are not sufficient domestics to bear the pressure of an emergency, and the pleasure is not considered worth the trouble. If two or three people have sufficient value for the society of the host and hostess to come in to an ordinary dinner, at an ordinary hour, they are welcome. If turtle and venison were offered on such an occasion, it would have the effect of repelling, rather than attracting, the guests, and it would not have the effect of making them believe that their host and hostess always lived on such luxurious viands.
As dinner-parties are neither deemed agreeable nor convenient, and as many sensible people object to the late hours and general dissipation of mind produced by balls and large dancing parties, a happy innovation upon old customs has been made, and early evening receptions have been introduced. Some of the most splendid mansions of New York, as well as the most agreeable, are now thrown open weekly for the reception of visitors in a social manner. These receptions differ from what are known by the same name in London. The crowd in which people become wedged, in a vain attempt to speak to the hostess, is as much as possible avoided; late hours are abandoned; the guests, who usually arrive about eight, are careful to disappear shortly after eleven, lest, Cinderella-like, the hostess should vanish. Then, again, all the guests feel themselves on a perfect equality, as people always ought to do who meet in the same room, on the invitation of the same hostess. [Footnote: The Americans justly ridicule that species of bad breeding which leads people at parties to draw back from others, from a fear that their condescension should fall upon ground unconsecrated by the dictatorial fiat of “society.” An amusing instance of the effect of this pride, which occurred in England, was related. Some years ago the illustrious Baron Humboldt was invited to play the part of lion at the house of a nobleman. A select circle of fashionables appeared, and among the company a man very plainly dressed and not noticeable in appearance. He spoke first to one person, and then to another: some drew themselves up with a haughty stare; others answered in monosyllables; but all repulsed the Baron; and it was not until late in the evening, after he had departed early, disgusted with this ungracious reception, that these people knew that by their conduct they had lost the advantage of the conversation of one of the greatest men of the age.]
The lady of the house adopts the old but very sensible fashion of introducing people to each other, which helps to prevent a good deal of stiffness. As the rooms in the New York houses are generally large, people sit, stand, or walk about as they feel inclined, or group themselves round some one gifted with peculiar conversational powers. At all of these re- unions there was a great deal of conversation worth listening to or joining in, and, as a stranger, I had the advantage of being introduced to every one who was considered worth knowing. Poets, historians, and men of science are to be met with frequently at these receptions; but they do not go as lions, but to please and be pleased; and such men as Longfellow, Prescott, or Washington Irving may be seen mixing with the general throng with so much _bonhommie_ and simplicity, that none would fancy that in their own land they are the envy of their age, and sustain world-wide reputations. The way in which literary lions are exhibited in England, as essential to the _eclat_ of fashionable parties, is considered by the Americans highly repugnant to good taste. I was very agreeably surprised with the unaffected manners and extreme simplicity of men eminent in the scientific and literary world.
These evening receptions are a very happy idea; for people, whose business or inclinations would not permit them to meet in any other way, are thus brought together without formality or expense. The conversation generally turned on Europe, general literature, art, science, or the events of the day. I must say that I never heard one remark that could be painful to an English ear made, even in jest. There was none of that vulgar boastfulness and detraction which is to be met with in less educated society. Most of the gentlemen whom I met, and many of the ladies, had travelled in Europe, and had brought back highly cultivated tastes in art, and cosmopolitan ideas, which insensibly affect the circles in which they move.
All appeared to take a deep interest in the war, and in our success. I heard our military movements in the Crimea criticised with some severity by military men, some of whom have since left for the seat of war, to watch our operations. The conclusion of the Vienna negociations appeared to excite some surprise. “I had no idea,” an officer observed to me, “that public opinion was so strong in England as to be able to compel a minister of such strong Russian proclivities as Lord Aberdeen to go to war with his old friend Nicholas.” The arrangements at Balaklava excited very general condemnation; people were fond of quoting the saying attributed to a Russian officer, “You have an army of _lions_ led by _asses_.”
The Americans are always anxious to know what opinion a stranger has formed of their country, and I would be asked thirty times on one evening, “How do you like America?” Fortunately, the kindness which I met with rendered it impossible for me to give any but a satisfactory reply. English literature was a very general topic of conversation, and it is most gratifying to find how our best English works are “familiar in their mouths as household words.” Some of the conversation on literature was of a very brilliant order. I heard very little approximation to either wit or humour, and _badinage_ is not cultivated, or excelled in, to the same extent as in England.
On one occasion I was asked to exhibit a collection of autographs, and the knowledge of English literature possessed by the Americans was shown by the information they had respecting not only our well-known authors, but those whose names have not an extended reputation even with us. Thus the works of Maitland, Ritchie, Sewell, Browning, Howitt, and others seemed perfectly familiar to them. The trembling signature of George III. excited general interest from his connection with their own history, and I was not a little amused to see how these republicans dwelt with respectful attention on the decided characters of Queen Victoria. A very characteristic letter of Lord Byron’s was read aloud, and, in return for the pleasure they had experienced, several kind individuals gave me valuable autographs of their own _literati_ and statesmen. Letters written by Washington descend as precious heirlooms in families, and so great is the estimation in which this venerated patriot is held, that, with all the desire to oblige a stranger which the Americans evince, I believe that I could not have purchased a few lines in his handwriting with my whole collection.
It would be difficult to give any idea of the extremely agreeable character of these receptions. They seemed to me to be the most sensible way of seeing society that I ever met with, and might be well worthy of general imitation in England. When I saw how sixty or a hundred people could be brought together without the inducements of dancing, music, refreshments, or display of any kind; when I saw also how thoroughly they enjoyed themselves, how some were introduced, and those who were not entered into sprightly conversation without fear of lessening an imaginary dignity, I more than ever regretted the icy coldness in which we wrap ourselves. And yet, though we take such trouble to clothe ourselves in this glacial dignity, nothing pleases us better than to go to other countries and throw it off, and mix with our fellow men and women as rational beings should, not as if we feared either to compromise ourselves or to be repulsed by them. This national stiffness renders us the laughing-stock of foreigners; and in a certain city in America no play was ever more successful than the ‘_Buckram Englishman_,’ which ridiculed and caricatured our social peculiarities.
The usages of etiquette are much the same as in England, but people appeared to be assisted in the enjoyment of society by them rather than trammeled. Morning visiting is carried to a great extent, but people call literally in the morning, before two o’clock oftener than after. On New Year’s Day, in observance of an old Dutch custom, the ladies remain at home, and all the gentlemen of their acquaintance make a point of calling upon them. Of course time will only allow of the interchange of the compliments of the season, where so much social duty has to be performed in one brief day, but this pleasant custom tends to keep up old acquaintanceships and annihilate old feuds. It is gratifying to observe that any known deviation from the rules of morality is punished with exclusion from the houses of those who are considered the leaders of New York society; it is also very pleasing to see that to the best circles in New York wealth alone is not a passport. I have heard cards of invitation to these receptions refused to foreigners bearing illustrious titles, and to persons who have the reputation of being _millionaires_. At the same time, I have met those of humble position and scanty means, who are treated with distinction because of their talents or intellectual powers. Yet I have never seen such a one patronised or treated as a lion; he is not expected to do any homage, or pay any penalty, for his admission into society. In these circles in New York we are spared the humiliating spectacle of men of genius or intellect cringing and uneasy in the presence of their patronising inferiors, whom birth or wealth may have placed socially above them. Of course there is society in New York where the vulgar influence of money is omnipotent, and extravagant display is fashionable; it is of the best that I have been speaking.
CHAPTER XVII.
The cemetery–Its beauties–The “Potter’s Field”–The graves of children– Monumental eccentricities–Arrival of emigrants–Their reception–Poor dwellings–The dangerous class–The elections–The riots–Characteristics of the streets–Journey to Boston–The sights of Boston–Longfellow– Cambridge university.
It may seem a sudden transition from society to a cemetery, and yet it is not an unnatural one, for many of the citizens of New York carry their magnificence as far as possible to the grave with them, and pile their wealth above their heads in superb mausoleums or costly statues. The _Pere la Chaise_ of the city is the Greenwood Cemetery, near Brooklyn on Long Island. I saw it on the finest and coldest of November days, when a piercing east wind was denuding the trees of their last scarlet honours. After encountering more than the usual crush in Broadway, for we were rather more than an hour in driving three miles in a stage, we crossed the Brooklyn Ferry in one of those palace ferry-boats, where the spacious rooms for passengers are heated by steam-pipes, and the charge is only one cent, or a fraction less than a halfpenny. It was a beautiful day; there was not a cloud upon the sky; the waves of the Sound and of the North River were crisped and foam-tipped, and dashed noisily upon the white pebbly beach. Brooklyn, Jersey, and Hoboken rose from the water, with their green fields and avenues of villas; white, smokeless steamers were passing and repassing; large anchored ships tossed upon the waves; and New York, that compound of trees, buildings, masts, and spires, rose in the rear, without so much as a single cloud of smoke hovering over it.
A railway runs from Brooklyn to the cemetery, with the cars drawn by horses, and the dead of New York are conveniently carried to this last resting-place. The entrance is handsome, and the numerous walls and carriage-drives are laid with fine gravel, and beautifully swept. We drove to see the most interesting objects, and the coachman seemed to take a peculiar pride in pointing them out. This noble burying-ground has some prettily diversified hill and dale scenery, and is six miles round. The timber is very fine, and throughout art has only been required as an assistance to nature. To this cemetery most of the dead of New York are carried, and after “life’s fitful fever,” in its most exaggerated form, sleep in appropriate silence. Already several thousand dead have been placed here in places of sepulture varying in appearance from the most splendid and ornate to the simplest and most obscure. There are family mausoleums, gloomy and sepulchral looking, in the Grecian style; family burying-grounds neatly enclosed by iron or bronze railings, where white marble crosses mark the graves; there are tombs with epitaphs, and tombs with statues; there are simple cenotaphs and monumental slabs, and nameless graves marked by numbers only.
One very remarkable feature of this cemetery is the “Potter’s Field,” a plot containing several acres of ground, where strangers are buried. This is already occupied to a great extent. The graves are placed in rows close together, with numbers on a small iron plate to denote each. Here the shipwrecked, the pestilence-stricken, the penniless, and friendless are buried; and though such a spot cannot fail to provoke sad musings, the people of New York do not suffer any appearances of neglect to accumulate round the last resting-place of those who died unfriended and alone. Another feature, not to be met with in England, strikes the stranger at first with ludicrous images, though in reality it has more of the pathetic. In one part of this cemetery there are several hundred graves of children, and these, with most others of children of the poorer class, have toys in glass cases placed upon them. There are playthings of many kinds, woolly dogs and lambs, and little wooden houses, toys which must be associated in the parents’ minds with those who made their homes glad, but who have gone into the grave before them. One cannot but think of the bright eyes dim, the merry laugh and infantine prattle silent, the little hands, once so active in playful mischief, stiff and cold; all brought so to mind by the sight of those toys. There is a fearful amount of mortality among children at New York, and in several instances four or five buried in one grave told with mournful suggestiveness of the silence and desolation of once happy hearths.
There are a few very remarkable and somewhat fantastic monuments. There is a beautiful one in white marble to the memory of a sea-captain’s wife, with an exact likeness of himself, in the attitude of taking an observation, on the top. An inscription to himself is likewise upon it, leaving only the date of his death to be added. It is said that, when this poor man returns from a voyage, he spends one whole day in the tomb, lamenting his bereavement.
There is a superb monument, erected by a fireman’s company to the memory of one of their brethren, who lost his life while nobly rescuing an infant from a burning dwelling. His statue is on the top, with an infant in his arms, and the implements of his profession lie below. But by far the most extraordinary, and certainly one of the lions of New York, is to a young lady who was killed in coming home from a ball. The carriage-horses ran away, she jumped out, and was crushed under the wheels. She stands under a marble canopy supported by angels, and is represented in her ball-dress, with a mantle thrown over it. This monument has numerous pillars and representations of celestial beings, and is said to have cost about 6000_l._ Several of the marble mausoleums cost from 4000_l._ to 5000_l._ Yet all the powerful, the wealthy, and the poor have descended to the dust from whence they sprung; and here, as everywhere else, nothing can disguise the fact that man, the feeble sport of passion and infirmity, can only claim for his inheritance at last the gloom of a silent grave, where he must sleep with the dust of his fathers. I observed only one verse of Scripture on a tombstone, and it contained the appropriate prayer, “_So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom_.”
Having seen the emigrants bid adieu to the Old World, in the flurry of grief, hope, and excitement, I was curious to see what difference a five- weeks’ voyage would have produced in them, and in what condition they would land upon the shores of America. In a city where emigrants land at the rate of a thousand a-day, I was not long of finding an opportunity. I witnessed the debarkation upon the shore of the New World of between 600 and 700 English emigrants, who had just arrived from Liverpool. If they looked tearful, flurried, and anxious when they left Liverpool, they looked tearful, pallid, dirty, and squalid when they reached New York. The necessary discomforts which such a number of persons must experience when huddled together in a close, damp, and ill-ventilated steerage, with very little change of clothing, and an allowance of water insufficient for the purposes of cleanliness, had been increased in this instance by the presence of cholera on board of the ship.
The wharfs at New York are necessarily dirty, and are a scene of indescribable bustle from morning to night, with ships arriving and sailing, ships loading and unloading, and emigrants pouring into the town in an almost incessant stream. They look as if no existing power could bring order out of such a chaos. In this crowd, on the shores of a strange land, the emigrants found themselves. Many were deplorably emaciated, others looked vacant and stupified. Some were ill, and some were penniless; but poverty and sickness are among the best recommendations which an emigrant can bring with him, for they place him under the immediate notice of those estimable and overworked men, the Emigration Commissioners, whose humanity is above all praise. These find him an asylum in the Emigrants’ Hospital, on Ward’s Island, and despatch him from thence in health, with advice and assistance for his future career. If he be in health, and have a few dollars in his pocket, he becomes the instantaneous prey of emigrant runners, sharpers, and keepers of groggeries; but of this more will be said hereafter.
A great many of these immigrants were evidently from country districts, and some from Ireland; there were a few Germans among them, and these appeared the least affected by the discomforts of the voyage, and by the novel and rather bewildering position in which they found themselves. They probably would feel more at home on first landing at New York than any of the others, for the lower part of the city is to a great extent inhabited by Germans, and at that time there were about 2000 houses where their favourite beverage, _lager-beer_, could be procured.
The goods and chattels of the Irish appeared to consist principally of numerous red-haired, unruly children, and ragged-looking bundles tied round with rope. The Germans were generally ruddy and stout, and took as much care of their substantial-looking, well-corded, heavy chests as though they contained gold. The English appeared pale and debilitated, and sat helpless and weary-looking on their large blue boxes. Here they found themselves in the chaotic confusion of this million-peopled city, not knowing whither to betake themselves, and bewildered by cries of “Cheap hacks!” “All aboard!” “Come to the cheapest house in all the world!” and invitations of a similar description. There were lodging-touters of every grade of dishonesty, and men with large placards were hurrying among the crowd, offering “palace” steamboats and “lightning express” trains, to whirl them at nominal rates to the Elysian Fields of the Far West. It is stated that six-tenths of these emigrants are attacked by fever soon after their arrival in the New World, but the provision for the sick is commensurate with the wealth and benevolence of New York.
Before leaving the city I was desirous to see some of the dwellings of the poor; I was therefore taken to what was termed a poor quarter. One house which I visited was approached from an entry, and contained ten rooms, which were let to different individuals and families. On the lowest floor was an old Irish widow, who had a cataract in one eye, and, being without any means of supporting herself, subsisted upon a small allowance made to her by her son, who was a carter. She was clean, but poorly dressed, and the room was scantily furnished. Except those who are rendered poor by their idleness and vices, it might have been difficult to find a poorer person in the city, I was told. Much sympathy was expressed for her, and for those who, like her, lived in this poor quarter. Yet the room was tolerably large, lofty, and airy, and had a window of the ordinary size of those in English dwelling-houses. For this room she paid four dollars or 16_s._ per month, a very high rent. It was such a room as in London many a respectable clerk, with an income of 150_l._ a year, would think himself fortunate in possessing.
I could not enter into the feelings of the benevolent people of New York when they sympathised with the denizens of this locality. I only wished that these generous people could have seen the dens in which thousands of our English poor live, with little light and less water, huddled together, without respect to sex or numbers, in small, ill-ventilated rooms. Yet New York has a district called the Five Points, fertile in crime, fever, and misery, which would scarcely yield the palm for vice and squalor to St. Giles’s in London, or the Saltmarket in Glasgow. A collection of dwellings called the Mud Huts, where many coloured people reside, is also an unpleasing feature connected with the city. But with abundant employment, high wages, and charities on a princely scale for those who from accidental circumstances may occasionally require assistance, there is no excuse for the squalid wretchedness in which a considerable number of persons have chosen to sink themselves.
It is a fact that no Golden Age exists on the other side of the water; that vice and crime have their penalties in America as well as in Europe; and that some of the worst features of the Old World are reproduced in the New. With all the desire that we may possess to take a sanguine view of things, there is something peculiarly hopeless about the condition of this class at New York, which in such a favourable state of society, and at such an early period of American history, has sunk so very low. The existence of a “dangerous class” at New York is now no longer denied. One person in seven of the whole population came under the notice of the authorities, either in the ranks of criminals or paupers, in 1852; and it is stated that last year the numbers reached an alarming magnitude, threatening danger to the peace of society. This is scarcely surprising when we take into consideration the numbers of persons who land in this city who have been expatriated for their vices, who are flying from the vengeance of outraged law, or who expect in the New World to be able to do evil without fear of punishment.
There are the idle and the visionary, who expect to eat without working; penniless demagogues, unprincipled adventurers, and the renegade outpourings of all Christendom; together with those who are enervated and demoralised by sickness and evil associates on board ship. I could not help thinking, as I saw many of the newly-arrived emigrants saunter helplessly into the groggeries, that, after spending their money, they would remain at New York, and help to swell the numbers of this class. These people live by their wits, and lose the little they have in drink. This life is worth very little to them; and in spite of Bible and Tract societies, and church missions, they know very little of the life to come; consequently they are ready for any mischief, and will imperil their existence for a small bribe. Many or most of them are Irish Roman Catholics, who, having obtained the franchise in many instances by making false affidavits, consider themselves at liberty to use the club also.
I was at New York at the time of the elections, and those of 1854 were attended with unusual excitement, owing to the red-hot strife between the Irish Roman Catholics and the “Know-nothings.” This society, established with the object of changing the naturalisation laws, and curbing the power of popery, had at this period obtained a very large share of the public attention, as much from the mystery which attended it as from the principles which it avowed. To the minds of all there was something attractive in a secret organisation, unknown oaths, and nocturnal meetings; and the success which had attended the efforts of the Know- nothings in Massachusetts, and others of the States, led many to watch with deep interest the result of the elections for the Empire State. Their candidates were not elected, but the avowed contest between Protestantism and Popery led to considerable loss of life. Very little notice of the riots on this occasion has been taken by the English journalists, though the local papers varied in their accounts of the numbers of killed and wounded from 45 to 700! It was known that an _emeute_ was expected, therefore I was not surprised, one evening early in November, to hear the alarm-bells ringing in all directions throughout the city. It was stated that a Know-nothing assemblage of about 10,000 persons had been held in the Park, and that, in dispersing, they had been fired upon by some Irishmen called the Brigade. This was the commencement of a sanguinary struggle for the preservation of order. For three days a dropping fire of musketry was continually to be heard in New York and Williamsburgh, and reports of great loss of life on both sides were circulated. It was stated that the hospital received 170 wounded men, and that many more were carried off by their friends. The military were called out, and, as it was five days before quiet was restored, it is to be supposed that many lives were lost. I saw two dead bodies myself; and in one street or alley by the Five Points, both the side walks and the roadway were slippery with blood. Yet very little sensation was excited in the upper part of the town; people went out and came in as usual; business was not interrupted; and to questions upon the subject the reply was frequently made, “Oh, it’s only an election riot,” showing how painfully common such disturbances had become.
There are many objects of interest in New York and its neighbourhood, among others, the Croton aqueduct, a work worthy of a great people. It cost about 5,000,000_l._ sterling, and by it about 60,000,000 gallons of water are daily conveyed into the city. Then there are the prisons on Blackwell’s Island, the lunatic asylums, the orphan asylums, the docks, and many other things; but I willingly leave these untouched, as they have been described by other writers. In concluding this brief and incomplete account of New York, I may be allowed to refer to the preface of this work, and repeat that any descriptions which I have given of things or society are merely “sketches,” and, as such, are liable to the errors which always attend upon hasty observation.
New York, with its novel, varied, and ever-changing features, is calculated to leave a very marked impression on a stranger’s mind. In one part one can suppose it to be a negro town; in another, a German city; while a strange dreamy resemblance to Liverpool pervades the whole. In it there is little repose for the mind, and less for the eye, except on the Sabbath-day, which is very well observed, considering the widely-differing creeds and nationalities of the inhabitants. The streets are alive with business, retail and wholesale, and present an aspect of universal bustle. Flags are to be seen in every direction, the tall masts of ships appear above the houses; large square pieces of calico, with names in scarlet or black letters upon them, hang across the streets, to denote the whereabouts of some popular candidate or “puffing” storekeeper; and hosts of omnibuses, hacks, drays, and railway cars at full speed, ringing bells, terrify unaccustomed foot-passengers. There are stores of the magnitude of bazaars, “daguerrean galleries” by hundreds, crowded groggeries and subterranean oyster-saloons, huge hotels, coffee-houses, and places of amusement; while the pavements present men of every land and colour, red, black, yellow, and white, in every variety of costume and beard, and ladies, beautiful and ugly, richly dressed. Then there are mud huts, and palatial residences, and streets of stately dwelling-houses, shaded by avenues of ilanthus-trees; waggons discharging goods across the pavements; shops above and cellars below; railway whistles and steamboat bells, telegraph-wires, eight and ten to a post, all converging towards Wall Street–the Lombard Street of New York; militia regiments in many-coloured uniforms, marching in and out of the city all day; groups of emigrants bewildered and amazed, emaciated with dysentery and sea-sickness, looking in at the shop-windows; representatives of every nation under heaven, speaking in all earth’s Babel languages; and as if to render this ceaseless pageant of business, gaiety, and change, as far removed from monotony as possible, the quick toll of the fire alarm-bells may be daily heard, and the huge engines, with their burnished equipments and well- trained companies, may be seen to dash at full speed along the streets to the scene of some brilliant conflagration. New York is calculated to present as imposing an appearance to an Englishman as its antiquated namesake does to an American, with its age, silence, stateliness, and decay.
The Indian summer had come and gone, and bright frosty weather had succeeded it, when I left this city, in which I had received kindness and hospitality which I can never forget. Mr. Amy, the kind friend who had first welcomed me to the States, was my travelling companion, and at his house near Boston, in the midst of a happy family-circle, I spent the short remnant of my time before returning to England.
We left New York just as the sun was setting, frosty and red, and ere we had reached Newhaven it was one of the finest winter evenings that I had ever seen. The moisture upon the windows of the cars froze into innumerable fairy shapes; the crescent moon and a thousand stars shone brilliantly from a deep blue sky; auroras flashed and meteors flamed, and, as the fitful light glittered on many rushing gurgling streams, I had but to remember how very beautiful New England was, to give form and distinctness to the numerous shapes which we were hurrying past. I was recalling the sunny south to mind, with its vineyards and magnolia groves, and the many scenes of beauty that I had witnessed in America, with all the genial kindness which I had experienced from many who but a few months ago were strangers, when a tipsy Scotch fiddler broke in upon my reveries by an attempt to play ‘Yankee Doodle.’ It is curious how such a thing can instantly change the nature of the thoughts. I remembered speculations, ‘cute notions, guesses, and calculations; “All aboard,” and “Go ahead,” and “Pile on, skipper;” sharp eager faces, diversities of beards, duellists, pickpockets, and every species of adventurer.
Such recollections were not out of place in Connecticut, the centre and soul of what we denominate _Yankeeism_. This state has one of the most celebrated educational establishments in the States, Yale College at Newhaven, or the City of Elms, famous for its toleration of an annual fight between the citizens and the students, at a nocturnal _fete_ in celebration of the burial of Euclid. The phraseology and some of the moral characteristics of Connecticut are quite peculiar. It is remarkable for learning, the useful arts, successful and energetic merchants and farmers; the mythical Sam Slick, the prince of pedlars; and his living equal, Barnum, the prince of showmen. A love of good order and a pervading religious sentiment appear to accompany great simplicity of manners in its rural population, though the Southerners, jealous of the virtues of these New Englanders, charge upon them the manufacture of wooden nutmegs. This state supplies the world with wooden clocks, for which the inhabitants of our colonies appear to have a peculiar fancy, though at home they are called “Yankee clocks what won’t go.” I have seen pedlars with curiously constructed waggons toiling along even among the Canadian clearings, who are stated to belong to a race “raised” in Connecticut. They are extremely amusing individuals, and it is impossible to resist making an investment in their goods, as their importunities are urged in such ludicrous phraseology. The pedlar can accommodate you with everything, from a clock or bible to a pennyworth of pins, and takes rags, rabbit and squirrel skins, at two cents each, in payment. His knowledge of “soft sawder and human natur” is as great as that of Sam Slick, his inimitable representative; and many a shoeless Irish girl is induced to change a dollar for some trumpery ornament, by his artful compliments to her personal attractions. He seems at home everywhere; talks politics, guesses your needs, cracks a joke, or condoles with you on your misfortunes with an elongated face. He always contrives to drop in at dinner or tea time, for which he always apologises, but in distant settlements the apologetic formulary might be left alone, for the visit of the cosmopolitan pedlar is ever welcome, even though he leaves you a few dollars poorer. There is some fear of the extinction of the race, as railways are now bringing the most distant localities within reach of resplendent stores with plate- glass windows.
It wanted six hours to dawn when we reached Boston; and the ashes of an extinguished fire in the cheerless waiting-room at the _depot_ gave an idea of even greater cold than really existed. We drove through the silent streets of Boston, and out into the country, in an open carriage, with the